oh no, joey quinn

He likes the push-and-pull he gets to enjoy with you. The sense of play he’d be able to bring to physical intimacy and that you respond to so well. He likes that you make him work for things, that sometimes all it takes is a raised eyebrow and a tiny curl of his mouth for you to immediately narrow your eyes back at him because you already know he’s about to start something. “I hate when you look at me like that,” would get answered with a dumbfounded “Wha– I’m not doing anything!” before you’d both be smiling as you lied through your teeth, fuck, Joe loves it so much.

He loves that he can just look at you for long enough and watch the suspicion slowly appear on your face.

He loves that he can give you a quiet, “Bet you can’t,” and know that whatever sensible decision you were about to make has immediately gone out the window.

He loves to tell you that you’re wrong when he doesn’t even necessarily think you are, just because he likes the way your whole face changes when you prepare to argue with him.

He loves it.

Loves you.

But everything’s got a boundary. Everything’s got a ‘too much’.

Joe’s realising that you’ve gone from a very light-hearted ‘You can’t make me like you’ to a little more serious ‘You can’t make me give in’ to now a much more worrying ‘You can’t know all of me.’ Why? He doesn’t get it. They’re slightly the same thing, all of it rooted in your stubborn nature and Joe’s love of challenging that, but they’re wearing different clothes, and you don’t like this particular outfit.

Joe doesn’t even want to prove you wrong anymore.

He just wants you to know that he pays attention, and he knows that this a good thing. It’s what happens when someone cares about you, when you see each other a lot, when you spend a lot of time together like people in relationships do.

Why don’t you see it as a good thing?

Why do you care so much about keeping all your hidden parts from him?

Joe will easily share all of himself with you, no problem. Even the ugly parts. Maybe especially the ugly parts, actually. Get those out of the way quick so that you at least know what you’re getting yourself into.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter.

Joe knows all of you.

Joe thinks he knows all of you anyway. He’s just observant, it’s not magic.

And, hey.

You are totally allowed to think that you’re good at hiding yourself, if that makes you feel better. Joe can play along if that’s what you really want. If being thoughtful annoys you, he’ll be less of it. He’s used to noticing, adjusting, anticipating, and reaching, all because he cares. But apparently, you’re convinced that his caring is hurting you, so, fine.

He’ll stop.

There’s no battle here.

Only one soldier is still fighting, and she’s making herself look like an idiot.

An idiot who wants to celebrate that she’s now right in the middle of her notice period after quitting her job with the rest of her friends on a Friday night. Your one-word question into the groupchat got a bunch of responding thumbs up emojis, the usual way it went, and so you find yourself in a pub, on a Friday night, with all your favourite people.

It’s a bit busier than usual. Every conversation around the table requires an extra ten per cent of effort, everyone leaning forward a bit more than they usually would, elbows pressed into sticky wood, voices lifted over the bursts of laughter from other groups.

It’s loud.

Warm, as well.

Your jacket is slung over the back of your chair and it keeps slipping, so every couple of minutes you have to twist in your seat to save it from touching the floor. After the fourth time, you fold it over your lap instead, something you immediately regret because now you’re too warm, but placing it somewhere else would mean asking two people to move, so, it’s fine.

Not worth the hassle.

You’ll deal with it.

Joe’s sat beside you, close enough that your knees could touch if either of you shifted slightly. His chair’s angled towards the table instead of towards you though, and most of his attention has been with the conversation happening across from him for the past ten minutes.

Which is fine, obviously.

There are other people here. He’s allowed to speak to them. These are his friends too, and you don’t need him attached to your side every second of every evening. You don’t even want that. You’re not one of those couples who become a single unit the second they enter a room, speaking for each other and never sitting more than four inches apart.

It’s good that you’re not like that.

Healthy.

You take a sip of your drink and glance sideways just as Joe laughs at something someone else says. His head tips back slightly as both his eyes squeeze shut, and his arm presses briefly into yours before he naturally shifts away again.

You don’t think anything of it, but you notice it anyway.

Joe had asked what you wanted to drink when he went up to the bar earlier.

That was… weird. Weird enough that you’re still thinking about it now. He hadn’t just gone to get your usual.

He’d asked what you wanted…

You’d paused for maybe a second too long before you’d answered him, and Joe had simply nodded and repeated the order back to you before disappearing into the crowd.

No teasing. No silly ‘don’t tell me, let me guess’, and no smug eyebrow wiggle when he got it right. Just a simple question and a neutral answer.

When he returned, he handed the drink over without comment and sat down again.

Normal.

