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He wakes up slowly to a dark living room, save for Netflix asking if he wants to continue watching? The muscles in his neck protest that he’s too old to be falling asleep on the couch like this.
“Carm?” comes a soft voice from somewhere to his right.
“...Syd?”
“Shit.” There’s a flurry of movement as she scrambles to the opposite side of the couch, and Carmen notices a sudden lack of weight on his chest. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry.”
“What? What are you—what are you talking about?”
“Fuck. I have to go. Where’s my phone?”
“Syd. You don’t have to-"
“Yeah, actually, I do, because I can’t add ‘napping together’ to the list of shit we do that we don’t talk about. I’m just gonna get an Uber home and we can forget the whole thing.”
He feels around blindly for his phone and checks the time. 3:19 a.m. “It’s the middle of the fuckin’ night. Just stay here and I’ll drive you home in the morning.”
“Yeah, so, having sleepovers is even more shady than napping on the couch.” She’s on her feet now, searching through the tote bag she left on the floor earlier for her phone.
“Okay. Heard.” He rubs a hand over his face. “Forget the Uber, though. I’ll—I’ll drive you.”
“I can’t make you do that.”
“You’re not making me, Syd. I’m offering.” It’s too dark and he’s too tired to be able to decipher the look on her face.
“Okay,” she says finally. “Okay, sure.”
They pull up in front of her building twenty minutes later. She thanks him quickly, not meeting his eyes or waiting for a response, and then she’s out of the car and hurrying up the front steps.
He sits there for a few minutes after she’s out of sight and in record time his mind is running away without him. He takes the long way back to his apartment, as if wasting gas on empty streets could chase away the panic he’d heard in her voice or the faint honey scent of her hair or the staticky silence that had hung between them in the car like the world’s worst air freshener.
Could he really have read things so wrong?
Back in his now-empty apartment he sits in the kitchen and types out and subsequently deletes three (and a half) texts to her. Everything he tries sounds wrong and she’s probably asleep and there’s no good reason to bother her at this time of night. Still, though, there’s something lodged between his ribs that he wants to say. His thumb hovers over the keyboard for another few seconds but his brain stays stubbornly uncooperative.
Just as he’s about to forget the whole thing, the typing bubbles pop up on Sydney’s side. They vanish just as quickly, along with the tiny flicker of hope in his chest.
Then, mercifully, a message pops up.
hi
sorry about earlier. thanks for driving me
:)
hey
no problem
you know what’s crazy though?
what
I can’t fuckin sleep. like I’ve been staring at the ceiling for an hour
me neither
might just make some kd and stay up
ughhh that sounds so good rn
(the kd part, not the staying up. sleep is important, Carmen)
you’re the one texting me before dawn, Sydney
okayyyy yeah but I didn’t expect you to answer in like two seconds
you never do
sometimes I do
so this might be the lack of sleep talking but...
?
ik you were just here and everything
but you got enough kd to share?
yeah I do
you want me to come over?
yes
pls
should i bring pjs
carm...
I’m serious
...
fine
omw
The buzzing anxiety that he’d carried up from the car, nestled somewhere between the pasta boxes and the toothbrush in his backpack, fizzles out as soon as she opens her apartment door. It’s replaced by the same ease he felt that morning a million years ago when she first walked into The Beef; the same relief as looking up from a kitchen covered in canned tomatoes and loose cash and seeing her framed in the doorway. This is Syd, he reminds himself. No matter what bullshit is going on between or around the two of them, they’ll figure it out. Haven’t they always?
“Hey,” she says softly, and she looks like home. Words abandon him.
She smiles at his floundering and steps back to let him in.
“Okay, uh, just gonna put this out there.” They’re sitting on her couch in the semi-darkness, the empty pasta pot and forks discarded on the coffee table. “I really want to kiss you right now and I’m pretty sure that’s not the lack of sleep talking.” Her eyes flick up to meet his, questioning. “Am I reading the vibe wrong?”
“No, you’re not. You’re definitely not. But-”
“What?”
“I think we might have to talk about this one.” Her hands glide over his chest and settle onto his shoulders and he amends his statement. “Later?”
“Later.” She rests her forehead against his. “Carm?”
“Yeah?”
“...are you actually laughing right now?”
