Chapter 14

I cough awkwardly, catching both Mr Hastidal and his friend’s attention. They both look over at me, and I wave, pretending that I don’t in fact want the ground to just eat me up right here and now.

“Mr Hastidal, I was wondering if I could borrow you for a moment, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about.” Mr Hastidal’s friend - Nick, I think Daxa called him, looks between us, clearly wondering who I am.

“Mr Ardis! Right, um, Nick, do you mind…?” He trails off, clearly not wanting to kick his friend out just because I showed up. Honestly, fair enough.

Nick gets the gist though, and smiles, already walking in my direction (the exit’s direction, calm down Fyfe) and waving goodbye to his friend. “No worries, see you later Dray!” Once Nick is gone, Mr Hastidal and I stand opposite each other, both feeling extremely awkwardly.

And of course, that gorgeous smile he had when I arrived has already been killed by my presence. Wonderful.

Note my sarcasm, because once again, I am nervous. Shock horror, I know. Oh my God Fyfe stop making sarcastic remarks in your own head and apologise to the damn man!

Clearing my throat, I walk slightly more into the garden, so I’m no longer hovering at the threshold. “So, um, I wanted to apologise for the other day. I got angry at you when you were just being honest, and it’s not even like you were wrong - I mean, I do fake like, most of my emotions and expressions, but then I really shouldn’t have brought you into it, like you totally didn’t deserve that, it’s great that you’re a happy person, and that you can appreciate the little things and stuff, and I just, I messed up.”

My eyes were squeezed shut for the entirety of my shoddy apology, with my hands shoved deep in my pockets, and now that I’m done, I peel my lids open, peering at Mr Hastidal for some kind of negative reaction.

He looks shocked - that I apologised? I mean, I guess I give off the vibe of some rude guy who doesn’t really care about anything, which is partly true, but apparently I care enough about my relationship with my coworker to go out of my way to apologise to him, so yeah. That’s a thing.

“Oh,” he begins, smiling gently. Ah, I missed seeing him smile at me. I mentally roll my eyes at myself. Shut up, Fyfe.

“I uh, I shouldn’t have called you out on it like that, I came across very hostile, but I meant it more out of concern - I wanted you to not feel like you have to put on a mask in front of me, but I realised as soon as you took it the wrong way that I didn’t come across like that at all, so I’m sorry too. And I’m sorry for avoiding you all week, you avoided me and I thought you must have hated me.”

Now I’m the one looking at him with my mouth agape. “You thought I was mad at you? I thought you were mad at me!” And then he takes a step towards me, laughter bubbling from his lips and filling my ears with the incredible sound.

“Fyfe oh my God I wasn’t offended or anything! I mean, I was a little at first, because I’ve worked really hard to get to be the me I am now, with the outlook on the world I now have. But, as soon as I left, I realised that what I’d said to you was just unfair - I mean, we know nothing about each other. We both got angry, over something fairly small might I add, and blew up at each other, which I can tell we both regret.”

He stops right in front of me, and before I can even react, he places a hand on my shoulder. I don’t flinch away. I think he was cautious of doing that, because when I smile slightly at him, and don’t push him away from the tiniest bit of contact, he smiles radiantly back at me.

“So, can we both agree that this was dumb, and we wasted a week of our lives stressing over it?” I almost snort at his words - I can’t believe I was stressing over this for a week. “This already feels really dumb,” I say with an awkward smile, and he laughs again, removing his hand from my shoulder.

He could’ve left it there, I wouldn’t have minded.

“Oh well, at least now we can talk to each other again. And what I said before will always stand, if you want it to - you can express your emotions, your true emotions, however you’re feeling, to me. I’m not going to judge you, that’d make me a hypocrite. I know we’re not close, but I really think we could be friends.”

Mr Hastidal suddenly blushes and steps away from me, putting his hands up in front of him. “Oh! Only if you want to! And uh, I’m sorry for calling you by your first name earlier, it sort of slipped out, but I totally get if you want to keep this a strictly professional relationship!”

Aw, he’s seriously adorable.

I put a hand over the lower half of my face, so he can’t see the stupidly large smile I’m doing. And then I change my mind, and decide to show him. He beams back at me, and it only makes me smile more.

“Now that’s a real smile, Fyfe Ardis. I’m guessing you want to be friends too, unless I’ve majorly misjudged things here.” His expression is soft and gentle, and I really cannot stop smiling. I just feel stupidly happy, for some reason.

I think it’s that I feel something, other than fear, strongly, and that’s fairly new to me. I think it’s that something I’ve stressed over has finally been cleared up, and I think it’s because all of it involves Dray Hastidal. And he’s been making me feel things since day one, as weird as that is.

But I don’t hate it.

“You’re right, I do want to be friends. Does this mean we can drop the ‘Mr’ because that was getting old fast,” I say as I remove my hands from my pockets, for no reason other than to show off that they’re not shaking; I hate how many times he’s seen my hands shake, so I want him to know that I’m not always like that.

I can feel his gaze land on my hands for a moment, and his shy little smile widens a bit. I think it’s safe to say he noticed.

“That definitely means we can drop the ‘Mr’, I already hate it,” he laughs gently, before adding “Fyfe.” I touch my left hand to the ivy leaves just behind my left ear, feeling awkward and happy and embarrassed and warm all at the same time.

“Dray.”

He literally beams at me more brightly than the sun, before quickly whipping his phone out of his pocket. “Let’s exchange numbers, that feels like a normal friend thing to do,” he says with a little laugh, and I’m glad to finally add another contact to my phone.

“Holy shit Fyfe you only have women’s contacts! And…only five?”

I blush slightly, scrolling to the bottom, where Bren’s number is saved. “I have one other guy’s number, I’m not a player I swear. The four women in my contacts are my sister, mums and therapist.”

The words therapist slips out before I can even think about it, and I glance at Dray anxiously out of the corner of my eye. “Oh, you do therapy? It never worked for me, does it help you?” He looks up inquisitively, and it takes me a while to register what that means.

“Oh! Yeah, I’ve been doing it for the past two years, my therapist is basically Wonder Woman, she’s awesome,” I say with a little sincere smile, and he returns it. “That’s great! Also, you have two mums?”

“Yeah, my mum got remarried to my other mum a few years ago, her wife is a real badass.” Dray grins, peering over my arm as he puts in his number to my phone. “That’s so cool! Oh sorry, I pressed the home button by accident and I wasn’t done putting in my number ye- OH MY GOD IS THAT YOU?!”

I jump slightly as he raises his voice, before looking down at my own phone wallpaper. It’s a photo from ages ago, when I was 22. I’d just joined the police force after my two year training course thing, and it was a year before I went undercover. Ailsa has me wrapped in a headlock, taking the picture from some crazy angle whilst my two mums pile into the background.

“Haha yeah, that’s obviously Ailsa, and that’s our biological mum, and our other mum,” I point out the two women, and I must admit, Ailsa is the spitting image of our mum. “Wow, you look pretty different now, huh. And you didn’t have your tattoo yet,” he points out, smiling as he looks over the picture.

“It’s a cute picture! Sorry let me finish putting in my number I’m taking forever,” he says with a little laugh, clicking back onto the contacts app. I normally hate people pointing out how different I used to look - I mean, now I look like some bad boy drug dealer, but back when I was 22, I looked like the average guy from next door.

I looked happier.

But, I’m working hard, and I’m starting to feel happier now again.