NIKKI & JOE, CASUALLY |

40: forecast: 90% chance of heartbreak

            'Please say you're having a laugh. Please. Lord, I beg!' Caleb stares at me with his jaw on the floor, the flimsy plastic hanger of a halter top forgotten in his hand. 'You? Casual? Are you right in the head?'

'I can do casual!'

'You've never done owt casual in your entire life. Not once in your twenty-four years of life.'

'I did casual with Denzel.'

'And that ended well.'

I scoff and flick through the hangers. Rather than gender, size, or type, Harmony for Humanity organises clothes by colour—which is nice in theory but also means I have to go through every rack only to find approximately three things that even physically fit me.

Caleb is less willing to drop the subject. He points at me with the hanger and the top sways, a muleta to aggravate me. 'Remember in our first year at school when we made Valentine's Day cards, and you spent four days crafting this card for Amelia Ming. It were like fucking 3D and everything—I mean, it were probably hideous cause we were six but by six-year-olds' standards, you could've put that thing in the bloody Lourve.'

I cast him a glare. I'm not remotely enjoying his theatrical recollection of the situation.

'And she looked at it once. And tossed it.' He jabs me with the hanger. 'That were your first heartbreak.'

'I know; I was there. But, I were six.'

'Right,' he says though it's far from surrender.

Caleb slots the halter top into the gap I've moved steadily in his direction. Doing a champion job pretending he don't even notice he's blocking me, he refuses to move out of my way so I can continue, leaning slightly against the rack with a pile of clothes hung over his left forearm.

'Just before Cece moved in with you, you made Jackie a plant arrangement after yous had sex twice. You were twenty-two.'

'I didn't "make her a plant arrangement"–' I draw inverted commas into the air. 'Okay, maybe– You're leaving out important context here! She said they looked nice so I thought it meant she wanted one. It weren't un-casual.'

Caleb's eyebrows rise with each word; by the time I'm done, he's staring at me with so much "are you hearing yourself?"–energy that a Netflix showrunner would hire him to any Gay Best Friend role on the spot.

I drop my arms slack to my sides. 'That's two examples.'

'Oh, I can keep going. You want me to keep going, baby girl?' He revolves on his heels as I circle him and continue carding from XS clothing to XS clothing. 'We'll be here all day, brother. Like...' he feigns confusion, wheeling his hand as if to speed up his thoughts, 'why did you bring her breakfast in bed? Not a bowl of cereal either. You made her waffles. In what solar system are waffles casual?'

'I were just being nice. She let me stay over, I didn't wanna be a freeloader.'

'Yeah, it's nice,' he agrees, earnest for a flicker. 'It's lovely, honestly. But casual it is not. Honestly! I'm the autistic one here. What are you so fucking dense for?'

Caleb is on my heels as I circle the rack of red clothes to get to the orange. I'm adamant about ignoring him though his stare keeps prodding my cheek. Once he bores of being ignored, he steps in front of me, the fanfare toned down to sincerity that arrests me as soon as our eyes meet.

He drops his voice so the other lunch-hour shoppers who have been happily listening in on our conversation can't hear. 'Look, Nikki, I respect your decisions, but I've known you since we were four, and you and casual don't work.' He grabs my shoulder in a way that would be awkward if it were anyone other than Caleb. 'You have to stop treating your heart like it's a card people glance at and toss away. Also, stop having sex on my furniture.'