Chapter 3-3
718 Words
He spent most of the evening in Rachel’s flat watching TV with her and criticising her taste in actors until his phone rang.
“Boyfriend,” he said, flashing her the caller ID, and then, “Hey Jayden,” before he’d even gotten off the sofa.
“Night, Darren,” Rachel called after him; he waved over his shoulder and closed the door of his flat behind him as Jayden asked who he’d heard.
“Rachel. Neighbour,” he said. “How’re you?”
“I have like four essays already.”
“It’s been a week!”
“I know!” Jayden whined. “I have four essays, I don’t even know what the last one means because I swear, Darren, I swear that if you’re going to call Shakespeare up for misogyny, Othello isn’t the play to do it in because there’s like one scene of banter and then all the other issues come forward, and…”
Darren dropped onto his bed, clamping the phone between his right shoulder and his ear as he worked his trousers off. Might as well get ready for bed while Jayden rambled; it was half ten already, and tomorrow’s training session started at eight.
“…and Leah’s trying to get me to join the hockey club but I can’t do drama and hockey and actually pass this degree, because this is insane, I’m thinking maybe…”
Darren hummed in the right places as he rummaged for his squeeze ball that the physiotherapist had given him, and flopped back onto the bed with it, crushing it and releasing it again in a slow rhythm. The damaged muscles in his shoulder protested, but not too sharply tonight. They were adjusting to the job and the hefting kit around pretty well, all things considered. Maybe he should start boxing or something, really tone them up.
“Are you even listening to me?”
“Yeah,” Darren said, “but I didn’t think I was really needed for your ranting.”
Jayden laughed, and Darren smiled at the ceiling, his chest aching suddenly with a pain that wasn’t physical at all. “I miss you,” Jayden murmured lowly. “I couldn’t sleep on Saturday night. The bed was cold.”
“You complained endlessly that I was a furnace and you hated sleeping with me, and now you’re complaining that you’re cold?”
Jayden huffed. “Stop arguing and just say something nice.”
“Like what?”
“Darren.”
“Fine.” Darren caved. “I miss you too. When I’m not asleep or trying to remember why I took this job.”
Jayden’s voice dropped. “You’re not liking it?”
“I’m liking it fine,” Darren said, “but it’s tiring and the volume crime instructor’s an arsehole. Wants me to shave my head.”
“No,” Jayden said instantly.
“I’m not going to,” Darren said. “I trimmed it…”
“Darren!”
“…but it’s still…what did you call it?”
“Fluffy.”
Darren groaned; Jayden offered a breathy little laugh.
“I miss you,” he repeated plaintively. “It’s cold and quiet here without you. And Ella’s exhausting, and Leah keeps pressurising me, and they’re always talking about politics, Darren.”
“Welcome to university,” Darren said flatly.
“You should have come here,” Jayden insisted.
“You should have come here,” Darren retorted.
It had been a bone of contention ever since the beginning of upper sixth form, when Darren had first applied for this training position. Jayden had been upset he wasn’t going to be within reasonable travel distance of Cambridge. Darren was equally bemused as to why Jayden wanted to go to Cambridge in the first place. Mother was a graduate of Oxford, and Cambridge was exactly the same: full of pretentious idiots without an ounce of common sense or feeling between them. He’d never grasped why Jayden wanted to go. He couldn’t shake the worry that Jayden wasn’t suited to go. He’d tried so hard to fit in at St. John’s, but at least there, he’d been trying to fit in with Paul and Ethan, who were harmless enough. Cambridge was even worse. He’d be trying so hard to fit in with people who were so different from either of them, and…
And Darren couldn’t shake the worry that Jayden would change.
“I just…” Jayden huffed. “Is it sappy if I say I just want a hug right now?”
“Yes.”
“You’re supposed to say no and that you want to hug me too!”
“If I start saying things I’m supposed to, you’ll worry,” Darren replied sensibly and turned over onto his front. “You’d better get on with those essays.”
Jayden groaned. “Don’t make me.”
“Go, student. Earn degrees and letters and…get drunk, or whatever it is you’re meant to do.”
“You’re mad.”
“You love me anyway,” Darren returned, and Jayden hummed.
“Yeah,” he murmured. “I do.”
Darren curled his toes inside his socks and half-smiled at his pillow. “Get off the line, Jayden,” he said.
“Hey!”
He hung up, and dropped his phone on the bedside table, trying to memorise the warmth in his stomach when Jayden admitted it. The same warmth he always got. The warmth that meant this would get easier, because that wasn’t going to change, even if they did, even if their lives weren’t together right now.
“Love you too, Jayden,” he told the ceiling, and everything was fine.
- Writer
