TAKE IT EASY • TC ✔️

36: What's new?

He might have had four beers, but Timmy was inescapably sober.

He went to bed that night turning everything over in his mind, churning his thoughts round and round until they all blended into one another. Timothée fell asleep on the wrong side of his bed, his shirt half-unbuttoned, pants still on.

When he woke up in the morning, nothing was any clearer. He'd been hoping that somehow, for whatever reason, the bright light of day would pierce through the fog that was his mind, hoping that it would take precedence over the hundreds of different thoughts which had been hurtling into one another for hours on end.

If anything, the new day made it worse.

Because everything that had been hazy yesterday, everything that didn't quite make sense, everything he'd allowed himself to brush over, was in full view. His options were clear, harsh, and staring him in the face.

He'd thought about facing up to it, initially. Talking it through with Lu, saying that he was sorry, but he'd made it very clear that last night had just been a favour, very clear that he wanted nothing like that to happen. Then, he'd thought about telling the truth, but both of those scenarios ended badly. Both of them ended up with something out of place, something wrong in a relationship which had otherwise been faultless.

Why did she have to go and change things?

Timmy would have been perfectly happy just breezing along, happy with saying nothing, doing nothing. Would have been perfectly happy if they'd ended the evening with their foreheads pressed against each other, maybe a quick hug. Wouldn't even have minded if she'd asked him to stay over. He would have happily put a glass of water and a couple of Advil on her bedside table, read to her if she wanted him to. Would have tucked her in, flicked out the light, and spent the night on her couch. Anything but what had really happened, because it had ruined...everything.

He spent the rest of the day looking over his notes for Pride and Prejudice. Went to a dialect class, but he hadn't met the new coach before, and she was terrifying. Her accent was so clipped, so professional, and Timmy felt like there would be hell to pay if he so much as forgot the soft r on the end of words. Because it wasn't far but fah, not pardon but pahdon.

At least it managed to distract him for a little. For a while, he lost himself in becoming someone else. But when the lesson was over, he was him again. Still Timothée, who felt like he'd messed things up even when it really wasn't his fault, because it was hers. Still Timothée, who'd let one of his closest friends kiss him, drunk, right outside her apartment.

It was Timmy who came to Lu that afternoon. Knocked on her door, and wondered whether she'd be in. She was usually in at this time, he knew that much. She got home from work around four-ish, and this was prime time, the period from now up until dinner. This was the time they spent together in that week before the road trip, the time Timothée had to come in and fling himself on her couch just because he could, because he didn't need a reason.

He had a reason now, and he wished he didn't.

Lu opened the door and her face fell immediately. "Timmy," she swallowed, and it sounded like oh fuck. "Hey."

"Hey," he replied. Sent her a smile that he wished could have been more genuine, but it was hard and tight and so, so forced. "How bad was your hangover?"

And Lu wanted to smile, wanted to laugh it off and say she was still drunk when she woke up (which she was, or at least it felt like it), wanted to invite him in and let him sprawl out over her couch and snoop in her fridge and peel his socks off. Chuck them on the floor like he owned the place, and she wouldn't even have minded.