Page 6 of Just Between Us

After my date with James, I think I’ll be completely single for a while.

Levi looks at me for a moment like he’s trying to figure out something but then he only smiles and asks, “What are you doing for the holidays? Anything special planned?”

“Just hanging out with my mother and my sisters. My mum and sister Zara love cooking so Zoe and I let them do their thing and we play very loud, very heated rounds of UNO then maybe a Shrek rewatch.”

It’s probably more detail than he needs but he has the kind of face you want to tell things to. He looks at you like he’s really listening, and you get the sense that you need to please him. It’s weird. Like he puts you under some sort of deliberate spell.

“Twins?” he asks.

I nod. The twins were born when I was six and now, they are both in their first year at university. They both want to be lawyers, and I can’t help but feel a swell of pride when I think of them. Despite all the bullshit with their dad, they’ve turned out great.

I can tell Levi wants to ask more but I don’t need him to know any more about my life. There’s nothing to know about me anyway. My own dad disappeared before I was born, and my stepdad hated my guts until he got locked up. Levi definitely doesn’t need to know about that.

I switch the focus to him, “How about you? Anything planned?”

He leans against the bar. “Cole and I are travelling to New Zealand with my parents. We’re going to drive through the mountains. Make a whole thing about it, and I’m a bit of a Lord of the Rings superfan so I want to see all of that too.”

Somehow, I can’t picture him as a Lord of the Rings superfan. Is there a rule against insanely hot guys also being slightly nerdy? He is pretty smart, but he looks more like the kind of guy who skipped class to smoke with his friends more than anything else.

“Orlando Bloom was my bisexual awakening in that movie,” I hear myself say.

The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them, and I desperately hope he thinks it’s the alcohol as my face flushes. Around us, the music has dulled, the buzz of voices distant. Even the bartenders have faded into the background. Everything around us has taken a soft glow. It’s like it’s just Levi and I left in the ballroom.

“Mine too,” Levi laughs. “I think he was some sort of awakening for anyone who watched the movies. My cousin had posters of him all over her room. I might have stolen one.”

I bite my bottom lip to stop any more stupid words from spilling out. He tilts his head slightly like he’s trying to read something off my face. I shift on my feet and look behind me to Jenna and Marie who are laughing quietly.

When I turn back to him, he’s still looking at me with the same curiosity. I try not to squirm too obviously and swallow. “Uh, I should get back,” I say. “Gotta continue exploiting company resources to the best of my abilities and all.”

He lets out a quiet huff and nods. “Of course. Please, I hope you do your worst.” He runs his tongue over his bottom lip, and I track the movement with my eyes. “They deserve it,” he adds quietly.

I hear myself laugh but it’s kind of like I’m stuck in place, gravity keeping me put. “Goodnight, Levi,” I say. “And Merry Christmas.”

He nods. “Merry Christmas, Kai.”

And then I turn away because if I stay standing there a second longer, I might melt into that puddle I desperately wished to be when I was in his office.

Christmas comes and passes in a blur. Jenna heads to Brighton with Marie to spend Christmas with her family and I go over to Mum’s in Greenwich. When I started working and earning a bit more money, I had her move out of our shitty council flat and to the 3-bedroomed flat. It’s not much but it’s a huge improvement from where the council flat the twins and I grew up. At least I don’t have to worry about her walking home from work at night.

Mum is still an English teacher and even though she could probably retire soon, she loves her job too much and to this day, random kids still send her emails to tell her how much they loved her class and how they are only doing well because of her.

For Christmas lunch, Zara and Mum prepare ham and all sorts of traditional food from Mum’s childhood. It’s too much for all of us and by the end of the day we are completely stuffed.

“You need to eat more, Kai,” Mum says as Zara starts Shrek. I forced my sisters to watch it until they loved it as much as I did. We can recite the movie from start to finish. “You are wilting away and you’re so pale.” She reaches up to touch my face and inspect, frowning, clearly not liking what she sees.

I nod placatingly at her, but she’s only fussing. I try to eat a good amount because Jenna insists on dragging me to the gym every other morning before work. Her training sessions which I reluctantly participate in have left me with a well-defined stomach and arms.

“He always looks like that, Mum,” Zoe says, not looking up from her phone.

She looks exactly like Zara and when they were kids, I used to deliberately mix them up to scare them. They both started wearing different colour bracelets to make sure people knew who they were speaking to. Pink for Zara and blue for Zoe.

As they’ve grown older, they couldn't be more different. Zara is all about the latest fashion and makeup and Zoe cringes at anything made in the last decade. She’s tortured—her words, not mine but they are both sides of the same coin.

“Be nice to your brother,” Mum chides.

“Sorry, Kai,” Zoe drones but I don’t miss the way she flips me off when Mum isn’t looking. I do the same and that makes Zara snicker.

We watch the movie, Zara cuddles closely to me and Zoe sits next to her. Mum falls asleep within the first thirty minutes and we clean the flat quietly before sending her off to bed. It’s nice and when I say goodbye to the twins after New Year's, my eyes sting a little watching them head back to university.

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