Page 102 of Off the Pitch

“Don’t apologise,” he said, reaching out to take my hand and squeezing it gently. His touch was warm, and I wanted to lean into it because for some reason it grounded me and made me feel safe. I didn’t want him to let go. I wanted just a few more minutes of someone caring because remembering my grandmother had suddenly made me feel more open and rawer than I wanted to admit. “You never need to apologise. I’m glad you told me, and I’m sorry for your loss. She sounds like an amazing woman.”

“She was,” I nodded. “I think she’d have loved you. And I think you’d have liked her too.”

We sat in silence for a minute in the summer sun, but the thing that was burning brightest was Hugo’s hand in mine.

“Right,” I said, deciding that was enough moping. One of the many nannies I’d had as a child had declared that the best way to feel better was to do something, that way a person could never be sad or bored. Looking back, it was absolutely horrible advice, but she’d engrained it so thoroughly into my skull that it was still the first thing that popped into my brain at times like this. “Enough moping. I have something for us.”

“Oh? I’m intrigued.”

“I thought you would be. This is to distract you from scratching your leg.” I gave Hugo a pointed look, and the hand that had been absent-mindedly rubbing his jeans retracted. Reaching for my bag, I rummaged around in the bottom, pulling out the various pens and pencils that I’d shoved in there last night. The coloured pencils had spilled out of their box, so I kept having to reach into the bag to retrieve stray ones.

Alongside those, I’d gotten two sketch books and a couple of colouring books too— a secret garden one and an enchanted forest one. I found them incredibly soothing to potter away on when my own art wasn’t really working. It was nice just to put colours on the paper and watch the picture come to life without any real thought or artistic design on my part. If only everything in life were so simple.

Hugo, who’d been examining a little tub of stuffed picante peppers with a hungry eye, looked at me like I’d suddenly produced a stick of dynamite or a live badger instead of art supplies.

“You do realise I can’t draw?”

“Does that matter? It’s fun!” I insisted. “I don’t care whether you think you can draw or not. I just thought it would be something fun for us to do instead of being cooped up inside. And I’m sure even you can colour inside the lines.”

Hugo laughed, giving me another one of his beautiful smiles that reached all the way up to his dark eyes. Sitting this close to him, I noticed flecks of gold around his pupils, like they were full of sunshine. I wanted to gaze into them for hours because I was sure they were the most astonishing pair of eyes I’d ever seen.

“I’ll try,” he said, “but I can’t promise it’ll be any good.”

“What is good really?” I said with a shrug. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that.”

“Well you may think differently after you’ve seen me draw!”

He grabbed one of the sketch books and then after a moment, the forest colouring book, opening it on his lap and gently thumbing through the pages looking at the designs.

I opened my own sketch book on my lap, admiring the creamy pages and acres of space that my fingers itched to fill. It felt a little like coming home; returning to my artistic roots instead of staring at a screen filling design briefs. Not that I didn’t enjoy them, but it was definitely nice to come back to my own art for a change.

Still, I couldn’t help but watch Hugo. There was a soft look of concentration on his face as he shaded the flowers that were scattered across the page.

Today had been such a whirlwind, and now that I was settled in one place, my brain was starting to catch up with everything that had happened. It kept coming back to the hospital and the off-hand comment made by the nurse when she’d first come to find us—when she’d thought I was Hugo’s boyfriend.

I couldn’t imagine why she’d thought we were dating, although I wondered if it was because we’d been holding hands. That seemed silly to me because David and I had held hands plenty of times when we were nervous or scared, and we’d only ever been friends. Although, I guessed that, in society, it was less common to see male friends holding hands due to the ridiculous notions of masculinity that so many people still subscribed to.

It had been the pink flush on Hugo’s face that had confused me though.

Did that mean he was embarrassed that she’d called us boyfriends? Or did it mean that he wished we were boyfriends? Or did it mean something else altogether? Was Hugo even romantically interested in men? I knew he had an ex-wife because he’d mentioned her several times in passing, but that was no real indication. After all David was bisexual, and I wasn’t oblivious enough to know that bi and pansexuality existed.

I had Tumblr. And I’d spent enough hours on there trying to figure out myself in the past few years. Being gay was one thing. That was the easy part. The rest… that had been trickier.

I shook my head, trying to assemble my thoughts into some sort of order, but it was no use. There were too many variables in the situation for me to come to any sort of conclusion, and besides I was terrible with anything vaguely romantic. I liked to think of it as deliberate, blissful ignorance.

“What do you think?” Hugo’s voice was a welcome distraction, holding out the book for me to see. It wasn’t finished, but it would be beautiful when it was. His bold colour choices were striking and made my heart sing. I wanted to keep it and frame it for my wall so I could look at it and remember this afternoon forever.

“I thought you said you couldn’t draw and had no artistic talent,” I said, raising my eyebrow at him.

“Well,” Hugo said, his cheeks tinting. “Even I can colour inside the lines.”

We stayed in the park all afternoon, colouring and drawing stupid pictures of whatever we could see, all while eating the copious amounts of food I’d managed to procure and chatting quietly whenever we fancied it. It was unhurried and unforced—just the two of us enjoying each other’s company.

When all the food had been eaten and the heat from the sun was all but gone, we packed everything up and headed for home. I’d tried to insist on accompanying Hugo back to his flat, but he’d refused on the grounds that my house wasn’t that far from where we were. My stomach had sunk slightly when he’d insisted he’d be fine and hailed us separate taxis, paying for mine before I could even open my mouth to protest. I couldn’t work out how to tell him that I didn’t mind dragging myself across the city because I was enjoying his company and didn’t really want the day to end.

I’d had more fun with Hugo than I’d had in months, and the idea of going back to my empty house, alone, wasn’t a fun one.

As soon as I put my key into the lock and pushed the door open, my heart sank.

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