Page 93 of The Wake-Up Call

“Just go, Lucas, OK?”

He frowns, reaching for his duffel bag. “Fine. If that’s what you want.”

As he walks out of my bedroom, I tell myself I’m an adult. I can do this if I want to. And there’s no denying I want to.

I just have to keep my walls up, that’s all.

Lucas

Every night we spend together, I learn something about her. The small formation of freckles on her ankle; how she’s ticklish there. The way her voice lifts when certain people ring her—Sameera, Grigg, Jem—and how it tightens for anyone else. The photograph of her parents on her bedside table, and how she touches it absently sometimes, the way you might stroke a cat.

By the week before Christmas, I am gone. I am out of my own control. Every time we touch, I feel myself tumble a little further, and every time she gives me a bright, professional smile at work it hurts a bit more. I had imagined the danger in this arrangement would be Izzy losing interest in me after we had sex. But it seems the real danger is me falling in love.

We stick to the rules, but as far as I’m concerned, they’re no protection at all. We may not fall asleep together—aside from that first extraordinary night at her flat. But we still hold each other, move together, wrap each other up almost every night. She shows no sign of getting me out of her system, and I’m more addicted to her than ever.

One night she messages me at three in the morning—she’s woken and can’t get back to sleep. I suggest a change of location. She’s outside my flat within twenty minutes, in my bed within another two, and when dawn breaks, she’s naked in my arms, dozing, satisfied. I watch the sky lighten in the gap between my curtains and savour the feeling of her body against mine.

“Can we talk?” I say.

I feel her go still. “What kind of talking?”

“I want to say that I’m sorry for being jealous when you went to the Christmas market with Louis.” My heart quickens. I’ve wanted to tell her this for days. If I want Izzy to see me as a human being, to take me seriously, then she needs to know my story. “He makes me... You make me... Iam,” I say, correcting myself in frustration, “I am on edge when you’re with him. My last relationship...”

She stiffens in my arms. I keep talking, faster now.

“Camila cheated on me.” It ispainfulsaying this out loud. “Then she acted like—like it was my fault, because I didn’t give her enough. So she said she went looking for that love elsewhere. I know it’s no excuse for my possessiveness. But I wanted to tell you that there’s something behind the jealousy other than just, you know, that I am a man with so many red flags, as you called me. I want you to understand that I’m working on this. I want to be better.”

“Lucas, I...” Izzy pulls away from me, reaching for the overnight bag she brought with her last night. “That’s... Thank you. For telling me that. But...”

This is not going how I hoped it would. She’s tense, avoiding my gaze entirely.

“Izzy?” I say.

She looks upset. I reach for her, but she steps away from the bed.

“I’m just conscious of the time,” she says, and I watch as shepulls herself together, pasting on the Izzy that I see at work: bright, smiling, ready for anything. It’s amazing. It takes her less than five seconds.

“We have half an hour. You can stay for a coffee if you want,” I say, feeling a little desperate.

She frowns at me as she ducks down to pull on her socks. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I want to. I’d like to.”

I have to choke it out, and the moment I do, I regret it: her eyes flare wide with alarm again. It’s the closest I’ve come to sayingI like youout loud. Between Izzy and me, that phrase probably feels as significant asI love youwould to any other couple.

“You want to have coffee with me?”

“Is that so strange?”

“Yes?” Izzy says, frown deepening. “A, you hate how I make coffee, you always say I get the milk-to-granule ratio wrong—”

“I would make the coffee. This is my apartment, clearly I will make the coffee. And we will use a cafetière.”

“Oh, of course we will,” she says, and I can’t tell if she’s amused or irritated. “B, you go to great lengths never to spend more time than necessary with me every single day, so why would you want to keep me in your flat when you could get me out of it?”

“Because—it’s not like that now. I don’t do that anymore. Haven’t you noticed?”

“C,” she says, shoulders creeping higher, voice getting louder. “We have rules about this stuff.”

---