Over and Done

How did this happen? And where did I get this kind of courage? “Maybe you could kiss me?” I seriously said these words. Me. Anna. Savanna. Whatever. Wow.

On the ride back to Birmingham in Ian’s car, I think about things. I think about the miserable grinding headache that I have. But I also think of how I don’t care about it in the least. Because I am happy. As in smiling-despite-the-wretched-hangover happy and honest-to-goodness-giggling-at-the-slight-drop-of-a-hat happy. I am happy because for once, kissing Oli was not the wrong thing to do.

And there is another thought here. Right and wrong. For years I have punished myself for wanting what I do. I have forbidden myself from wanting it. I have cowered in the corner. I have abused the ones I love. I have deemed my feelings wrong. But why and how? How, if it makes you happy, can it be wrong?--

“Ow—fuck, move over jus a little bit, this bloody shifter is in my side,” I said, sliding around in his grasp and arching my back to avoid discomfort. He continued kissing the side of my neck and squeezing my waist; he had a mission. I was allowing this so he was taking action before I changed my mind. He didn’t know that I definitely wouldn’t be changing my mind. I liked this way too much. Aside from the gearshift of Katie’s car jabbing me in the side. In between the series of kisses that he was planting on my lips, I managed to say “Can’t we go back to my flat? This’d be so much easier on a bed, love.”

“No time,” he grunted and had a point. He had to be on stage in a little more than an hour and we were already pressing our luck by sneaking off alone. If we were gone too long, someone would ask questions. One of our mobiles would ring and it would inevitably ruin the moment. He knew this and I could sense that he did not want this particular moment ruined.

My hands moved between us, finding the front of his jeans. The angle made it difficult and I struggled to undo the button. He laughed and lifted his hips to make it easier for me. I managed to get his trousers undone but his movement pushed me against the gearshift again and I groaned in pain. “Are yeh sure this is really the best place—“

He put his hand over my mouth. “Yes, I’m sure… So relax, Sav. An take yeh jeans off.” His jeans were already down at his knees and I shook my head. “This’d work better ef yeh was wearin a skirt.”

“Yeh mental, yeh know that right?” But I was following his instructions and unzipping my jeans.

He took a moment to suck at my neck before saying “Mental? I’m jus’ takin’ the chance to… yeh know, be with yeh while I can.”

“While yeh can? Yeh’ll be ere all bloody night. We don’t gotta do this in the car.”

“It’s fun, yeh’ll be fine.” He was as convincing as ever. His charm always caught me and held me tight, like a spell or maybe a virus.

I couldn’t help but laugh at him. I didn’t even stop to question how any of this came about, how he was making me smile and laugh, not to mention moan a little. “Can we at least get in the back seat? Ef this shifter jabs me one more time—“

“Fine, go.” He pushed me back between the front seats and I flopped onto the messy backseat, littered with Katie’s belongings, denim skirts, paper coffee cups and the like. He followed, climbing on top of me, hands in my hair and mouth traveling along my collarbone immediately. “Good idea, much better.”

I went to mumble my thanks but he slipped his lips onto mine and I forgot how to speak. Anesthetic. Fire. Insanity. The things that he’d evoked in me in the past were not present. This was tangible for once, immediate and in your face. There was no ethereal quality about this situation. I was grounded on the Earth and it was good. I enjoyed the awkwardness of the location, the clumsiness of my hands. This was real and somehow still sweet.

Until my mobile began buzzing, signaling an incoming call. He paused and I looked for the phone. It was on the floor atop a pile of clothing, Gracie’s name displayed on the front. Oli immediately tried to distract me. “Don’t answer it.”

“It’s Gracie. She’ll get suspicious ef I don’t answer it.”

“Fine, but be quick, yeah?” He smirked, sending a curious flutter down my spine.

“’Ello?”

“Where the fuck are yeh? I’ve left my ciggies in the car. Yeh got the keys, don’t yeh?”

“I, uh,” I tried to come up with a quick excuse. “I went to get coffee. I’m on my way back.”

Oli snorted and whispered “Yeh a terrible liar.”

“Good,” Gracie said. “I’ll meet yeh at the car then. We’re o’most there anyway.”

