LOVEHATE

26

We walked to my apartment in silence. I wanted him to hold my hand, but maybe that wasn't the direction we were headed. It felt like perhaps we were, but our entire relationship had always been so backwards. There was definitely a tension between us. Almost an electric current. As our feet crunched the dry fall leaves on the sidewalk, I enjoyed the charged feeling Shawn Mendes gave me. We'd had it before, but I didn't realize I'd missed it until he was close to me again.

I let us into the apartment and hung up our jackets on the row of hooks on the wall.

"Coffee?" I asked as I went in the kitchen to switch on the Keurig.

"That would be perfect," he replied as he took a seat on the beat-up couch.

I made us each a mug, remembering how he took his coffee from when he'd come to Ottawa. His was black and mine was sweet and light. I handed him his coffee before sitting down next to him.

"So where do we start?" I asked, feeling both excited and nervous, but hoping my voice sounded calm.

"Let's start with how you miss me," he answered with a twinkle on his eye.

"What makes you think I miss you?" I asked, a bit taken aback by his cockiness.

He took a long sip of coffee before answering. "You wrote that as a comment on one of my Instagram posts."

My jaw dropped. "You saw that?"

"Yep. And it made my day. It's also why I sent you that first text about wanting more."

"I wrote that comment months ago. If you saw it and it made you happy, why did you wait so long text?" I asked.

"I wanted to wait until I saw you in person to get a feel for where we stood, and that didn't happen until the Halloween party."

"And we ended up arguing," I said sadly.

"Yeah, but we also had a decent conversation," he countered, "which was why I sent it. I saw that we had potential to get along like regular people do."

That was true. It had probably been the easiest talk we'd ever had. I'd replayed it over and over in my head.

"Can you explain your text to me?" I asked. I felt slightly giddy knowing I might finally learn what he meant by more and encouraged by what he'd said so far.

Shawn set his coffee cup down and took my free hand in both of his. "You said that if we became friends, it would make our relationship into more. That's what I want, Sadie. I want more."

"You want to be friends?" I asked, hoping this wasn't all he was suggesting.

"No. More."

His repeated use of that word was both infuriating and exciting.

"But you see other women."

"You're preoccupied with that idea. Does it bother you that much?" he asked, frowning.

I didn't want to be honest with him about this, but if we were trying, I knew I needed to be.

"Yeah, actually it does bother me. I don't like to think that I was just one of any number of women you regularly fucked."

He hesitated for a long moment before saying anything. "I'm not seeing anyone. In fact, I haven't had sex with another woman since I first had sex with you."

I stared at him. "That's a lie. You told me that you fucked Allie the night after I first showed up at your condo!"

"No, that was a lie. I told you that to make you jealous at the bar. And it worked. That night, after you left, I told Allie I was fucking you. She stormed off and I never saw her again."