You’re not quite sure why it’s on your mind still, all you know is that, it is.

And, yea. It’s true that you wanted Joe to stop acting as though he could predict every thought before it had properly formed inside your own head. It’s true that you wanted him to allow you the dignity of saying what you needed rather than having it quietly placed in front of you before you’d even realised you needed it.

So, this was good, actually.

It was respectful.

It’s Joe doing what you’d asked for, and you should just appreciate it for what it is.

You’re finding that you don’t, because you’re a big bitch apparently, but that’s probably just because the past week has been strange anyway.

You quit your job.

That’s a fairly major shift, and you’re allowed to feel a little unsettled by it all, even when you’re still entirely certain it was the right decision.

You are certain.

You are.

Really.

Shut up, you really are!

Someone at the table asks whether you’ve started looking for another job yet, and you give the vague non-answer you’ve perfected over the last few days.

“Sort of. I’ve looked.”

“That means no,” Izzy says from a couple seat over, and you throw her a look.

“It means I’ve looked.”

“Have you applied to anything?”

“I’ve only just left.”

“So no.”

You roll your eyes, but there’s no real irritation behind it. Izzy’s mostly worried you won’t be able to cough up your half the rent at some point, which you understand, but isn’t something you think will actually happen, so Izzy can calm down. “I’m just taking a minute.”

“Good,” one of your friends says. “You should, you really were miserable working in that hellscape.”

“Thank you.”

“Although that doesn’t mean take six months…”

“Come on, she’ll get a job before then.”

“You think? Job market’s awful at the minute, isn’t it?”

“She could do something else, see if another function suits better? Now’s the time to figure that out.”

The conversation carries itself away from you, and before it drifts out of reach entirely, you bring it back with a jokingly stressed out, “Can everyone stop acting like I’ve never been employed before?” which gets some laughs.

“Well, you’re the one who quit without another job lined up,” Izzy says, and you know she doesn’t have any malicious intent. You know she’s your best mate and she likes you and she’s just worried, she’s feeling stressed for you and for herself, you know this. You understand she’s not being mean to just be mean.

But, still.

Doesn’t feel great.

You reach for your drink again and take a deliberately long sip, mostly to avoid answering her and saying something you’ll regret later, and you notice Joe doesn’t step in

He’s not outwardly agreeing or disagreeing with anyone.

No, hey-shut-up-she’ll-be-fine, and also no, yea-that’s-what-i-said. Not even a joke about how you finally have the time to become his full-time live-in personal assistant now.

Nothing.

He just sits there and listens whilst his fingers slowly turn his glass against the table as he watches the condensation smear beneath it.

You wait for long enough that it starts to feel like you’re waiting, and then you catch yourself and you stop. You shouldn’t expect these things from Joe, it’s not fair.

Luckily, someone changes the subject, and the evening carries on, and it’s all fine.

When someone gets two packets of crisps and rips them open in the middle of the table to share, you find that they’re just out of easy reach. Normally, Joe would notice you looking, and then he’d move it. Just slide one over a bit closer so you can grab a few, or he’d take a few himself and hold one in front of your mouth until you’d bite.

Tonight, he doesn’t do any of those things.

You stare at your friends who keep grabbing little handfuls before you decide to nudge Joe’s shoulder.

“Mm?”

You nod towards what you mean, and Joe looks and then smiles.

“You want some?” he asks, not at all smugly. Just kind. Nice.

“Yes please.” you pretend to be a little embarrassed and shy, hide behind a giggle, and let Joe proceed to feed you from his fingers. He turns it into a bit, pulling his fingers away just as you’re about to bite down a couple of times. Then, instead of feeding you just one, he the tries to cram a whole handful into your mouth, and you’re both laughing as the broken pieces fall into your lap. Joe has a crisp himself, and you get a salty kiss pressed to your cheek.

Play.

You’re still smiling as you pick the crumbs from your top and decide Joe’s just not really paying much attention tonight. It’s a bit annoying, because you’d rather he was ignoring you on purpose. At least then there’d be something to push back against. He’s just being normal.

But then, something peculiar happens.

You shift in your chair to let the rest of the crumbs fall to the floor, and your knee bumps into his.

Joe glances down at the contact and then moves his leg slightly aside to give you more room.

It makes you pause for a second as you stare down at this new gap of space.

Was… was there a reason to move his leg?

You hadn’t complained, had you?

Hadn’t looked uncomfortable… had you?

Stop.

It’s only a knee.

Jesus.

You’d just decided he just wasn’t paying attention, can you calm down for a second?!

