Wanting to give Felix and his dad the freedom to talk openly, I wobbled my way out into Felix’s yard. The smooth decking was safe enough for me to get around, and there was a chair that faced out over the expanse of green lawn.
Inspired by Felix’s phone call, I dialed Hannah’s number.
“Hey, little sis,” I greeted, smiling at the sound of her familiar voice. “Is this a good time?”
I heard some shuffling first before Hannah replied. I could almost see the way she nodded. “Yeah, of course,” Hannah answered. “What’s up?” she asked but then, before I had the chance to tell her how I was calling for a catchup, Hannah was talking again.
It made me grin, the way she just kept going. “Sorry I haven’t called, I know about your leg. Obviously. I do read the family chat. Anyway, I was going to call you but then like, I didn’t? It’s just been a bit hectic at work, plants, you know.” I did actually know, Hannah was always a little obsessed with her job.
“Is your leg healed yet or no? How long does it take? Is it like when I broke my arm as a kid? That sucked. Are you still at Felix’s?”
I sighed, drumming my fingers on the edge of the plaster cast. “Yeah, it does suck,” I agreed. It was refreshing that I didn’t have to sugar coat it with Hannah. Because she wasn’t here in person, and because she tended to take things as they came, there was no need to worry she’d call me out for not being sufficiently optimistic.
“It’s going to be at least another three weeks,” I added. “I’ll probably stay at Felix’s until the cast comes off.” Now that we’d set everything up for me here, it was hard to imagine going home. “He’s really great, helping me with everything, and not making me feel like he minds.”
“Of course,” Hannah hummed. “Felix is like the best,” she informed me, making me laugh. There was a time, I knew, that Hannah had had a rather big crush on Felix. In fact, I was pretty sure Felix knew about it, too. He’d never made her feel uncomfortable about it, of course. In a way, I was pretty sure that had made Hannah like him even more.
Thankfully, to save us awkwardness, Hannah had gotten over her crush a long time ago. Still, she did adore Felix in a way that was almost brotherly at this point. And he viewed her similarly, it was very sweet.
It did strike me, though, how that brotherly approach had never been one that Felix had taken with me. Or, vice versa. Never had I thought of Felix as a brother. Rather a friend, sure, and…
The thought of him shirtless made me blush. I was glad Hannah couldn’t see me through the phone.
“He is,” I agreed, with only a little hesitation in my tone. “But… it’s not always easy, living with him.” Hannah had never guessed my deeper feelings for Felix. And it wasn’t my intention to tell her now. Saying the words out loud would only make the reality harder to deal with, not easier.
So instead, Hannah needed to hear some other reason that living with Felix might be hard. “We try to give each other our own space, but I guess I’m just not used to living with someone I’m so close to. I feel like we’re both getting kind of… enmeshed in each other’s lives.”
It had already occurred to me to wonder how it would feel when I was well enough to leave.
The laugh from Hannah surprised me, making me frown. I just about managed a ‘what’ when she was explaining. “It’s just a bit funny to hear you say that,” she commented. “Like, you’ve always been pretty ‘enmeshed’ in each other's lives.” And I could practically hear the air-quotes she used.
“Are you seriously going to tell me you didn’t apply for a job in Salt Lake because Felix lives there? I get that it’s a good job and all, but really, Utah?” I wanted to point out how actually, Utah was very nice (which it was) but maybe Hannah also had a point. I had definitely missed Felix when he’d lived states away.
“It’s a bit different,” I argued. “Living in the same state, in the same town, that’s always been what I wanted. But in the same house!” It wasn’t that living with Felix was bad. My gratitude for him letting me stay with him was absolutely genuine.
It was just that he was always so close. It was getting harder and harder not to rely on that. I’d lived with boyfriends before, and this felt far closer to that than it did to living with friends.
“I don’t mean to complain,” I mumbled. “I just… wasn’t ready for Felix to become intimately familiar with my teeth-cleaning routine, you know?”