“What? No!”

“Eh?”

“I, uh, nothin. See yeh in a minute.” I hung up and proceeded to panic. “Out! Out! Get outta the car!”

Confused, Oli began scrambling “Huh?”

“She’s comin… Right now.” I leaned over and opened the door for him, clamoring out from under him and out into the car park.

“Gracie?” He didn’t move.

“Aye, Gracie, yeh know, short blonde big mouthed bird?”

“She’s comin ere? Now? Why?”

“Get yeh trousers back on!”

“What?” He looked down at his lap, eyes wide and immediately began adjusting himself. “Yeh can’t jus’—“ In efforts to pull his jeans to his waist, he stumbled from the car.

I vainly tried to flatten my hair. “Ow’s my hair look?”

“Like yeh been gettin it in the back seat o a car.”

I shoved him with an open hand. “Shut up.”

“Well yeh ‘ave.” He lifted his eyebrows in a rather suggestive manner and I couldn’t control the blush burning my cheeks. “Yeh blushin cause o’ me? Again?” Trousers still undone, he stepped into me and kissed my lips briefly. “Yeh fuckin’ cute.” He ran his fingers down my cheek.

“Anna?” Gracie called from across the lot. “’S that Oli with yeh?” She approached and I knew that my face was the color of a ripe tomato. To make the situation about twelve million times worse, Katie was with her. This was a partnership that I’d feared, because I knew how well it would work. By the time they’d made it to us, Gracie’s eyes were narrow and suspicious, while Katie’s tattooed arms were crossed in front of her chest. “Yeh went with Oli to get coffee?”

I nodded, reaching into the car quickly to grab Graceann’s smokes. “Yeah.”

“Well, where’s your coffee?” Katie asked.

“I drank it?” I offered.

“Uh huh…” Gracie looked between the two of us, a small smile forming. “Yeh didn’t go get coffee, did yeh?”

Oli was the one to respond. “Nope.”

My mouth dropped and Oli snickered behind me. “Ow’d yeh know?”

They rolled their eyes almost in unison. “Well for starts,” Gracie said. “There’s coffee in the green room… An o course there’s the massive hickey on yeh neck.”

“And Oli keeps grabbing his junk like he’s trying to cover up a boner,” Katie added.

My hand jumped to my neck. “I’ve a hickey?”

Laughing, Gracie said “An it’s huge.”

“Fuck.” I turned and punched Oli in the arm. “Yeh left a mark on me!”

“Marks,” Katie corrected.

I glared at him. “Yeh coulda been a bit more careful, yeah?”

“Well I weren’t exactly thinkin about careful, yeh know,” he said, still adjusting the front of his jeans. “An yeh were the one all keen on sneakin off in the first place.”

“Me?” I crowed. “Yeh were the one playin extreme footsie under the table.”

Gracie snorted a laugh and bumped Katie. “Extreme footsie?” They both giggled like over-stimulated school girls.

“Oh shove it, yeh two, this ain’t funny.” I frowned with a melodramatic glint that only I could master.

“I think it’s rather hilarious,” Oli said and I did my best to scowl at him with terrible venom, but it probably came out looking rather silly. “Oh, come on, love. Relax.” He put a hand on my shoulder and out of reflex, I wanted to pull away. “Yeh too fuckin uptight.” He could not hold back his bluntness, even for me.

“I’m jus worried. What ef Tom sees?”

“What ef e does? Who cares? E should be happy about it, yeh know?” Oli apparently had a sudden burst of motivation. “An e’s the one with all the schemes and plots these days. Who says e ain’t happy for us already?”

“I know im. And I would be very surprised ef e were happy about it,” I said, trying to look at Katie and Gracie for support. But they were both giving me decided glances that said not-going-to-get-into-this.

“Yeh know im?” Oli said. “E’s my fuckin brother an I know im too, probably better than yeh do.”

This felt like a very offensive thing for him to say to me. Because I knew for a fact that I had far more knowledge on Tom than his brother did. I knew all of Tom’s secrets, the deep and dark. All of it. “Whatever.” I turned away from him. “Can we go inside now?” I asked Gracie and Katie, and they both nodded weakly, maybe a little nervous about how quickly Oli and I had gone from pleasant to hostile.

