I'm woken by sunlight that creeps through the shades, my mouth dry and my head foggy as last night's memories come rushing back to my consciousness. Going out with James and his friends, not fitting in with his friends, the alcohol, the guy that flirted with James and he flirted back. Our kiss in the parking lot, the feel of his hand in mine as he led me to his car. The heart pounding anticipation of waiting for him to unlock his door and the way my back felt pressed up against the wall on the other side.
Our clothes are still strewn about his apartment, both of us in a desperate need to get as close to one another as possible as quickly as we could. We stumbled clumsily through his apartment, his lips on mine, our hands exploring one another, something that felt so familiar yet so new, until we finally reached his room.
And that's where we stayed until we fell asleep, exhausted and sated with sex.
But I'm alone in his bed now, the sheets drawn back where he had once been. There's still an impression where he had slept on the pillow and I stretch out my hand to see if it's still warm. The sheets are cool. I sit up, reaching for my glasses as I prop myself on my elbows. I take in James' room, a sight I had missed last night because my focus was elsewhere. It's clean, organized, like I always remember his room being. Savannah was the messy one. There's a painting on the wall, a beautiful landscape in bold colors and I recognize it. Savannah had painted it for him, he had sent me a picture of it. That was before we had officially broken up but after I had stopped coming home and had refused multiple visits.
It fits well in his room, his furniture rich in color and accented with pops of vibrant colors. I'm sure Savannah helped him because she loves anything art related but his room feels so much like him. There's not a thing that seems like it doesn't belong to James, like he didn't pick it out.
I don't want to leave the comfort of his bed but I do, tugging on my boxers as I search his room for my pants but I come up empty. Slipping out of his bedroom door, I'm hoping to find my jeans before I run into James. His apartment isn't huge, but well laid out with a small living room and kitchen that look out over a tiny balcony. It's spacious even for its size and just like his room it's been impeccably decorated.
"I was going to bring you breakfast in bed." James' voice causes me to jump in my skin as I whip my head in his general direction. "You looked too peaceful to wake up."
My face burns red, embarrassment flooding me. I did sleep well, great really, but it was because he was there.
"Do you know where my clothes are?" I ask, my shoulders hunched as I stay halfway hidden in the doorframe of his room.
James is in a pair of gray joggers, slung low on his hips, no shirt on, showing off all of his muscles as they ripple beneath his skin and I'm momentarily transfixed by it until I hear him smile. My eyes meet his, they're crinkled at the corners as he grins, filling two plates of food.
"They're on the couch." He muses.
A memory comes flooding back of last night, a moment where I felt bold and tugged at our clothes until I had managed to get us down to just our boxers.
"Right." I say, scurrying across the floor to the couch.
As I round the corner of the couch though, I see Sally spread out across the cushions, using my jeans as a pillow.
"Sally doesn't like being woken up." James adds, his voice full of amusement as he watches me.
I probably shouldn't feel insecure. James has seen me naked before, countless times. But standing in his living room with hardly anything on leaves me feeling too exposed and vulnerable. My self hatred eating away at me, nitpicking my body, the fact that I'm not in shape, I don't have a six pack or even a four pack, if anything I've gotten softer, less lean than I was in highschool. It doesn't help that James looks like he stepped off of a Calvin Klein ad.
Maybe he sees my panic, all the fears and insecurities that overtake my mind because he says "go grab a pair of sweatpants, they're in the bottom drawer".
I don't hesitate, rushing back into his room, letting out a breath that was lodged in my throat. I'm being silly, ridiculous, somewhere in my head I know that. But I pull at his drawers anyway, finding his sweatpants and a shirt. I still swim in his clothes, his sweatpants pooling at my ankles and his shirt hiding my lack of self care.
When I re-emerge from his room, Sally greets me. Her tail wags and her brown eyes look up at me full of innocence but I'm certain she laid on my jeans on purpose. She was probably awake the whole time, listening in, laughing to herself at my expense. I pet her anyway.
"Hungry?" James asks, perched on a bar stool with two plates of food.
I'm not particularly hungry but I tell him "yeah" and shuffle to the barstool beside him. A cup of black coffee sits at the head of the plate I'm in front of, steam rising into the air and I grab it, taking a gulp. It burns, far too hot to drink, but I swallow it down anyway as James says "it's hot".
Scalding all of my tastebuds was easier though than trying to talk. I don't know what to say, terrified I'll mess it up, I won't say the right things and then I'll be tossed out where I belong. James seems completely unaffected, munching his way through his eggs, toast and bacon as if we didn't just hook up. How he's not nervous, sweaty and anxious with all the unsaid things that lay between us leaves me baffled and my heart pounding until I can't take it anymore.
"J?" I chirp his name, unsteady and timid as I stare at my food that's going cold.
"Hmm?" He doesn't stop eating.
Like usual, I know this is a moment where I'm supposed to keep talking, I'm supposed to ask the hard questions and tell him my feelings but they're stuck in my throat refusing to come out. This all has to mean something, I need it to mean something.
"Do you hate me?" It's more of a whisper than anything but I'm afraid of his answer.
For the first time this morning, James stops what he's doing. I can feel him watching me, see his fork poised mid scoop out of my peripheral vision.
"No." His response is a low, soft rumble, filled with heartache. "I don't hate you Brett."
I snap my eyes shut to seal off the flood of tears that instantly rush to my eyes. Relief hits me but clinging to that relief is always shame. Shame for who I am.
A shame I no longer want to carry.
"Can I have another chance?" I turn to look at James, his gray eyes gentle as they look back at me.
He takes a deep breath, one that seems to steal all the air from lungs and as he exhales he says "maybe we should just...keep it casual for now."
The word casual sits wrong with me, all I can think about is Dom. If James has been seeing him, hooking up with him. If we're casual, does that mean he's casual with everyone else? I can't stomach knowing he's with someone else.
"Casual like..not exclusive?" I don't know how else to say it without my jealousy overtaking everything.
He taps his fork against his plate, the clinking filling the space around us, that and my erratic heartbeat.
"How about casual but exclusive?"
It's not exactly what I want. But I'm a beggar and beggars can't be choosers so I nod my head.
"Why don't you eat, before your food goes cold." He suggests, tucking our conversation away into the archives just like that.
I do eat, mostly to make him happy but also because my stomach finally awakens from its slumber and I realize I'm starving.
