'Please say you're having a laugh. Please. Lord, I beg!' Caleb stares at me with his jaw on the floor, the flimsy plastic hanger of a halter top forgotten in his hand. 'You? Casual? Are you right in the head?'

'I can do casual!'

'You've never done owt casual in your entire life. Not once in your twenty-four years of life.'

'I did casual with Denzel.'

'And that ended well.'

I scoff and flick through the hangers. Rather than gender, size, or type, Harmony for Humanity organises clothes by colour—which is nice in theory but also means I have to go through every rack only to find approximately three things that even physically fit me.

Caleb is less willing to drop the subject. He points at me with the hanger and the top sways, a muleta to aggravate me. 'Remember in our first year at school when we made Valentine's Day cards, and you spent four days crafting this card for Amelia Ming. It were like fucking 3D and everything—I mean, it were probably hideous cause we were six but by six-year-olds' standards, you could've put that thing in the bloody Lourve.'

I cast him a glare. I'm not remotely enjoying his theatrical recollection of the situation.

'And she looked at it once. And tossed it.' He jabs me with the hanger. 'That were your first heartbreak.'

'I know; I was there. But, I were six.'

'Right,' he says though it's far from surrender.

Caleb slots the halter top into the gap I've moved steadily in his direction. Doing a champion job pretending he don't even notice he's blocking me, he refuses to move out of my way so I can continue, leaning slightly against the rack with a pile of clothes hung over his left forearm.

'Just before Cece moved in with you, you made Jackie a plant arrangement after yous had sex twice. You were twenty-two.'

'I didn't "make her a plant arrangement"–' I draw inverted commas into the air. 'Okay, maybe– You're leaving out important context here! She said they looked nice so I thought it meant she wanted one. It weren't un-casual.'

Caleb's eyebrows rise with each word; by the time I'm done, he's staring at me with so much "are you hearing yourself?"–energy that a Netflix showrunner would hire him to any Gay Best Friend role on the spot.

I drop my arms slack to my sides. 'That's two examples.'

'Oh, I can keep going. You want me to keep going, baby girl?' He revolves on his heels as I circle him and continue carding from XS clothing to XS clothing. 'We'll be here all day, brother. Like...' he feigns confusion, wheeling his hand as if to speed up his thoughts, 'why did you bring her breakfast in bed? Not a bowl of cereal either. You made her waffles. In what solar system are waffles casual?'

'I were just being nice. She let me stay over, I didn't wanna be a freeloader.'

'Yeah, it's nice,' he agrees, earnest for a flicker. 'It's lovely, honestly. But casual it is not. Honestly! I'm the autistic one here. What are you so fucking dense for?'

Caleb is on my heels as I circle the rack of red clothes to get to the orange. I'm adamant about ignoring him though his stare keeps prodding my cheek. Once he bores of being ignored, he steps in front of me, the fanfare toned down to sincerity that arrests me as soon as our eyes meet.

He drops his voice so the other lunch-hour shoppers who have been happily listening in on our conversation can't hear. 'Look, Nikki, I respect your decisions, but I've known you since we were four, and you and casual don't work.' He grabs my shoulder in a way that would be awkward if it were anyone other than Caleb. 'You have to stop treating your heart like it's a card people glance at and toss away. Also, stop having sex on my furniture.'

'You're the one who kept bugging me to ask her out!' I hiss.

'On a date! I were thinking restaurant, cinema, one of Rishi's Shakesqueer Drag plays. Not to have some idiot friends-with-benefits tomfoolery you've decided to go with.' Caleb's face scrunches up. 'People are gonna end up hurt.'

I chew the inside of my cheek. He's right, I know that, but I always forget how bad the pain is until I'm back in it. Would you rather: Forget the hurt meaning you might keep walking into the same knife OR remember it meaning that you'll have to live with it festering inside you forever?

'Well... I thought you wanted me to make bad decisions,' I counter though there ain't a shred of conviction in my voice.

'Yeah, bad decisions like eating a whole tub of ice cream in one hour, not get high and have sex with someone who's meant to be your friend. You keep breaking your own heart.'

'It's not broken.'

Yet.

'Did yous at least establish clear rules and boundaries?' Caleb answers his own question with a laugh. 'Eight years of doing comedy and I reckon that's the funniest thing I've ever said.'

My fingers pause on the hangers. Based on Joe's books and the fact that she wants to be a sex therapist, she probably knows all about establishing rules and boundaries. So why didn't she? Maybe we'll talk about it next time. If there is a next time. We didn't exactly plan our next shagging session.

I'm uncomfortably aware of Sami, the worker on shift, having casually drifted closer to us in xyr round to return tried-on items to their colour racks. I don't fancy being the next week's hot break room drama—Caleb and I have been shopping here since we were fourteen and there's no doubt the staff recognise us enough for that to become my reputation for the rest of my life. Every time I walk in here, they'll whisper "oh here comes the lad who keeps aiming way out of his league".

I pull out a printed shirt from the rack and hold it against myself to check for fit. Caleb hasn't looked at a single piece of clothing for minutes and we came here to find him outfits for his London Drag Expo routine.

'What happened to protecting your body and emotions?' Before I can answer, he seizes a plastic crown from a shelf and slots it onto my head. 'Condragulations! This is RuPaul's Best Friend Race and you win!'