“Sorry, sorry.” Slowly, reverently, he lifts a hand to her cheek. “This just feels so, like, formal? I feel like I’m onstage or something.”
She laughs. “And not, like, in a sexy way, right?”
“Uh, no. More like in a—a stage fright kinda way?”
Something unfamiliar glints in her eyes as she pulls back to look at him. “I love that I’m making you so nervous.”
“Syd...”
“Mmm-hmm?”
“You always make me fuckin’ nervous.”
“Yeah?” she hums, shifting so he can lean back against the arm of the couch. “Tell me more about that.”
“Oh, okay. So you invited me over just so I’d make you food and talk about how brilliant and skilled and inspiring you are? I see how it is,” he teases. Her fingertips tap a gentle rhythm on his forearm and she tucks her head under his chin. “That’s low, Sydney.”
“I did. And it worked, didn’t it?”
“It worked because I made it way too easy.” He’s quiet for a moment, fingers ghosting over her hip where her sweatshirt has ridden up. “All that just to end up back where we were a couple hours ago.”
“Well, almost.” She stifles a yawn, and it’s contagious. “This is a slightly bigger couch.”
“It’s also a lot less comfortable,” he says, yawning again.
“Gimme a break. Decent furniture is, like, stupid expensive.” Her voice drops to something just above a whisper. “By the way, I’m—I’m sorry I ran out like that. Earlier tonight. I think I just kind of...panicked? I didn’t wanna, like, overstep or make you uncomfortable, or—”
“Syd. You’re good. We’re good. Promise.”
“Thanks.” She somehow manages to squeeze a little closer and soon she’s asleep, snoring faintly against his chest.
“Yeah,” he says softly, as his breathing slows to match hers. “Anytime.”
He learns that she’s a very deep sleeper. He manages to get up, rummage around for his wallet and her keys (dropping his own in the process), leave, and come back with caffeine and danishes from the bakery around the block without waking her. That, or she’s very committed to messing with him.
He's just set a pair of mugs down on the counter when she comes into the kitchen. He greets her with a soft hey.
“Good morning.” She stifles a yawn and leans her hip against the counter by the sink. “Hey, Carm?”
“Yeah?” He turns, and with surprising strength and unsurprising determination, she pulls him into a kiss. She’s warm and soft and when her fingers curl in his hair he almost forgets how to breathe.
“I thought a surprise attack might cancel out the stage fright,” she murmurs.
He laughs softly. “Yeah. You were right.”
“I know.”
He leans back in to kiss her, and her soft gasp as his hands find her waist under her sweatshirt might be the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard. “Fuck, Syd. You’re so—”
“So what?” she whispers against his mouth.
“God, you’re like, everything.” He kisses down the side of her neck, taking in the floral, slightly salty taste of her skin. Her fingers curl tighter into his hair. “I’ve been completely fucked since that day you walked into The Beef.”
He feels, more than he hears, her slight chuckle. “Really?” she asks, somewhere between disbelieving and amused.
“What d’you mean, really?” He pulls back to look her in the eyes. God, those fucking eyes. He’d give her anything she asked if she’d just keep looking at him like that.
“I mean that’s a long time,” she says finally, voice low. “A lot’s happened.”
“Yeah.” He takes her face in his hands. “I made some really shit choices; I know. I’ve been all over the place but Syd, I swear. There was never a moment that I doubted wanting you with me.”
“You’re not allowed to say shit like that this early in the morning,” she grumbles. “I’m not awake enough to reciprocate.” Looking over his shoulder, the pastry box catches her eye. “Did you go out? I didn’t hear anything.”
“Yeah. Just to that spot with the danishes you like. Got you a matcha latte, too.”
“You’re setting a dangerous precedent here, Carm,” she murmurs. She presses a final, light kiss to the side of his mouth before she slips out of his arms and moves toward the baked goods.
“Good.”
“So these look amazing and thank you so much but—”
“But?”
“There are a couple more things I wanna not talk about first.” She takes his hand, threading their fingers together.
“Whatever you want,” he says, probably too earnest but unable to bring himself to care. As if she doesn’t already know how far gone he is.
As she leads him down the hall there’s nothing in the world but her hand in his and the way every nerve in his body is humming. And when he follows her over the threshold and shuts the door, the smile she gives him is all it takes for him to know that he’d never stood a fucking chance.