As the evening stretches on, people move seats whenever someone goes to the toilet or heads to the bar. The group casually reshuffles the way it always does until Izzy ends up next to Joe and you’re across from them, trapped between two friends discussing someone’s recent terrible date. You’ve moved back in your seat to not block their conversation, but you’re only half listening to what they’re saying. The other half of your attention keeps returning to what’s happening across from you.

Izzy and Joe are quietly talking, heads slightly inclined toward each other so they don’t have to shout. Joe’s expression has turned more serious than it’s been all evening, and Izzy’s listening intently.

You try not to stare.

Joe’s allowed to have private conversations.

Even if it’s with your best friend slash flatmate and she’s heavily frowning at what he’s saying.

You try your best to focus in on the date story that you’re sat right in the middle of again, just in time to hear something about a man trying to split the cost of a train ticket.

“That’s okay, isn’t it?” you say automatically, trying to join in. Blend into this chat, like you’ve been mentally a part of it the whole time.

Except after you’ve spoken, they both fall silent and just look at you.

“What?”

“Why would she pay for his transport to the restaurant?”

“Oh.” Shit. You really hadn’t been listening. “No. Yea, no. You’re right. Sorry, yea. That’s insane.”

The story continues.

You’re a bad friend.

There’s a lesson you should’ve learnt just now, but you can’t help let your eyes drift back to the other side of the table. Izzy’s talking now, but the noise of the pub swallows most of it. You catch only the end of Joe’s response, words he says whilst sitting up in his chair with both eyebrows raised up high.

“…she needs to figure this out on her own.”

Izzy looks at him for a second and then leans in a bit more, frowning a bit deeper, and you think she says, “I fear she’s going to need a hand.”

Joe’s mouth pulls slightly to one side, and you see how he looks over the top of Izzy’s head at the rest of the group. He makes eye-contact with someone and smiles at them, signalling to Izzy that the conversation is over, finishing their chat with, “She won’t take mine.”

You feel like you’ve just been slapped across the face. Even though you’ve no idea what they’re really talking about, you take this personally, and you can feel whatever’s left of your good mood drain from your body.

What the fuck is their problem?!

You asked everyone to come out to celebrate you moving on with your life from this crappy job. Onto better things. Could they be your friends, maybe? Kind and nice and understanding of the situation and just, be happy for you? For just one evening?

Izzy glances your way. It’s quick. You notice by the way she straightens up that she knows you heard.

Joe follows her eyes and catches yours, but his face doesn’t change. There’s no guilt there, nor any panic. He doesn’t look like he’s been caught discussion something cruel or secretive. He looks… well, he actually looks a little sad. Tired, maybe.

You raise your eyebrows at him, an unspoken everything-okay across the table.

He gives you the smallest I’m-fine shrug and a nod.

For some reason the exclusion annoys you so much that you immediately look away. Then, you pick up your drink with slightly more force than necessary and finish what’s left.

“I’m getting another,” you announce to no one in particular.

For a second, you wait for Joe to tell you that you’ve already had enough to make the next morning an unpleasant one. Or for him to tell you he’d get you your next drink and he’d come back with a pint of tap water. Or, and this was always the best option, for him to get up and go with you. You would get a bit handsy at the bar whilst you waited. Or he’d slip a hand into your pocket to steal your bank card before he’d lick the back of it to stick it to his forehead, pretending it wasn’t there when he spoke to bar staff.

There’s so many options, and yet none of them happen.

Tonight, he says nothing. Just gives you a quick polite smile and doesn’t even really watch as you walk away from the group.

At the bar, you order another drink and consider ordering an extra shot out of sheer spite.

You don’t, because you don’t actually want one… but the thought’s there, and that means something, you think.

By the time you return, someone’s taken your chair and nobody immediately moves. There’s an empty seat at the end of the table, but, there’s also space beside Joe now.

He glances up and with an entirely straight blank face he asks, “Want to sit here?”

Want to.

Like you’re a guest.

Like he hasn’t spent months reaching for your waist and pulling you sideways into him whenever you’d been left standing.

You look at the empty space. You’re standing beside the chair at the end, and you’d have to cross several seats to get to him, so your choice is quick and easy.

You sit down right where you’re standing.

Joe watches you for half a second, then turns back to whoever’s speaking.

You don’t know what you expected.

That’s a lie. You know exactly what you expected. You expected for him to insist. For him to make a jokingly sad face before tracing a tear down his cheek with a finger.

Why wasn’t he jokingly guilt-tripping you into sitting on his lap? Why wasn’t he threatening to tickle you after you’d insist you weren’t ticklish, only for you to crease in on yourself at the slightest touch of Joe’s fingers to your side?

