THEN AGAIN • TC ✔️

9. Just a Slight Error

In the last week of November, Clem comes home on Friday night to find Timmy on the sofa, feet tucked underneath him, blanket round his shoulders, with a bowl of something that smells suspiciously like apple crumble.

(And she's in a bad mood anyway because she got halfway through making the mashed potatoes and realised that there were hardly enough potatoes to mash, so she had to trek out in the cold to go and get some. Plus, things have not been going well today. All of her clients have been upset and she knows that it's kind of her job to listen to upset people but sometimes she wishes that one of them could at least be mildly happy.)

But the thing that gets to Clem the most is that in the time it's taken her to go and get more potatoes, Timmy has come home, found the crumble on top of the oven with the note on it that specifically says don't eat in capital letters, and has decided that it would be a fucking nonpareil idea to eat it.

"Tim, what's that?" she asks, shutting the door behind her with a huge thud. Timmy looks up from his bowl, looks up from the screen.

"Some antiques show, I don't know," he shrugs. Glances at the TV and then back down at his phone.

"No, in the bowl," she says sternly, and Timmy's face splits into a huge grin.

"Oh, crumble," he says. Smiles. "It's really good."

"It's good, is it?" she asks, raising her brows at him with as much anger as she can muster (which is not a lot because it would take something really, really bad for her to get angry at Timmy). His smile falters.

"Yeah, it's really nice," he nods fervently. "Why, did y-"

"I fucking told you not to eat it, Timmy!" she sighs, tugging her hat off her head and hanging up her coat. There's no immediate reply and she glances over at him.

Timmy looks crestfallen. Like a deer in the headlights, eyes wide, mouth quivering uncertainly.

Clem wants to hug him and she hates it. She stomps over to the kitchen, to the dish of crumble which is still sitting on top of the oven, a little portion dug out of the corner with a serving spoon.

"You got rid of the note?" she asks icily.

"There was no note!" Timmy replies earnestly, looking appalled. He sits up properly. Tucks his phone between the couch cushions. "I swear, I don't- what?"

He looks so horribly upset with himself that Clem wants to cry in frustration. "There was a note, Timmy! I put it there! It said do not eat. In capital letters. What part of that didn't you get?"

His lips open and close like a little fish. He stutters, stumbles over words that haven't even left his mouth yet. Clem goes over to the trash, opens the lid, but she can't see anything. No crumpled paper, no little shreds of evidence.

"I didn't mean to," he protests, cupping the bowl in his hands like it's going to protect him from something. From her. "It's just crumble." It's a last resort, mumbled quietly. Clem's not sure if she was supposed to hear it.

"Oh my fucking God, you're insufferable," she tells him, and she doesn't think that at all. Not for one second. But she's just so annoyed and Timmy looks like that, and she watches as his face drops in dismay. Watches, her expression blank and annoyed and just a mask to hide everything she wants to tell him.

Timmy is still gaping a little, but his lips are closer together now and he looks genuinely sad. He stumbles to his feet, the blanket still draped haphazardly around his shoulders, and pads his way over to the kitchen. Holds his bowl out in front of him in a silent gesture, and Clem realises that there can't be more than two bites taken out of it.

"I don't want it now, do I?" she scoffs, rolling her eyes. "Look, can you just go? I've got to-" she doesn't finish her sentence, already tumbling the bag of potatoes into the sink so she can scrub them.

Timmy nods. Puts the crumble back on the counter, and Clem wants to tell him that he can finish it now he's started it. (Wants to tell him that she's not mad about the crumble, she's just mad about everything and mad at herself and mad at the fact that she can never seem to work out why Timmy makes her feel the way he does.)

But Timmy is traipsing away before she can even get the words out, his blanket looking too big for his indignant, squared shoulders. For his droopy little head.

Clem scrubs so hard at the potatoes that the skin starts to peel off. She boils them. Starts on the meatballs. Makes enough for Timmy, because she might be angry at him (pretending she's angry at him) but he's still going to be hungry. Because when he's hungry, he gets grumpy, and grumpy Timmy is cute until he turns into snappy Timmy. (But then snappy Timmy turns into soft Timmy, and Clem likes him possibly more than all the others). Because she might be annoyed at him, but Timmy is still human and two bites of apple crumble is not going to be enough to keep him going through the evening.

Nick arrives and the conversation starts up and when their food is ready, he comes over to the kitchen. Clem feels his eyes on the third bowl of meatballs and mash and gravy and sauce and wilted kale.

"He's not eating with us, is he?" Nick asks, circling his arms around her waist, his chin on her shoulder. He presses a deep kiss to the base of her neck and Clem's whole body flares up. (She hasn't had sex in like three months, and even then it was quiet and unsatisfying because she spent the whole time worrying that Timmy could hear her. When she gets off nowadays, it's a quick affair, very modest, because for some reason she still thinks Timmy will hear. There could be no one else in their apartment, no one else in the whole semi-detached, and she would still be terrified of him knowing what she sounds like when she comes.)

"No, I'm just making him a plate for later," she says quietly. Puts less kale on Timmy's than on hers, because he doesn't really like kale but always eats it because it's green and it's healthy and Clem makes him.

"You're like his mom," Nick snorts, and Clem gives him a non-committal hum. (Because sometimes, when she's folding Timmy's laundry or doing his washing up or letting him fall asleep on her lap, she feels more like a convenience than a companion. Sometimes she feels like Timmy only sees her as a maternal figure, a platonic fount of clean socks and washing up liquid and warm hugs.

But then he'll do something, say something, that completely throws her out of kilter and then she'll be right back where she was before. Just as confused. Just as lonely. Just as likely to throw caution to the wind and kiss him as she is to start scrubbing ink stains out of his shirts.)

"He gets on fine without me," she says wisely. "I guess we all need a bit of looking after," Clem replies, and it wasn't supposed to sound like that but Nick smirks at her. Kisses the top of her head and takes his plate to the table.

(Clem was sort of hoping they'd eat at the couch again. There's something so formal, so bland, about eating with a knife and fork and putting cutlery down in between bites, something that she never gets with Timmy because they always eat on the couch, feet almost meeting in the middle. Always watch TV and laugh at each other and fall asleep on their respective ends until one of them decides that maybe they really should go to bed. Always part ways when they get to their rooms and there's always a part of Clem that hopes he'll ask her to stay.)

Clem debates taking Timmy's food to him in his room, but she's still marginally annoyed with him, so she covers it with cling film and leaves it in the fridge. He can come and get it later.

Then she goes and sits with Nick at the table and he talks and she listens and it's good. It's okay.

(But he's not Timmy and she feels bad forwishing that he was.)