That raised another giggle from Hannah. I suppose it was funny, even if that wasn’t the way I had intended for it to come across. Felix was my best friend and it wasn’t as if him knowing my teeth-cleaning routine was a problem. It just wasn’t something I had anticipated. Or maybe it just wasn’t something I had expected to feel nice.
“So it’s different? From just having a roommate?” Hannah asked. “Like, how is it different? Do you think it’s because you’ve known Felix for so long? Is that a bad thing, though? It doesn’t really sound bad. Are you being weird?”
It was just like Hannah to get immediately to the point! “Maybe I’m being weird,” I admitted. “But it does feel different. My roommates aren’t really in every part of my life. Like, they don’t dance with me, at least the ones I live with now.” I had lived with dancers, and that had felt a little strange to me, too.
“And I had Felix. He was always a separate friendship that my roommates weren’t in. And I have you guys.” Hannah and I were close, even though we lived in different states.
Felix had been an exception. I’d known him so long that he knew just about everyone I spoke to on a regular basis. And now that I wasn’t dancing, I really did see Felix almost every hour of every day. “It’s not bad. Just kind of… a lot.”
“Ah,” Hannah said, but it didn’t really seem to me that she got what I meant. It was hard to blame her for that, really, not when I wasn’t sure that I understood exactly what I meant by it either. “Does he know that?” she asked fairly. “I mean, does Felix know that it feels kind of... a lot.” Hannah even inserted the same length of a pause I had between ‘kind of’ and ‘a lot’.
The question made me pause. The truth was that I had no idea if Felix did know it was kind of a lot. Or if he felt similarly. What I did know was that he wanted me to feel comfortable, to feel like his home was mine, too. But we hadn’t exactly talked about how that felt in terms of us living together.
If I asked, Felix would tell me. But that would mean having to tell him that, what, I was missing having a place I could go that wasn’t associated with him? And I didn’t want to risk saying something when it might be entirely my problem.
Maybe, if my feelings for Felix were only what they should have been, it would be easier to live around him all the time.
“I haven’t said anything,” I said slowly, in answer to Hannah’s question. “I guess I could try. Maybe it’s just me being a bit of an introvert. I need to recharge and that’s hard when I’m living with someone I know so well.”
“Now, that makes sense,” Hannah informed me and I almost gave a sigh of relief. If she was saying it made sense, that meant it made sense without me over analyzing my feelings for Felix. It was, of course, also true that, unlike Felix, I was a lot more introverted. Having some ‘just me’ downtime was important.
It hadn’t occurred to me that maybe that was at least part of the problem. Being trapped indoors already felt like having all the time on my own, but it wasn’t very intentional.
“I don’t think saying that you need some space is a bad thing. Felix will get it. He’s your best friend, doesn’t that mean you can tell him anything?” Hannah pointed out.
Almost anything. But I couldn’t say that to Hannah. “Yeah,” I agreed. “You’re right. If I put it that way, he will get it.” Even though she couldn’t see me, I smiled. Knowing the right way to say it felt like a genuine weight off my heart.
“You’re always so good at making me put things in words.” Getting lost in my head was definitely a problem sometimes. Hannah knew the trick of
forcing me out into the outside world, where people couldn’t know what I was thinking just by looking at me.
“It’s because I have all the words,” Hannah joked and both of us laughed at that. It was hard to deny that my sister could talk a lot. Still, it was definitely one of the things I loved about her. Hannah might steamroll me with all her questions but in the end, they clearly proved to be helpful.
Of course, it did mean that now it was my turn to ask her all the questions. Thankfully, it didn’t take more than two before Hannah was off talking about plants and the different crossbreeding she’d been trying with flowers and... I let it all wash over me, smiling at how excited my sister sounded.
It was nice to just relax into Hannah’s chatter, to let it distract me from everything. Especially now that I had a better idea of what to say to Felix that didn’t sound like too much.