God, what’s his fucking problem tonight?

Another 15 minutes pass when Izzy suddenly announces she’s leaving. She does it with a yawn large enough to make her eyes water as she reaches for her jacket. Her gaze finds you as she pushes her arms into the sleeves, and for one hopeful stupid second, you think she might ask if you’re coming too.

But that’s not what happens.

“Don’t wake me up when you get in tomorrow morning,” she tells you instead.

You jokingly gasp and scoff, “I never do.”

“Yea you always do.” She leans down and kisses your cheek before you can properly argue. “Bye!”

Then she says goodbye to everyone else, gives Joe a slightly longer look than necessary and leaves.

You watch her go, and feel a strange shift at ‘home’ no longer being an option tonight. You’ll go back with Joe, which is actually fine. You’d sort of assumed you would anyway. You didn’t bring anything with you, but that’s not a problem. There’s a toothbrush at his, clothes in one of his drawers, your skincare in his bathroom and an extra charger on his bedside table. You could probably survive there for a week without planning for it.

There’s a sweet level of comfort there, you think.

The evening carries on, and a couple of pints turns into more pints turn into a lot of pints. You find yourself laughing more the more drinks you’re having, and when you end up next to Joe after another reshuffling of chairs, his knee doesn’t move away when it touches yours.

See?

Everything’s fine.

You’d just been overthinking.

Joe’s allowed to change his behaviour slightly without it meaning anything, people do that. People have moods, and thoughts, and things going on that aren’t always about you, you know?

You lean closer when someone shows a video on their phone, and Joe’s hand briefly lands on your lower back when he also wants to see what’s happening.

There.

Normal.

You take another sip and decide you were being insane before.

When the evening starts winding down a little and people start checking their phones a bit more often, you catch Joe checking the time. You see it, because you’re actively watching him. Maybe that’s not normal, but, you’ve had a few and he’s very handsome, so you think you should be let off the hook.

“Right,” he says, pushing his chair back slightly. “I’m going to head off.”

You blink.

Did you hear that correctly?

“Already?” someone who was keen to take this party to a club next asks.

“Yea, got an early morning tomorrow.”

You slowly lean back in your seat and narrow your eyes at him. Joe doesn’t look back immediately because he’s reaching underneath the table for his jacket, but you’re frowning at him anyway. Joe’s got an early morning? Why? What early morning? Tomorrow’s Saturday. You didn’t know about an early morning.

You obviously know and understand that you don’t need to be informed of every detail of Joe’s schedule. You’re not his secretary. But he keeps a white board calendar in his kitchen that you have a nosey at every time you’re over and… what is he talking about, early morning?

You wait for him to look over and say something.

Come on then.

You ready?

We should go.

You get fucking nothing.

Joe pulls his coat on, checks his phone, says goodbye to someone who squeezes past him to go to the toilets. You pay extra close attention when someone asks what he’s doing tomorrow, but all he does is give a vague answer about a general meeting, something work related, and you try to remember if he’s told you before. If you’ve simply missed it.

Joe buttons his coat and looks around the table.

“All right, see you everybody.”

Everybody.

You’ve been grouped in with everybody.

Another friend.

Another person at the table he’s saying goodbye to before going home.

You look at him, waiting for something different, expecting something different. He’s already taken a step away from the table when you make eye-contact, and then he quickly steps back, smiles softly and leans down.

You automatically tip your face up, expecting a kiss on the forehead or on your cheek because everyone’s watching, but Joe kisses you right on the mouth. You try to not think of all the prying eyes as one of Joe’s hands briefly cups the side of your neck. You can feel his smile before you see it when he pulls back.

“See you soon, yea?”

You don’t know what that means, soon. Tomorrow? Sunday? Next week? Some vague point in the future when your schedules eventually line up?

But you smile and nod.

“Okay.”

Joe gives your neck one last squeeze, says goodbye again, and walks out. Before he’s out of sight, you’ve already made sense of it. This is not a big deal. You hadn’t discussed going home together, you’d just assumed, and you’d assumed wrong.

Hey.

It happens.

You’re only human.

You do feel strangely excluded though, a little sulky which deeply embarrasses you, because Joe’s not done anything wrong. He’d just kissed you goodbye in front of everyone; you haven’t been rejected at all. So you square your shoulders, act like you don’t feel rejected, hide how think something feels a little off, and down the rest of your drink.

