Page 54 of That One Moment

Chapter Twenty-Four

Caiden

Jamie fusses. Once we’re back at mine, he pushes me towards the shower, and when I get out there’s a glass of water and two paracetamol next to my bed. I take both and swallow down the rest of the water.

Drying myself off, I pull on a pair of black sweats and his hoodie. Then wander barefoot into the front of the flat where I find him with his back to me. He moves from Basil’s cage to my shelves of plants.

“I tried to hold your demon pet but he bit me,” he says when he senses me entering the room. I suppress a chuckle and don’t say that I did warn him. “I like your plants,” he states.

The chuckle I held back bubbles out. “You like my plants? Jesus, is this what our conversation has come to?” He looks at me and smiles, tiny dimples popping on his cheeks.

Even when I first met him, I thought he was handsome. But when he smiles and it's aimed at me? Breathtaking.

“Are you still landscaping?” He picks up some plans that were folded on one shelf and looks over them briefly. “And designing? Cooper was so proud of that garden you did at the retirement home. He told everyone he met about it.” Jamie turns towards me. “About his amazingly talented twin.”

Jamie’s voice takes on this feathery light tone when he talks about Coop and it’s clear from the way he says his name, how much my brother meant to him. My heart aches for him, for what he lost that day. I never stopped to consider Jamie in all of this - too lost in my own anguish to care, but I see it now - see the heaviness of his grief.

“I am. It’s probably the best thing I have going for me right now.” I think of my boss and the texts I’ve been sending him and of the explanation I feel I owe him. “If I haven’t fucked that up too,” I add.

“How do you manage without a car? I mean, you need tools for that line of work, don’t you?” Jamie asks.

“I don’t work on site much. I’m mostly in the office, working on concepts or tendering for jobs, and if I need to go to a job, my colleague drives and I meet him there. It’s worked so far.” I think back to that first conversation with Hank, when I briefly explained about Cooper. He’d been so understanding, and my anxiety over getting in a car has never become a thing that holds me back.

Jamie hums under his breath. “I’m glad you’re doing something you love.” His voice catches and I hear the sadness - or maybe it’s regret - before he folds the plans back up and moves to the next shelf where he pulls out a photo frame I’d hidden between two Birds Nest ferns.

“You both look like trouble,” he muses. In the photo, Cooper and I are about six or seven and we’ve been playing in the woods behind our house. We’re covered in mud, sticks in our hair and scrapes on our knees. We’re smiling brighter than the sun, ourarms wrapped around each other's shoulders. I remember that day as if it was only last week. Some nights I spend hours looking at that photo and others, I can’t stand the look of it.

Nostalgia and longing for those happier, easier days churns inside me and I have to turn away and cough to clear the sudden lump in my throat. “We were two peas in a pod. Best friends and worst enemies all in one.” I smile wistfully. “And now he’s somewhere out there watching me run my life into the ground one step at a time because I don’t know how to be half a person.”

Jamie moves behind me. His Earl Grey scent hits me before his warmth is at my back. He rests one hand on my shoulder and it’s a small comfort that I sink into. I can already feel myself getting attached to the space Jamie has started taking up in my life and it's a dangerous, foolish feeling.

“You’re not half a person.” His voice is warm and soft and it brings tears to my eyes. I’m tired and my head really does hurt and the last few days have been so overwhelming with too many warring emotions. My skin itches and that familiar feeling of drowning presses on my lungs. My hands flit at my sides and I have an urge to slide one into my sweats and scratch at the scars there.

My breathing changes rhythm and I can’t tell if I’m panicking or on the verge of crying, but whatever it is, it sucks, and I gasp on lungfuls of air before strong arms wrap around my waist and I’m pulled into a hot, hard chest.

“I’m fine. I’m fine,” I repeat over and over while Jamie holds me, his breath puffing against my neck. I don’t cry and he doesn’t speak again. After some time, he releases me and takes my hand, leading me into my room.

“This week has been….a lot. These last three years have been…fuck… a lot doesn’t even come close. Get some sleep, okay?” Jamie says as he guides me towards the bed.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, I watch as he places his phone on the dresser then comes to stand between my spread legs. His phone buzzes against the wood and his jaw ticks as he looks at it but doesn’t move. When his eyes meet mine, it’s easy to see the indecision in them. He came to say goodbye, he’s going to leave, I know he is, but not now. Not yet.

I’ve been accused of being selfish many times in my life, but never before have I felt it as much as I do right now. Knowing full well that this man is not mine but wanting him to be anyway - even if just for an hour.

“Stay?” I ask, my voice quiet but hopeful. “Please.” I shimmy over to the far side of the bed, showing him the open space next to me. Jamie hesitates, looking back at his phone one more time before he slides off his jeans, leaving him in only his black boxers and grey t-shirt.

He’s silent as he slides beneath the covers and turns onto his side so we’re face to face, our heads on our own pillows a few inches apart.

“I shouldn’t be here. We can’t do… I really should go.” His words say one thing while his body says another, and he moves closer to me. “Knowing I should go doesn’t mean I want to or that I even can.” He rubs his cheek against the pillow. “Fuck, Caiden, what are we doing?”

“Shhh,” I say, with a finger to my lips. “Let’s not overthink this, we’re just talking. That’s all this is. So let’s do that. Tell me, why didn’t you finish your degree?” Jamie’s eyes shift unsubtly to my lips as he shifts under the blankets, his leg bumping against mine.

“I missed too many classes and my grades fell.” He lifts a shoulder. “I stopped caring. About myself and my future. About everything, really.”

“Did that change?” He told me I’m not the only one who broke after Cooper died, and I need to know how he did it, how he carried on. How hemovedon - if he really did.

“Yes and no,” Jamie replies. “My mum insisted I see a doctor, which I did, and a grief counsellor. They both helped, along with medication. Everyone around me was always so worried. My mum, Duncan, Sage.”

At the mention of my dad’s name, I close my eyes and try to quell the stirring inside me. The crushing regret and overwhelming sense of loss.

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