Page 41 of Storm in a Teacup
“You mean me falling in love with my best mate and him rejecting me?”
Guilt flashes across his features. It’s not my intention to make him feel bad, but I have trouble keeping my mouth shut. “Yeah. But also you figuring out your sexuality. Normally, I’d be the person you spoke to about that. But I’m not.”
“Well, I sort of dumped it all on the first man I had sex with.”
David’s mouth drops open, but he recovers quickly. “Sure. And how did that go?”
“The sex? Great.” I clear my throat. “I have a therapist. I’ve been going for about three months now.”
“That’s awesome,” he says, looking relieved that I haven’t exclusively been using my hookups as cheap and ineffective therapy. It was just the one time, I swear.
“Linny knows,” I add.
His eyebrows lift. “She does?”
I nod, throat tight. “She knows everything.”
His face softens. “You really like her, then?”
I can’t help the small smile that grows on my face. “She’s great.” I let out an exhale. “David, I…I’m still trying to move past this. With us. My…myfeelings. I’m sorry I had them.”Have, I correct in my mind.
His lips purse, clearly agreeing with me but not wanting to say that. Instead, he asks, “Is there anything I can do to help?”
I huff humorlessly. “Get ugly? Become a horrible person? I don’t know.” I shake my head, offering a real answer. “Just keep being my friend. Keep pushing me. You know that’s what I need sometimes. To be pushed.”
“What you need is to be shoved.”
I snort in response.
“But okay,” he adds.
“Okay.”
Turns out David only came to the toilet to find me, so we return to the table together. When we do, I place a hand on Linny’s shoulder for a moment, hoping my silent thank you is communicated. She’s mid-conversation with Callum, but she grabs my hand and squeezes it tightly, her rings digging in. I think she’s asking if I’m okay. I squeeze back, letting her know I am.
…
The two pairs of us head in separate directions after dinner. I say to Linny, “I’m walking you home.”
“Fine,” she agrees.
As soon as we’re out of sight from David and Callum, she drops my hand. I’m surprised by the chill that spreads over me when she does. We soon walk up on the door between my café and her shop.
“This is me,” she says unnecessarily.
“Can I come up?” I find myself asking.
She narrows her eyes. “Why?”
I propose, “To meet Oscar Wilde.”
She nods, shoving her key into the front door and escorting me up to her first-floor flat. She opens the door and leads me in, flipping on all the lights. “Oscar,” she calls, wandering down the hall as I stay in the entryway, taking in her flat.
The walls are a cream color, and the couch that centers her living room is a sage green. Dark wooden furniture accents the room. Everything besides the couch looks like an antique. Well, considering she runs an antique shop, I figure it is. There are little ghosts set up in random spots around her flat, all the same shape but varying in color and size. They’re two different sizes, one about nine centimeters tall and the other about five centimeters. They’re shaped like a typical ghost under a sheet, with oblong eyes at the tops of their head. I pinpoint one that is black with rainbow speckles, then a little lavender one with darker purple marbling.
She comes back, a gray cat flung over her shoulder, clinging to her around the neck. She sets him down. I crouch as the cat spots me and quickly approaches. I notice something I failed to notice in the picture she sent me.
“He only has three legs.” Oscar is sporting his front two legs and a back left leg, but appears to be missing the back right leg.