'Oh, nice! Do I also win a cash price of one hundred thousand dollars?'

'Sorry. We're all out of cash prices. You get this plastic crown. And a kiss.' He presses one to my cheek and I laugh which makes the crown fall off, too small to fit securely over my locs.

I return it to the shelf and drop my voice again. 'Joe isn't gonna treat me like that; we're friends. It's different.'

But honestly? I feel like I'm still hungover—emotionally hungover. I probably shouldn't've told her owt of that. I've practically just spent a whole weekend trauma-dumping her, like she's not got better things to do. And why did I even stay there so long? She probably kept internally begging me to leave whenever we weren't fucking.

See, this is why I don't talk about myself. It just makes me sound all whingy and woe-is-me.

Caleb abandons all his theatrics, empathy settling into his expression. 'You're so full of love, Nikki. You get so attached to people within seconds and we both know you have feelings for her. This ain't gonna help that.'

I sigh, posture slackening, and meet his eye again. 'Just let me have this.'

            We exit Harmony for Humanity a little later than wise if we wanna have the chance to eat before getting back to the office. It's dark outside and sleet falls from the overcast in globs. I open my borrowed rainbow umbrella while Caleb digs around his bag.

He thrusts a clump of orange cotton at me.

I unravel a printed shirt I tried on but ended up returning to the rack because money. 'What did you get me this for?'

Caleb stares at me with raised eyebrows. 'Cause you have a crippling inability to spend money on yourself. But you also deserve nice things, Nikki.' He rolls his eyes. 'You can pay for my lunch to pay back for it. I need to sit down. Should've taken a wheelchair day—don't expect me to get out of bed tomorrow.'

'Can I help?' I stuff the shirt into my jacket pocket.

He smacks his shopping into my chest. 'You can carry my bag.'

Despite his sass, Caleb holds onto my arm as we push against the wind and sleet, limping a little on every step of his prosthesis.

There's enough slosh on the pavement that my socks are wet before we reach the end of the street and I remark that at least he's lucky for only having one foot to freeze. Caleb responds that we should've taken the car, even though the café we're going to is undoubtedly closer than the combined walk between whatever parking spaces I'd manage to find here.

The cinnamon warmth of Sip & Savour beckons us into its embrace. All the cafés in the Northern Quarter are more expensive than it should be legal for a cup of tea but when in Rome. Sip & Savour is all cute colours and doughnuts with hearts drawn out of icing.

Joe would like it. They have the same artisanal dried flower candles on the windowsills that she has on her TV bench, also unlit.

I move to the queue while Caleb limps to his favourite table by the window. It's often vacant thanks to the tree-sized monstera placed just a little too close but Caleb likes the feeling of being shut in, to have some peace from the sensory overload of the constant stream of people in and out of the door. The privacy also allowed me to twist off the smallest branch in reach and sneak it out without being noticed. In the two years since, it has grown into a respectable plant of my own.

By the time I carry our matcha lattes to the table—trying my best to keep my hands still enough that I don't disturb the kitten and teddy bear faces the barista poured into the milk—Caleb's prosthesis is already leaning against the table, his trouser leg bunched at his thigh, and his fingers stuffed into the liner.

He thanks me as I place the mug in front of him and after a few seconds more of intense scratching, he straightens in his chair.

'You should take her to Ikea.'

'What?'

'Ikea is the ziplining of queer people. If you survive an Ikea walkthrough without splitting up, you can survive owt God or the Universe could think to throw at ya.'

Caleb takes a long sip of his matcha while I nod. With him for a best friend and Cece for a brother, I hear enough pure nonsense on a daily basis to have learnt that sometimes it's best to just accept I have no idea what they're talking about.

'If you don't do it early on, you'll never know you won't end up divorcing in a fake kitchen over printed pictures of pasta. Better get that over now and not in thirty years when you're married and have two kids.'

'I feel like we're talking bout your mums now...'

Caleb winches. He fumbles his mug onto its saucer so that some matcha spills and, face screwing up, grips his residual limb under the table. Knowing he don't want attention on it, I pick up my own latte.

The oat milk teddy stares at me. They shouldn't do the art so well—now I feel bad about drinking it.

Once Caleb's string of creative curses has tapered off and he stops massaging his leg, I return my focus to him. The creases at the corners of his eyes are a tell-tale sign that the ache is still echoing through him.

'How are you doing?' I ask, fidgeting with the beeper for our food.

'Well, I'm missing a leg.'

'I meant about everything with your mums.'

He shrugs and the comedy drains when his shoulders fall. 'I know I'm an adult and I don't live with them—and obviously I don't want them to stay together and be miserable. But I hate the thought of having to split my time between them. It's proper bobbins, as Allan would say.'

I reach over to hold his hand which Caleb gladly accepts.

'Everything's going to change. I know it's selfish but I don't want things to change.'

'They love you. That's never gonna change.'

Nodding, Caleb swabs tears from his cheeks. 'Let's talk about your problems, they're much more entertaining for me. When are you gonna tell Joe about your parents?'

Notes

We're officially halfway through! 🎉 Yes, this book is really long hahah hope you're all enjoying it still. Just wanted to say thank you to everyone who made it this far. Your support means the world. 🩷🩷