English Rose - liam gallagher fic

39. both sides now

"Archie," I whined the next morning, slumping out of my bedroom and down the corridor in dressing gown and slippers. "Is kettle on?"

"Yeah duck, what's up?" He sat on the couch with his feet propped up on the coffee table in sports shorts, a t-shirt and flip flops.

We had a picture hung up by the door of us in almost identical outfits to what we were wearing now. Our mornings were highly ritualistic by now, of those where we could get one in together. We would wake up between 7-8am, wait till we could hear the other get up to put the kettle on and have a cig out the window and coffee on the couch over Richard and Judy.

"I nearly did something bad last night," I groaned, before starting to laugh in disbelief with myself. Although I could believe it - sleeping with Marcus last night would not have been so far out of character for me. I was hurt and angry with Graham and I had kind of talked myself into a realisation of why have I been treating him with such unwavering loyalty for the past sixth months or so when we had barely gone further than a one night stand? I wasn't even entirely sure that he had been doing the same.

"Oh god," Archie said, but he didn't even have to hide the excited smile on his face at the prospect on some embarrassing gossip I've inflicted upon myself.

"So, I got to the agency offices last night ready to leave," I started, and delved into the story of being chaperoned by Marcus and how infuriating but sexy he was, and how awkward our meeting with Blur was and how Graham completely avoided that I was there all night. "I wanted to sleep with him so badly."

"You're not normally one to show self-restraint," he laughed and I felt my cheeks burn with embarrassment and I held a hand up my face. "How did you end up in your own bed?"

"Well," I sighed, not wanting to relive the moments that followed once we re-entered into the main room. "I caught him proper eye-fucking me, and I already found him absolutely insane and I was pissed off with Graham so I was like 'fuck it!' and asked him what he was looking at.

"He told me he needs to take me home, I said let's go somewhere else, and then, listen to this," I slapped Archie's leg, as I prepared to repeat the most pulse-raising thing he had said to me all night. "He went, 'I would fucking love to, but if we both want to keep our jobs in the morning I better just take you home.' Archie I wanted to scream."

"What? And that was it?" His mouth dropped open, understanding the almost impossible allure of Marcus' words. The other thing about the two of us in since moving into the flat was that we had become complete rom-com saddos, addicted to the appeal of cheesy lines of passion and hopeless romance.

"Well, we got in the same taxi," I said, and tried to recall the taxi ride. Images flashed in my brain of us bickering in the taxi rank, more flirting in the taxi, him muttering in my ear with his face buried in my hair, hand on my thigh creeping up to the hem of my skirt.

"Anything happen there?" I froze. I actually couldn't rule that out with the scattered memories I had. But I was sure we didn't kiss. I wasn't too drunk, but a lot had happened last night, and in my half-asleep state this morning, the end was still hazy.

"Maybe," I said, pulling my lips to one side. "But I don't think we kissed like at all and it's unlikely for me to being doing anything more if we hadn't."

"What about Graham then?" He asked, taking a sip of his coffee, and that kickstarted my brain to pour some water in the half made coffee I had prepared in the bee mug on the counter that I had gotten out at the start of our conversation. "Is he old news?"

"I hope not," I said, honestly. "It was weird between us before anything weird between Marcus and I happened. But obviously he was there and I don't think the way I was acting with Marcus would have helped anything."