Chapter Eleven
Felix
On nights when I didn’t have games, it had quickly become a habit to just hang out with Jessie. Sometimes, on a rare occasion these days, I did go out with the guys. But mostly it was just me and Jessie, watching a film or starting a new TV show together. It wasn’t something I had known to want, just this sort of chill feeling, but it was nice.
We’d recently started watching some Scandinavian drama that Olle had recommended to me. It was pretty intense and both Jessie and I found the reading of subtitles a little exhausting to follow. But it was very good, so we still powered through.
Tonight was the first night we’d encountered an unexpected side effect.
With watching TV in the evening and into the night, it made the most sense to watch it in Jessie’s room, so she wouldn’t have to struggle getting upstairs on her crutches after. It wasn’t a problem. Or it hadn’t been until tonight.
I woke up with the TV playing some trailer after the show had finished, Jessie sound asleep and curled into my side. Somewhere near the bed, I could hear Jace snoring lightly.
I should have gotten up, tucked Jessie in, and gone back to my own room. I knew that, even with the sleepiness making me yawn. But she was warm. Warm and smelling so good.
So without really thinking about it, I reached for the remote, turning the TV off. It left us in darkness, but Jessie seemed to just shift in closer against me. Against my best judgment, I reached to wrap an arm around her waist, pulling Jessie in closer. My nose pressed into her hair as I inhaled deeply.
The soft smell of her hair sent me back off to sleep.
The next time I woke was as the sun filled the room around us. Our positions hadn’t changed at all, my arm, if anything, wrapped around Jessie even tighter. This time, as my senses returned, the fact that we were cuddling struck me.
For a moment, I felt my body freeze but Jessie was still sound asleep in my arms. Her body was warm and soft under my touch.
This was…
Not what friends do, a voice in my head whispered.
Even best friends. At least, it wasn’t what Jessie and I did as best friends.
Sure, it could easily be brushed off as an accident. We just fell asleep watching some foreign TV show. Reading subtitles was exhausting.
Except I did recall making the conscious choice of cuddling into Jessie and going back to sleep instead of leaving for my own room.
That was a shitty thing for me to do as a friend.
And that was the thought that finally made me pry myself away from Jessie. I needed... to not think about how sad it suddenly made me to no longer hold her.
Instead, I focused on getting my daily routine going. I left Jessie sleeping, heading downstairs to make us some coffee and breakfast. Maybe she wouldn’t even realize what had happened and we wouldn’t be forced into some awkward conversation.
That was what I told myself as I went about starting the coffee machine.
Thankfully, for more distraction, my mom chose that moment to call me. Setting my phone to the side, I clicked the ‘accept video call’ button, giving mom a wide smile that maybe didn’t quite reach my eyes; she wouldn’t be able to tell through the tiny camera.
“Morning, mom!” I greeted. “What a lovely start to my day, seeing you,” I teased gently.
She beamed, waving at me from our familiar kitchen in Rio Rancho. I could practically smell the eggs frying in the pan. Not for the first time, I found myself grateful for the marvels of technology.
“Hey, Felix,” she greeted. “Did you sleep well? You look as if you just rolled out of bed!”
For a moment, my stomach flipped and I wondered if mom somehow knew. Some weird mom-sense or something. But no, of course, she couldn’t. She just always thought I looked like I just rolled out of bed. Not necessarily inaccurately.
“I’m not long up,” I offered. “I’m just making coffee and breakfast now. Jessie’s still asleep.” I added that last bit because I knew mom would ask and if I preemptively told her, it might seem less... weird? I had no idea. Mom couldn’t actually read my mind even if sometimes it felt like she definitely could.
Even on the small phone screen, I could see mom’s face go all sympathetic. “Poor thing,” she said softly. “She probably needs more rest than usual for her body to heal.” I hadn’t considered that, even though Jessie had brought up that she was feeling tired earlier in the evening than she was used to.
I’d thought it was just that she had less stuff to do to stay awake for. “How is she? She hasn’t tripped over any of the dogs?”
