Page 51 of Fever Dream
“Me? Yeah, yep, no probs at all,” I stammer, taking another step back from him. I don’t miss the frown between his eyes, and I hate that I put it there, but I honestly feel like I’m about to lose control of myself and I don’t want to put that on him.
So I take another step back, then another until a few feet of necessary space separates me from Harrison.
“I gotta run,” I say, dropping my eyes and turning tail. Maybe I’m a coward but I do know my limits and I know I’ve reached them. I feel Harrison’s eyes burning into my back as I hightail it for the locker room, but I don’t look back.
My pace is brisk until I’m alone in the locker room, squeezing into a private cubicle and locking the door closed behind me. Igasp in a lungful of air, resting my head against the wall as I try to calm my still racing heart.
Two options.
That’s what Sonny gave me. Two different paths set before me to navigate. But I already know that option two is off the table. The mere thought of leaving Harrison alone makes my knees want to give out on me and crumble to the floor in the foetal position. There’s just no possible way I can leave him now, not when he means so very much to me.
But then … that leaves door number one. Endorphins flood my system, chasing away the sense of dread door number two had left in its wake until I am feeling like I can stand without falling again.
Could I? Could I honestly walk through door number one … and all it entails? My mind explodes with doubts and possibilities, too many thoughts to latch onto to make sense of any one of them.
Could I walk through that door with Harrison?
But as I stand there in that tiny cubicle, mind spiralling out of control, the one thing it settles on is the realisation that maybe, just maybe, that’s the door I’ve been inching towards all along, without even realising it.
***
Of course, thinking something and acting on it are two wildly different propositions. The Casey Calloway headspace is having an absolute carnival over the next few days as I try and work out where I’m really at with Harrison. Whether what I’m feeling about him, and realistically have always felt about him, is slightly more …romanticthan platonic.
I’ve had to rewrite a whole heap of recent history in my head, enough to keep me awake most nights. Like all thosestories Harrison shared with me over the phone, or rather that I extracted from him. Those first kisses and first times are looking a whole lot different in my head than when he’d first told me about them.
Harrison knows something is up and honestly, that’s the worst part about this. I know I’m being weird with him, and I know the timing is most unfortunate because he’s going to associate it with coming out to me when that’s only part of the matter. And yes, it is a big part of it but not in the way he’s probably interpreting my sudden weirdness.
But everything is different now. The way he touches me on the treatment bed is different and I’m feeling it in ways that hit differently, that have me reacting to him in a way I cannot ignore. It’s not the first time that’s happened when Harrison touches me. That time on the Gold Coast, when he massaged my shoulder while he sat behind me on the bed left me hard as a steel rod, and okay, a little turned on. I still didn’t click though, that maybe it wasHarrisonthat was making me feel that way. Not just the effects of being touched.
He's working on my adductor now, his knuckles grazing my balls and I am clenching my teeth so hard to try and not react to him. My arm is across my eyes as I do everything in my power to not focus on Harrison beside me, to think about anything other than his beautiful, magical hands. Or his scent. That intoxicating citrusy scent.
I hear him sigh before I pry my arm from my eyes, glancing up at him. His curls are free from their headband, obscuring his dark eyes but I feel the pang in my gut that has accompanied all our interactions this week.
“Is everything okay, Casey?” he asks, voice quiet as he concentrates on my leg.
“Everything’s fine,” I rasp, ignoring the weird lilt of my tone.
He sighs again before tapping my knee, Harrison code for telling me he’s done. I hold back the sigh of relief, instantly pulling myself up off the bed. I’m halfway out the door before he calls me back.
“Are we still on? For tonight?”
I want to punch myself for the hesitance in his voice, something I know I put there. What is wrong with me? He’s supposed to be my best friend and I’m treating him like we hardly know each other.
“Ah, yeah,” I tell him anyway, only just remembering my invite to him last week to come round for a swim tonight. Only … shit. That means Harrison and I … all alone in my house. All but naked. In swimmers.
I did not think this through well at all.
“Cool. Shall I meet you there?” he asks. A brown curl falls across his forehead and my fingers itch to brush it away.
“Is that alright? I have to run to the supermarket beforehand.” It’s an excuse and we both know it. Harrison and I have been to the supermarket together about fifty times on our way home from work. But I just need a few more minutes to get my head into gear—sans Harrison. And maybe extend a last-minute invite to Sonny and Izak to join us. Yes, that is an awesome plan.
I’m still congratulating myself when Harrison nods at me and I turn and leave. I beeline for Sonny and Izak who are exactly where I left them in the weights room and it’s an easy sell to get them to come and save me from my potentially awkward encounter with Harrison. Free beer, pizza and a swim? Yes, please.
***
Harrison knocks on my front door later that evening. My stomach is abruptly invaded by a swarm of butterflies. Which is weird, right? Harrison’s been here a hundred times before and there has been nary a butterfly wing in sight.
I open the door to him. That’s when I realise I’m in trouble.