However this felt very natural to me. Because I had very strong feelings on both sides of the Oli/Sav argument, and I was having a very hard time finding a resolution to these opposing points. But I knew that I would have to, before we all went insane.

--

Katie insisted upon an after party at our apartment, and I could only oblige. Katie seemed perfectly molded for my Sheffield friends. They loved her, especially Gracie and Tom. They all wanted to know where I’d kept her hidden and why I hadn’t introduced them before. I thought it ill-advised to remind them that before the summer, I’d been pretty much a ghost in Sheffield all together, nevermind my other friends.

Gracie, Katie and I rode in Katie’s car back to our neighborhood. I had to suffer through snide comments about what Oli and I had been doing in this car earlier. I tried to accept the teasing the best I could, nut it only reminded me of the things I needed to figure out: What was it about Oli that made him irresistible to me? and How was I going to discuss these events with Tom? and also Why the fuck did I always make things harder than they had to be?

Katie and I had done a quick cleaning sweep over the flat when I’d returned from Manchester, though I knew it would be destroyed within fifteen minutes of people showing up. When we first arrived, the three of us savored the calm before the storm feeling, gathering our drinks just as the buzzer sounded.

Chaos descended quickly and I had to admit that I had very sincerely missed parties like this. Parties where you knew everyone and they knew you, where you were liable to get high fives for no reason, where the music was familiar but new. In this environment, I was almost happy.

But needless to say, I tried to hide from the older Sykes brother when he arrived. I knew he would be looking for me, as I’d been hiding from him since I’d retreated from the car. I thought that being invisible would be an easy task, as I knew every secret spot in the apartment. But I slipped up by going to use the toilet. He cornered me outside the bathroom.

“Oy, where the hell’ve yeh been?”

“Oh, I’m jus goin to play flip cup now, I’ve gotta—“

“No yeh don’t. Yeh ain’t runnin from me again.”

“I’m not runnin…”

“Bullocks, runnin’s what yeh best at. Now can we talk?”

I looked down the hall into the living room and Gracie had caught my eye. I would not hear the end of this probably ever. But I wasn’t sure if I cared. I was just so used to caring what everyone said that it was hard to just stop. And then something clicked in my brain. When you’re young you think that everyone else’s opinion of you matters. You think it’s important. It’s not.

Oli’d said that. In his now infamous goodbye note.

“Yeah, sure, I guess so.” I led the way to my bedroom, knowing it would be the only place where we would be unheard.

He was still staring at me when I looked back to him. I remember thinking about his eyes a lot in the old days. I didn’t understand how they could be so soft and careful when he was so brash. They betrayed his persona. And God, they were captivating. Hazel, like mine. But his were always more brown than green, and mine the opposite.

“Please don’t do it,” he said.

“What?”

“I can see it on yeh face.”

“See what?”

“That look yeh get before you make a decision.” He was still holding onto my wrist, with weak fingers.

“What are you talking about?”

“Yeh lips get all pouty,” he reached his other hand up and touched my mouth. “And yeh get a crease right here,” then his fingers traced a line to my forehead. “Then usually yeh say somethin cryptic and irritatin.”

“Well I’ve nothin cryptic or irritatin to say at all.”

“Yeh sure?”

“I think so.”

“Well ef yeh do, jus say it now because I don’t know how much more of the games I can take.” His fingers were in my hair and I made sure to look only at his eyes. “Ef yeh think this is a mistake again, for fuck’s sake jus tell me.”

And I laughed at him. I couldn’t help it.

“Why’re yeh… What’d I—“

“Come on, Oli, don’t be stupid. A mistake? Are yeh serious?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because Oli, I don’t think this is a mistake.”

“What?”

“We’ve made mistakes, yeah. But I don’t think this is a mistake.” I squeezed his fingers.

His furrowed eyebrows eased, relaxed. “Aye?”

“Uh huh…”

“So…”

“So?”

“So can I close this door?” He eyed my bedroom door with a smirk on his face.

“If yeh want to.”

“Yeh think anyone’ll notice we’re gone?” He pushed the door shut and flipped the lock.