“No, mom,” I laughed. “Despite what you think, neither the dogs nor Jessie are that clumsy.” In fact, the dogs seemed to know that Jessie wasn’t at her full capacity, because they acted more carefully around her. Mostly. I definitely had seen Edgar try to weave himself between Jessie’s legs and the crutches.
Going about gathering things for breakfast, I moved the phone closer to the stove. “Yeah, Jessie’s doing okay. She’s started physio recently, so that’s good. There’s not a lot she can do at the moment, but I think it’s good to get some exercise started, you know?”
Mom hummed, taking a sip of what I presumed was coffee from her mug. “It must be difficult,” she said. “Going from getting exercise as part of her job to having to limit herself so much. But you know that.”
And yeah, I did. Despite never having broken my leg, my usual exercise routine was close enough to Jessie’s that I could imagine how hard she must find it.
“Tell her I wish her well,” Mom said. “Anyway, how are you finding it, living with your best friend?”
“It’s... good? I mean, it is good,” I corrected the unsure tone. It wasn’t as if I didn’t like living with Jessie. If anything, I maybe liked it a bit too much. But that wasn’t something I knew how to bring up, especially not to my mom. Frankly, I hardly knew how to bring it up to myself.
Clearing my throat, I gave a small shrug. “It’s different than living with you guys, or with the guys I share rooms with on trips or whatever. Like it’s... I don’t know. More companionable than familial?” That, at least, sounded smart.
In the pause, I cracked eggs into a bowl, following them with salt and black pepper. “I imagine it must be different,” Mom agreed. “Not quite like living with a girlfriend, not quite like living with your sister.”
That described it pretty well. Jessie was in a different league than anyone else. Of course, living with her would feel different. “I suppose it’s a lot more common now, for people to live with friends of the opposite sex,” Mom observed. “In my day, it would’ve been quite a shock to the system.”
“Ah, yes, the 1800s, right?” I teased. Mom was hardly old, barely in her fifties. I was pretty sure that living with people of the opposite sex hadn’t been that scandalous everywhere. I saw the way she gave a dismissive wave at my teasing, making me laugh more.
“No, no, I get it,” I promised. “But, to be fair, I’ve never lived with a girlfriend and it’s been a long time since I’ve lived with anyone apart from dogs.” And Jessie was definitely quite a bit different than li
ving with dogs. For one, my treacherous mind reminded me, she was much easier to spoon.
“I wouldn’t compare living with Jessie to living with dogs where she can hear you,” mom advised, but she was laughing. She knew Jessie well enough to know she’d understand where I was coming from. I was 90 percent sure she would, at any rate.
Mom let me cook in companionable silence for a few minutes. Then, as I was transferring the eggs to the pan, she asked, “How does Jessie find it? She is used to living with people, isn’t she?”
“Fine,” I answered without actually thinking about it. Then I frowned slightly, thinking about what she’d said after getting off the phone with Hannah yesterday. “A bit much,” I admitted, not glancing at mom and using the eggs as a reason. Truthfully, I just didn’t want her to be disappointed that I wasn’t giving Jessie enough space or whatever.
That wasn’t what it was about, Jessie had promised me.
Clearing my throat, I gave a small shrug. “She’s a lot more introverted than me and you know I don’t always think about that.” Mom did know. In fact, the reason I worried she might be disappointed in me was that she had been the one to remind me that just because Jessie was my best friend, it didn’t mean she thought exactly how I did.
“We spend a lot of time together. Obviously, I’m out for training and games, whatever, but she’s... not. I think staying at home all the time is a bit tough for her.” Which, I understood, because it definitely would be for me, too. I just didn’t know how to fix that for her.
“I can see how that would be overwhelming,” Mom agreed. There was no disappointment in her tone, no judgment of me for not knowing. Just sympathy, which I appreciated. “Jessie might not even have known herself how it would affect her to be cooped up inside all the time.”
It made me feel a little better. If Jessie hadn’t known, then maybe it was okay for me not to have known.
“Does she have things to do while you’re out?”
Friend Locked (Salt Lake Pumas) Page 10
