Page 47 of Fever Dream
“Raincheck?” he shrugs, and I just saysurebecause we both know we won’t see each other again after this night. “Pity,” he adds with a pout.
I get over my apprehension and steer Casey away from the bar by his shoulders. The further we walk from the bar, the more the fog seems to lift for him because he stops just as we near the exit.
“I’m sorry,” he says with an air of desperation. “You don’t have to leave, Harrison. I didn’t mean to … get in the way.”
I turn him by the shoulders so we’re facing each other because I feel he needs to hear this clearly and he’s still not himself.
“There’s nowhere I’d rather be than with you, Casey.” He blinks up at me before he nods like he’s accepted the truth in my words. And honestly, they were said with every ounce of sincerity in my bones. I’ll always pick him. Every single time.
We make it outside and the fresh air hits like a wave. I hear Casey suck in a deep breath, and I feel like I can suddenly breathe again too. We start walking, the strip still teemingwith nightlife and loud music as we make our way through the crowds.
“Oh, the guys. We should tell—”
“I got it, Case,” I say, pulling out my phone to shoot off a text to Sonny.
“What are you telling them?”
“That we’re going back to the hotel,” I say gently, wondering what he thought I’d write. That Casey had a possible panic attack and shattered his glass because he finally worked out that I’m gay?
We’re silent as we make the ten-minute walk back to the hotel and it’s not the easiest of silences. I’m not used to quiet around Casey, and I never realised how much I missed his non-stop banter until we’re left with this awkwardness.
We leave the noise and light of the strip behind and reach the footpath along the beach front, the sound of softly crashing waves filling the air. I feel Casey take a deep breath and hope he’s going to say something.
“So that’s your type, huh?” he says, a tinge of irony in his words.
“And what’s that?” I probe.
He pauses and looks up at me, the slightest hint of a smile somewhere in there. “… Brunette?”
I chuff a small laugh. “Brunette, blonde, ginger, black. It’s all the same to me. It’s more about …”
“What’s in the engine room?” Casey cuts in.
I laugh. “Not what I was going to say, but, yeah, it’s more about that.”
The silence returns and I walk on tenterhooks, not sure where we’re heading. Casey breaks the silence again and I am not prepared for the devastation on his face.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Harry?” he asks, words slicing me in half. “I thought we were … we’re meant to be …friendsand you kept this really vital thing about yourself from me.”
I want to die with how much hurt is pouring from his words, cutting me to the core. “I know, Casey. And we are. Friends that is. I wanted to tell you. I really, really wanted to tell you.”
“So why didn’t you?”
I sigh. “It’s just … easier this way. Given my job and what I do and being around the locker room. It’s just become second nature to keep my private life away from my work life. It’s—”
“I thought Iwaspart of your private life. I thought we were more than just work colleagues.”
Those words do me in, and I stop and grab his elbow, pulling him to a stop as I clutch onto his arms. He looks up at me and there’s just enough light from the streetlamps to see the devastation in the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen.
“You are,” I say firmly. “Youare, Casey. You’re … so, so special to me and you’ve made my move to Sydney so easy and amazing and fun and welcoming. You are so much more than a work colleague. You know that. I know you do. If I could go back in time and realise how important you would become to me, I would have told you from the start. But it’s not always easy, Case, having to do a big coming out every time I meet new people.”
Something in my words soften him and I see it in the way he sighs softly. “I get it, Harry. I mean I don’tgetit. Obviously. But, yeah, I get why you keep it to yourself. You don’t owe me that information about yourself.”
“No, Idoowe you, Casey. I owe it to you to be honest, and I should have told you. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Harry,” he says, words soft and gentle and more than I deserve.
“Can you forgive me?”