“I’m sure they will.”

“Better be quick then.” Both of his hands found my neck. “Yeh need to finish what yeh started in the car…” He kissed my jaw as he spoke.

“Oh do I?”

“Yep.” He made his way to my mouth and placed a chaste kiss there as well. “It’s been awhile since yeh did this willingly.”

I paused, my hands flat against his chest. “What?”

He saw the glint of confusion on my face and said “Well last time yeh weren’t happy about doin it.” He referred to the time in which I’d shown up the Drop Dead office and tried to exorcize my demons by having hate sex with him.

“I wasn’t happy.” I frowned. “But the way yeh said it makes it sound like yeh forced yehself on me or something.”

He wasn’t smiling either. “Well I did.”

“Don’t be silly. I’ve been a willing participant, if not the instigator, the whole time.”

“Not the whole time. Before yeh were just a kid. Yeh were inn—“

“Don’t say innocent.”

“But yeh were.”

“But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t in charge of the situation.”

He titled his head to the side and narrowed his eyes. “Sometimes I think yeh like to start trouble,” he said flippantly.

“No, I jus want everything out in the open. I’m damn tired o keepin things hidden or bottled up or whatever.” Maybe I did like causing trouble. Maybe that was my problem.

“Yeh know how hard it is to say no to yeh when yeh give me that look? Now I know why Tom does everythin yeh ask.” He was trying to joke but the reference to his brother just made me uncomfortable. “So yeh want everything in the open?”

“Uh huh.”

“I think everything is a fuckin lot for us, Savanna.” That was probably true. “So what, yeh want me to take a seat and we can play 20 questions? Yeh can interrogate me.”

“Don’t be a wanker.”

“Well don’t be a bitch. I’m jus tryin to take off yeh clothes—“

“I know.” I stood on my toes to kiss him . “An I want yeh to. I jus—“

“Yeh jus like causing trouble is what.”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

After that, I tried to forget about it all, because he was cute and persuasive. And I was tired of talking everything to death.

Was my mind eased by the fact that the sex was even better now that I didn’t hate him? Only slightly. Would I ever stop making things more complicated than they had to be? God, I hoped so.

--

We received a round of applause when we went out into the main room of the flat, in addition to several cat calls and whistles. My face heated and I was rougly the same color as the cranberry and rum I was drinking. Oli on the other hand was accepting the high fives that were being offered up to him from his friends. Gracie and Katie, we were sitting together, tried to hug me and pet my hair as though I were a child they were very proud of.

“Stop it,” I swatted Gracie’s fingers away from my face.

“Yeh got hickeys to match yeh ones form earlier,” Gracie laughed.

“That motherfu—“

“Here.” Katie began pulling the black scarf from around her neck and wrapped it around mine. “You need this more than I do.”

“Thanks.”

“You also need to keep that boy in line.”

“Ha, right.”

“Anna!” Tom called to me over the bumping hip hop that someone was blaring. “Let’s go!”

“Huh? Go where?”

“We’re up.”

“What?”

“Beer pong, come on.” He was smiling and flushed from alcohol. It was the happiest I’d seen him in the previous two days and I wondered if it was anything to do with the fact that Evie had gone back to Sheffield following the Manc after party.

Tom and I had been beer pong partners for so long that we had signature moves and plays. And we were pretty good, depending on our levels of intoxication. Usually, the drunker we got, the better we were.

“Who are we up against?” I asked, finishing off the drink in my hand.

“Nicholls and Oli.” Tom was cracking open two beers and pouring them into the plastic cups aligned on the table.

“Oh damn,” I said. “Tough competition.”

“Nah, we’ve this under control.”

I’m not sure why I was so surprised by his easy going attitude. He’d orchestrated the Oli/Anna reunion and it baffled me. I was nervous to ask him why he was giving us a chance. Nervous to talk to Tom, stupid right?

But I was beginning to understand what the problem was. For ten years of my life, Tom Sykes had been the most important person in my life. My very best friend. My other half. I was scared that this thing with Oli, this thing that showed no signs of dissolving, would ruin Tom and I a second time.

Except that Tom showed no signs of disapproval and I still didn’t understand.