The lone journey home gives you too much time to think, though. It’s not far, but it’s long enough for your mood to sink with every stop. You’ve gone back and forth on if Joe has been a bit of a dick to you tonight or not. You’ve settled on that he was. You feel bad, and that’s not for no reason, so, he must have been.

You don’t like it.

You also don’t like how the other day, he asked you how you wanted your coffee. And that he asked if you’re okay sleeping on the left side of the bed like that’s not where you had been sleeping all along. And then, Joe also had the audacity to ask you how you were and you’d said you were fine, but you’d said it on a sigh, which meant you obviously weren’t fine, but he’d just accepted what you said and then popped a film on in which a dog dies.

He made you watch a dog die when you already weren’t feeling great.

That’s a classic dick move if you’ve ever heard of one.

You don’t like how Joe’s acting like he doesn’t know you at all. Like everything’s up for question, in state of total doubt.

You like that Joe knows how you like your coffee. You like that he knows you like sleeping on the left side of his bed so he’s got to climb over you to get to the door. You like that he knows you’re lying when you tell him you’re fine, and that he’ll ask again a bit softer because he doesn’t trust it.

That’s all very surface level though. You’re aware that none of those things are the real issue.

The issue is the bits you don’t give him.

All the private bits you haven’t offered.

You don’t mind Joe knowing the parts of you that you place carefully in front of him on a silver platter, obviously. You’ve been friends for a long time, so there’s been a lot of, here, take this, you can know this. I like this food. I hate this song. My feet get cold easily. I want to be held in the middle of a supermarket when I feel tired.

All of those things are fine, they’re yours to give. You chose them to showcase.

Choice.

Control.

You want to be the one who decides when Joe gets something, which door he gets to open when, which rooms he’s allowed into at what time. That’s not so bad, is it? That’s just privacy and boundaries, normal healthy things for people to have, you think. Except, now Joe’s acting like he needs a signed permission slip before he even gets close to touching a doorhandle. He’s giving you so much room, you’ve started feeling like you’re stood alone in it now, it’s ridiculous.

The train jolts, and your shoulder bumps against the side.

You suddenly feel how your eyes sting, and you blink hard to quickly make it stop. You’re just tired. The pub was warm, the train’s dry, you’ve had more than a few drinks… you’re absolutely not crying because your boyfriend went home without you.

He’s overdoing it. He’s being an annoying little bitch boy over it who doesn’t want to exist in the nuance of what you want, but choses this weird black and white version where it’s all or nothing and he’s a dick for it.

You’re going to tell Izzy that.

You’re going to walk in, find her already in bed or half asleep on the sofa, and tell her that Joe’s being a dick. You’ll tell her he’s taken the whole thing too literally, and Izzy will agree because she knows him and she knows you, and even if she doesn’t agree, she’ll still understand what you mean. She’ll let you sit at the end of her bed and complain.

Though, maybe… maybe she’ll tell you that you’re the one that started it.

She probably will, actually.

But then she’ll also say Joe should know better.

Which will prove your point, so that’s fine.

Except, when you turn the key and open the door, the first thing you notice is that the lights are still on. Not the big ceiling lights, but the warm lamps in the living room that make the place look extra cosy.

When you walk further inside, the second thing you notice is that there’s two drinks on the coffee table.

The third thing you notice is, a man.

There is a man on your sofa.

There is a man sat on your sofa with one arm stretched over the back of it, turned slightly toward Izzy who is sat beside him with her legs tucked underneath her.

They’re close.

They’re very close.

The second you step into the room, both their heads turn to look at you.

You look at the both of them with wet eyes, a red nose, and the facial expression of a girl who’s just walked into the mensroom and didn’t realise until she saw a man unzip his jeans right in front of her.

For a moment, nobody speaks.

“Hi,” you eventually say.

The man says, “Hello,” at the exact same time Izzy says your name.

“I-I…. sorry, I’ll– sorry, just,” you step back into the hallway and want to close the door, but before you can shut it, Izzy’s up on her feet.

You can see her eyes move over your face, and you’re sure it’s obvious that you’ve been rubbing at your eyes for the entire journey home. She looks a bit shocked to see you, but steps into the hallway with you and closes the door behind her.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interru– I didn’t know you had someone over, I thought–” you realise that she planned this. This is a date she planned and didn’t tell you about. She waited for the two of you to go out, then left early, lit some candles, and invited a man over because she’d have the flat all to herself, and, “I’ll just, I’m just going to be–” you point to your bedroom door, but Izzy cuts you off with big worried eyes that swim with confusion and asks the obvious question.

“Why aren’t you over at Joe’s?”

You stare at her for a moment.

Yea.

Good question...

---

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