She shrugged. “I don’t use them nearly as much,” she muttered.
“I get it.” And I did. I understood better than she could ever imagine. It almost rolled off my tongue how much I understood that. Shit.
“She dances for my videos sometimes,” Glen mentioned with a grin before devouring another calzone. “She’s really good, too.”
“Is that so?” I hummed, studying Haylee as she nudged Glen and mouthed “stop.”
Glen clamped her mouth shut at Red Cheeks’ request, nodding her head instead. We all stared at the TV for the next few minutes, but in the corner of my eye, I saw Haylee slip her hand into the calzone bag and tentatively pull one out. She relaxed further into the couch after she bit into it and her expression softened. Without having to say it out loud, I knew she liked the taste. One point for me, not that I was counting.
Their TV was an older Samsung model. It did its job, of course, but the longer I looked at it the more faults I found, starting with the picture quality and ending with the sound system. My fingers itched to play with the settings to see if I could improve any of that, but I settled for rubbing the armchair and basically playing peek-a-boo with Haylee. Now if I could somehow let her know of all the things running around in my head without scaring her off that would be great.
I’m not sure any of us actually focussed on the movie, because when I came back from a short trip to the toilet sometime in the middle of it to find that Drixie had stolen my place, Glen had no problem jumping off the couch and disappearing to the kitchen for the rest of it.
I sat down next to Haylee. “So, if it was you, would you wait seven years?”
“For who?” Haylee wiped the tear marks on her cheeks and sniffed, not looking away from the screen, where the final credits continued scrolling after a sad, but very predictable, ending to the movie we’d just watched.
“Ain’t that the question,” I hummed, my pulse quickening just at the thought. “Someone? The one?”
“I’m not good at waiting.”
My lips twitched. “I think you’ll find out how good you are at waiting when you find someone worth waiting for.”
“Have you?” she asked quietly.
There were so many ways to answer that question. I could go with a flirty reply and have her blush adorably again. I could shrug it off and say I wasn’t good at waiting either. Or... I could tell the truth.
“I thought I did once,” I replied, hoping this was the right path. “I was ready to run through fire and all for her, give her anything she’d ask for, but she didn’t want that. Not from me at least. I’ve been more careful since.”
“I’m sorry.” She did look it, too. Like my confession meant something. Like it had touched something within her.
“I didn’t mean to make you sad. It’s in the past. Three years ago this September.” Pointing it out like that made it sound like I still thought about it and counted the days. I didn’t.
“We shouldn’t have to be careful.”
“That would make things much easier, wouldn’t it?”
Haylee met my eyes and my hands felt clammy. “Quite a bit.”
I told myself it was now or never. Either speak now or forever remain quiet. There couldn’t have been a better moment, so why then was my heart stuck in my throat, making speaking so much more difficult?
“Listen Hals, ever since you—”
“Hals?” She interrupted me
“Yeah, it’s short from Haylee. You don’t like it? I can keep calling you Red Cheeks.” We were getting sidetracked, and a small part of me was relieved. I enjoyed teasing her, possibly too much for my own good.
“I’ve actually grown rather fond of it.”
I grinned, “Oh, you have? In that case—”
“Hals is fine,” Haylee rushed to say. “Sorry. What were you saying?”
Right. I cleared my throat. “I was just reminiscing on the time you trapped me between elevator doors, is all.”
“Oh God, I thought we promised to never speak of it.”
“We did? Hmm...” I rubbed my chin, pretending to think about it, and she laughed. “I’ve grown rather fond of the memory.”
