Flynn shoved his hands into his pockets, still eyeing me intently.“I stopped by the store today, I thought you might be working.But there was a lady in there, instead.”
“Connie,” I said, quietly.I didn’t have the roster memorized, not completely, but I knew that much.She was as close as it came to an assistant manager, though that wasn’t quite the reason I was sure it had to be her that Flynn had spoken to.
“Right, right,” Flynn agreed.“Very friendly.Anyway, we got talking, and I was asking about what sort of boss you are, that sort of stuff.And she mentioned, among other things, how sad she’d be if you took the offer and moved.”
She’d been in the store when the first call from head office came in.Just the two of us.And I’d been so surprised, so wrong-footed by their proposal, the shock of it must’ve been clear on my face.Enough so that I had to explain, after I hung up, what they’d suggested.Then begged her discretion for the whole topic, a secret I’d thought until now that she was keeping.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
The confirmation letter had been there, in my room, when he’d come up.On the shelf, and that weird sense that it was watching me, challenging me, that’d I’d had since it arrived in the mailbox.I’d only stopped thinking about it when Flynn started licking me.
“It...it didn’t seem important.”
No doubting that his expression was incredulous now.
“You didn’t think it was relevant?That you had a really good reason to move out?”
I tried to shrug but my shoulders felt like granite.“I wasn’t really considering it.”
Flynn opened and closed his mouth a few times, then gave up.Just stared at me, with enough challenge in his bemusement that I knew I had to say more.
“I couldn’t, really.You know I couldn’t.”I gestured around us: at the kitchen, and the house, but meaning more than that.My mom and my dad, and the life I had here.The things I was used to.“I couldn’t just...gallivant off.”
“Gallivant.”Flynn said the word as if it was the first time he’d ever heard it.“You...”He shook his head.“Oli, this job they’re offering, it sounds perfect for you.”
I frowned.“Because then I’d have no excuse not to come move in with you, you mean.”
He gave me a scathing look.“No, idiot.I mean because it’s something you have the perfect skillset for, and it could be an actual, real, legitimate career.The next step, right in front of you, and you’re ghosting it.”
“My parents...”
“Would understand.No, actually, they’d be fucking proud of you.Ecstatic, even.My mom would never hear the end of it, and it’d serve her right.”
I tried to smile, to match his amusement, but my face was as stubborn as my shoulders had been.
“You were going to turn it down, weren’t you.”Not accusation in his voice, so much as sad resignation.
“I know it could make things easier, for us, but...”
“This isn’t fucking about us, Oli!”It was a bark, outrage and frustration bubbling over.Flynn’s face red as he stared at me furiously.“I like you.I really, really like you, actually.And I think - behind the excuses and the deadpan humor, and the fact your first instinct is to make everything sexual - you might actually like me, too.If you let yourself, maybe.But us having a relationship has no fucking connection to you intentionally sabotaging your chance to make something of yourself.”
“So I’m not ‘something’ now, then?”It came out of me like a curse, cold anger in the face of his vitriol.
“If it makes it feel easier, pretending I’m the one belittling and undermining you here, then please, go right ahead.”His mouth twisted, unhappily.“But let’s not forget that I was into you before I knew anything about the job offer.I’ve fucked up plenty of things, Oli, but nobody could say I didn’t want you for you.No more, and no less.”
There was a bitter taste in my mouth, bile and fear.“You don’t understand,” I insisted.
“Maybe not,” Flynn agreed.“But I don’t think you do, either.You’ve convinced yourself that leaving is some sort of defeat, even though you’re the only person who’s losing when you stay.”
“So, what,” I spat, “I move in with you, and we play happy families, and pretend either of us has a fucking clue what we’re doing?”
I expected him to shout back, to match my volume.But instead he just smiled.“Maybe.I mean, what’s the worst that can happen?”
It was ridiculous, that my body could shudder at the thought of all those possibilities, and yet my brain couldn’t put a name to one.I sat down, heavily.“It might not work...it might all be another William situation.”
Flynn shook his head.“If it all fucks up, it’ll be for different reasons.Its own reasons.But I don’t think it will.”
I took a deep breath.“I...I want to, but...”