Sleep is rocked out of me. I'm vaguely aware of the hand on my chest, the pressure that comes in beats, someone whispering my name... I jolt upright.

Joe is sitting too and I grasp for her. Her eyes glint in the dark, widened but soft.

'Are you hurt? What's wrong?'

Blood rushes through me, electric. Joe draws out a long "um" as I inspect her for wounds, scraping my fingers along her skin and squinting for crimson in the dark. 'Nothing.' My eyes zap to hers. Her brow is furrowed. 'I just wanted to ask if I can go to the toilet.'

'You...?'

I exhale. My heart stops bruising the inside of my ribs though my chest continues to ache from the stress. As soon as panic fades, confusion takes over. 'Why would you–?' I cut myself off and gesture at the door. 'Yeah, of course, you can.'

Joe smiles and clambers off the bed. As her footsteps retreat down the corridor, I fumble for the light switch which magically retreats into the fourth dimension for several seconds before I get the reading lamp on.

Staring at the circle of amber light stamped on the ceiling, I press a hand to my chest. My heart is still racing. Memories try to resurface, clambering out of the soil like hatched fungus gnats, and each time I blink, I'm convinced Cece is swaying at my bedside, pushing me awake, with a knife jutting out of his leg. All the times they cut too deep and the bleeding wouldn't stop like it were supposed to, all the times sharp objects found their flesh and not whatever hallucinations they were tryna kill.

He were never fazed by it, his face just as expressionless as it always were. They'd shrug. "I think I have to go to the hospital..."

When we were kids and still lived with Mamá and Papá, he woke me up at least once a week from nightmares. At what point did they stop being "just nightmares"?

I should know. I would know if I'd cared to check in more often, make sure they actually spoke to me rather than settling for their teenage sarcasm because I couldn't be bothered to look under it. It's easy enough to balance parties and good grades, but there's no way to add a third corner. How could I ever choose parties and meaningless sex over my own kid brother?

Rapid footsteps pull me back into my room and I crane my neck to watch Joe sprint through the door. Rather than going around the bed, she leaps over me to get to her side and burrows under the duvet. 'Cold!'

With the blanket pulled up to her chin and her round cheeks puffed up, she's so adorable I want to kiss her nose. But that would probably breach the increasingly blurry line of our friends-with-benefits arrangement.

Joe worms closer to warm up. My skin tingles even with both of us wearing hoodies. I wrap an arm around her to tuck her into me.

I need to be as close to her as I can when I have the chance. I won't for much longer. We've had sex enough times now that it must have "fixed" her "sex problems"—she definitely don't seem to be having any problems. Joe will be happily engaging in casual no-strings sex with other people as soon as she realises that our thing has fulfilled its purpose.

'I'm sorry that I startled you.'

'That's alright. I just thought...'

'Something was wrong with your brother,' she supplies when my chest caves in.

I pry my attention from the ceiling to turn to her. 'You ain't ever gotta ask for my permission for owt while you're here.' My voice balances between a whisper and regular talk, hoarse through my throat. 'If you're hungry, go eat. Etcetera.'

Her hand still searches for the necklace to fidget with but when she don't find it, she toys with the strings of her—my—hoodie instead. 'Tamsin was particular about this stuff. Like, "it's my apartment, you have to do what I say"...'

'Well, that is fucking–'

Clenching my jaw, I return my glare back to the circle of light. I'm not gonna do that, I'm not gonna be the bloke who talks shit about her ex because I'm that desperate for her to love me back. I've no right to be jealous. I've got no right to make judgements of any of her exes.

I lie to her every time we meet, don't I?

I trace patterns into her side and, taking it as invitation, Joe lays her head on my chest. I hope she don't hear the way my heart hammers when she's close—which is ridiculous because we've had sex too many times to count; my heart should not be going into overdrive when she nestles into me through two hoodies.

More importantly, I hope she don't notice the way my heart soon mellows, relaxing with the rest of my body, melting into her warmth.

'You ain't ever gotta ask me,' I finalise, finding her gaze. 'As they say, mi casa es su casa.'

Her lips twitch and Joe nods.

It's the middle of the night; we should go back to sleep. But neither of us seems interested in doing so. Neither of us seems interested in talking either. Neither of us seems interested in doing much of anything at all. The light stays on.

            Save for the first weekend, I've always left for work when Joe is still sound asleep. This morning, she has to get up too.

I did tell her she could stay, that she can sleep in—I trust her not to rob me and even if she did want to, there's nowt in my house to rob other than the telly. And I really only use it to watch the BSL re-runs they broadcast at night when I can't sleep so I wouldn't miss it much. But she said she should get to the library to study for her Open University exam coming up.

