Bad Decisions - Alex Turner

6. Meeting Place

  We agreed to meet up at a café. Which was good because it created boundaries. My house wasn't a pit stop anymore. Christian had stayed over but he'd been quite distant after Alex's visit, maybe it's because I was too wrapped up in my own thoughts, he woke up early and was showering when I got up and looked for him. We hadn't shared a bed in awhile so it was comforting to finally be able to fall asleep in his arms.

  "I've gotta go but I'll tell you what's happening with the dinner," he told me as he tossed on his coat to leave. "Come over tonight," he said, "got the day off tomorrow."

I smiled as I followed him down the hall to the front door. He didn't know that I was meeting a stranger that day. "You're lucky I don't have any classes tomorrow," I said, walking around in one of his shirts despite how cold the house was. It smelt like him, like home.

"I love you," he smiled down at me, placing a hand on my hip and the other beneath my chin, tilting my face up to him. Just hearing him say that made everything better.

"I love you too," I grinned and kissed him slowly, the warmth of his lips were always the hardest goodbye.

"Mmm, I'm gonna miss you," he hummed, pulling back with a smile and licking his lips. He was great at telling me everything I wanted to hear when he was in a good mood. Great at making all my worries about him disappear when he was being lovely but terrible from stopping them from arising later on.

Alex had gotten my number through Matt from all the calls we made whenever Alex would show up drunk at mine. He promised me he was going to be sober in a way that made me assume he had a good sense of humour. Butterflies bloomed in my stomach as my nerves bubbled away at the thought of meeting him. I was almost shaking with nervousness. I always got anxious when meeting people, parties, social events and so on. I would be fine once there but the lead up of anticipation ate me up inside.

  I had that whole dilemma of "what should I wear?" "is this the right thing to be doing?" nothing out of the usual. I briefly felt as though I was betraying Christian for going out to meet up with another man but both Saorise and Jackson assured me that I wasn't.

  "Have you told him?" Saorise asked during our brief phone call.

  "No not yet, I'm worried he'll get mad," I said, chewing on my bottom lip. "We've been going good recently and I don't wanna ruin things again."

  "Well he can't get mad it's like you eating lunch with Jackson, just a friend," Saorise said, "hell, this Alex guy is just an acquaintance really."

  "Maybe I should just say I can't," I said quickly. My nerves eating me up. I hated meeting new people on my own. And technically I'd met Alex before but it still felt the same. I just had this fear of embarrassing myself that I couldn't shake.

  "Why?" Saorise asked.

  "I don't really wanna go anymore," I said, looking at myself in the mirror and hating what I saw.

  "Okay but it's not like it's a date, who cares if it goes to shit? He just wants to apologise that's all, you guys don't even need to speak to each other after this," Saorise said.

  I hadn't thought of it that way. For some reason I just assumed that I'd become a friend of Alex's. "I know," I said in response, "You're right, it's nothing, I'll tell you how it goes." I decided I'd tell Christian later that night at dinner.

  I found myself laughing to myself as I walked down the street towards our chosen meeting place. Laughing because of how ridiculous it sounded when I laid out the event in my head. I was going to an apology rain check lunch with a man who had shown up drunk at my house every weekend for the past month. Who does things like this? I laugh at my life a lot.

  I probably looked insane to anyone I passed, laughing to myself and trying to hide it because all I had was me to amuse myself. When I reached the cafe I went to grab a table when I heard my name being called out.