James does not apologize with his penis BTW

“I think you are being a little bit paranoid, man. Your boss seemed plenty chill with you taking off for a minute.”

“I’m not paranoid,” I say in a flustered tone, unable to meet eyes. “I just wasn’t expecting you to show up at my work is all.” Turkish doesn’t have an umbrella and the rain is making the curls of his hair cling to his skin as we walk briskly down the street.

“I tried calling you but your number didn’t work.”

Damn it. Damn everything to hell. “Mmm. Yeah I, uh, got a local phone.”

He looks nervous, hands shoved in his pockets as he follows me into the coffee shop. “I thought we needed to talk? Do you want to get lunch?”

I stop. “Talk?” An uneasy lurching feeling starts in my stomach. If he could look about ten times less attractive and I could stop picturing him naked that would be fantastic because I have no idea what we could say to each other but I’m pretty sure I don’t want to.

“Yeah, you know about what happened the other night. I really wanted to apologize. It was just such a surprise to see you after all these years and then I came on way too strong and what I wish we had done was a lot more talking.”

“Nope.” I shake my head. “I am completely fine with what happened so don’t worry about it.”

“Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.” He puts his hands up defensively. “No I mean it was hella awesome. I didn’t mean to suggest I wish we hadn’t but…”

“Yeah I don’t think I really need to talk about this.”

“What? No we have to talk, James.” I wish he wouldn’t use my name like that.

“No we don’t.” In fact, the sickening cold sweat feeling that is developing right now is telling me I can’t talk about this. Whatever Turkish is to me now, opening that door will have consequences I am not willing deal with.

“If we don’t work through this we are never going to be friends.” We fall silent. Good God this is awkward. When I don’t respond Turkish scowls. “So we fucked and now you’re just going to be an incredible asshole about it?”

Alarm kicks in instantly. “We are in public,” I hiss, grabbing him by the arm and steering him into a less trafficked corner of the shop. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with me? You want to know what’s wrong with me?” His voice takes on a tinge of irrational emotion. He almost never gets like this and when he does nothing pleasant ever comes from it.

“You got the Goddamn hotel room,” I counter. “You are the one that wanted to hook up not me. That was not a path to the friend zone and that wasn’t me forgiving you with my dick.” He looks like I just slapped him, his body suddenly stiff with anger. 

“Go to hell,” he says. “You are such a child sometimes.”

“At least I don’t sleep with people in order to manipulate them into being my friend.” I can tell he’s really hurt but I don’t know what to do about it. I barely survived the last time we did this and I’m totally not over it and what the hell can either of us do about that anyway? So I just stand there and watch as he turns and walks out the door. It takes me a good five minutes to stop shaking.