I've never seen Joe awake so early and it's immediately obvious that getting up any time before ten ain't exactly her preference.

She groaned the moment I eased my limbs from hers to get out of bed even though I snoozed my alarm three times in an attempt to appease her. Then she glared at me the whole time I got dressed and didn't even remind me to floss. I did anyway.

When she finally crawled from under the duvet, she truly discovered what I mean when I say this house is freezing.

The bag on eases once I've got coffee brewing. Joe accepts the mug (one with the text "Lab Tested" and a drawing of a labrador eating a slice of cake that Allan gave me) of tinto with a grateful sigh.

It quickly twists into a grimace when she takes the first sip. 'This is... kind of disgusting.'

'Sorry I don't have a posh Nespresso machine. It's not that bad.' My feigned defensiveness drains and my shoulders slump. 'Alright, it's a little bitter. You don't have to drink it.'

Joe pulls her cup closer to herself as I go to grab it. 'No, I'll drink it.'

I hand the puck of panela to her to curb the taste and peer into my own mug of milky beverage. 'My dad taught me to make this...'

It's stupid, but it's one of the few truly Colombian things I know. I'm a champion at cutting corners and stretching money but I never compromise panela from my budget despite how expensive it is. White sugar just ain't the same. I could never imagine making coffee any other way.

'That's sweet.' Joe smiles and don't even grimace at her second taste.

Take a shot.

Before Joe has the time to notice the ache resounding in my body and then ask me about it and have me lie directly about my parents, I busy myself warming up the rice and beans from last night.

Question: Is it lying if I just... don't tell her the truth? Answer: Yes, you pathetic fuck.

I slice us each half of an avocado. Pandebono are always best fresh but they're sound in the morning too.

'Do you always eat this much for breakfast?'

Offering her a spoon, I slide into my chair. 'It's important to start the day off right.'

I don't understand the way Joe smiles at me, nor does she explain it before she scoops a spoonful of coconut rice.

I enjoy this domestic fantasy with her a bit more than I should. Joe sleeping in my bed has made the feelings all the more difficult to avoid and now the string of hearts is fluttering and growing and tangling from summat as simple as watching her eat.

Reminder: We're not together. Reminder: This is casual. Reminder: She is not interested in me like that–

'Can I ask you something?'

I rotate the spoon in my grip. Is this for practice or is she asking as a friend? Maybe as a coworker?

'Go for it.'

'Since you don't celebrate Christian things, what's your favourite holiday?'

Cheeks burning, I duck my head as if the patterns of kidney beans on my plate are dead interesting. 'You're gonna laugh.'

'I won't laugh,' Joe says with laughter lacing into her voice.

I spade the rice around my plate. 'Valentine's Day,' I mumble. 'And I don't wanna hear nowt bout how "it's commercialised" cause, as an objective outsider, I promise you, Valentine's Day ain't any more commercialised than Christmas is. People are just bitter and need to find some dumb cover for it.

'I think Valentine's Day is brilliant. Me and Caleb always spent it together since we were kids so I've never felt like I'm missing out just cause I'm single. I love seeing people celebrate the love they have in their lives. I love being a little extra affectionate with my mates. Also, I love pink and heart-shaped things. I reckon things should be pink and heart-shaped year-round.'

I tuck my hands into my lap when I realise how animatedly I've been waving them around.

Joe watches me, then the food, and finally the row of avocado pits rooting over old spice jars on the windowsill. Eventually, she finds the nails on the wall and it's like she knows I framed Cece's childhood drawings there until they moved in and tore them down.

Her smile is a punch to the throat: when I tell her and she understands how defective I am, she's not going to look at me like that anymore, not with her calf eyes filled with so much affection and admiration.

'You must have so much love in you,' she says but it's not me she's talking to.

Sundews are a group of carnivorous plants that are covered in trichomes. The hairs ooze a substance that appears as dew, enticing insects only to trap them and digest them for nutrition. That's what I am, what I'm doing: using a glossy exterior to attract her only to leach everything from her like I do everyone else. She don't know how trapped she'll be if she lets herself invest in me.

Notes

Bag on: Slang for a bad mood.

Tinto: (roughly 'inky water') Colombian coffee, not to be confused with the Spain Spanish meaning where 'tinto' refers to red wine. It's very strong and usually drunk black, hence the name. It's also quite bitter and often low-quality and as such, is associated with the working class. Drinking a cup of tinto is more about the experience than the flavour as it provides even a ten-minute break from an otherwise busy working life and is often a site for socialising. 

Drosera: Sundews. A genera of carnivorous plants of nearly two hundred known species that are native from Alaska to New Zealand. Below are pictures of Drosera anglica.