Page 62 of Commitment Issues
I’ve unpacked, showered, and by the time I emerge, the delivery man’s dropped off something spicy, hot, and supersized. It could be the opening to a dirty joke, but I don’t much feel like laughing.
Here we were again, the two of us in our stretchy, out of shape PJs, looking like ill-matched bookends.
“Why are you beating yourself up for a night of filthy sex with a seriously hot guy? Elliot Hendricks is a silver fox pin up.” He bites into his pizza, making obscene groaning sounds. “Your problem is that you overthink everything, you always have. It prevents you from letting go.”
“Thank you Doctor Cosmo, Director of the Royal School of Bullshit.”
“It’s not BS. It’s true.”
I put down my pizza, no longer hungry. Maybe he’s right. Or just a bit. But I analyse, I don’t overthink.
“Was he kinky? Did it involve weird acts with seasonal fruit or veg? Was a gimp mask produced? Did he ask you to spank him with the back of a hair brush whilst dressed as Nanny? Or horror of horrors, was the sex boringly vanilla?”
Cosmo’s face is such a picture of innocence when I know he’s anything but. I shake my head, fighting the laughter that’s bubbling to escape, because there really isn’t anything to laugh at.
“None of those things.”
“None of those things? So, the sex was good, great, amazing, mind and ball blowing? Please tick the box which most accurately describes your experience, and you’re in with a chance to win a £5.00 Marks and Spencer voucher.”
“Stop taking the piss.”
“I’m not. What I’m doing, the good friend that I am, is trying to extract your head from your arse where it seems to be very firmly lodged.”
“What?” I rear back.
“You sit there and tell me you’ve had super hot sex with Mr Silver Fox Hendricks, looking all po-faced, when it’s probably the best thing that’s ever happened in your dreary little life. I don’t get it.”
“Don’t you?”
Cosmo says nothing, his cat-like eyes taking me in and seeing through me like they always do.
“You like him.”
I nod. There’s no point in denying it.
“I do, and that’s the problem. I can’t let myself get involved.” We won’t be involved. The cab drove off, taking Elliot with it, signalling the end of our agreement, but it doesn’t stop the twinge in my chest.
“You don’t have to be involved to be having sex. They’re not the same thing.”
“Not to you, maybe. I just don’t work like that. I wish I did because it’d save a hell of a lot of trouble,” I say, bitterness creeping into my words.
“But it’s not like you haven’t had uninvolved sex before, is it?”
There’s not much I can say to that, because he’s right. I’ve had my share — not a big share, admittedly — of bar and club hook-ups, but they’re the fast food of sex: quick, cheap, and ultimately unsatisfying. Talking about Elliot in the same breath just feels plain wrong.
“He’s on the rebound. You don’t have to be a genius to realise that if somebody comes out of a long relationship, even if it got really bad, whoever they get with first off is going to be someone to… to… practise with. Somebody to kind of get them moving again. I’ve been there before, Cos, and I’m not making the same mistake.”
“You’re mistaking Elliot for being like that tosser Paul. He’s not. No way. Full stop. Period. And rebound? Why would you be a rebound for him? Elliot’s free, you’re free. And did he do or say anything that made you think you were arebound?” He air quotes the words as his eyes laser into me.
“Gavin was making a big play for him.”
“And was Elliot making a play back?”
“No, but—”
“Isn’t that your answer? And anyway, Gavinwould. The man’s just about intelligent enough to realise he’s let go of a real gem,” he says with haughty authority.
“But you said you don’t know Gavin.”
“Oh, I don’t, you’re right. I got this from Jimbo. He knows what he’s talking about.”
“Unlike you. Can we let it drop now?”
He looks like he’s about to argue, but whatever he wants to say he bites it back.
We switch the TV on as we finish up the pizza, and I let it wash over me. I close my eyes, jerking awake when Cosmo gives me a rough shake, telling that if I’m going to snore like a pig I can do it away from him. I mutter some limp comeback, and stagger off to bed.
