Page 28 of While I’m Still Here

There’s a pause. “Seven years, Bea.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

Colin sighs again. “Yes. I’m hard as a fucking rock, because I’ve just woken up next to the woman I’ve loved for seven years, and every filthy thing I did to you last night is playing on repeat in my head.” Then his grin widens. “Do you want a repeat?”

Bastard.

And just like that, some of the panic drains away because this is still Colin. I mean, it’s Colin with no trousers on, which is admittedly a substantial improvement I hadn’t previously considered, but he’s still the person who knows that if I text that I’m five minutes away, I am almost certainly still standing in my bedroom deciding what shoes to wear. Last night hasn’t erased twenty-two years of friendship. It just added nudity, feelings, sex, and apparently the possibility of a boyfriend.

Fuck.

“I don’t regret it,” I tell him.

The grin disappears from Colin’s face, and he sits up a little straighter. I immediately regret saying it so seriously because now we’re apparently having a conversation. Ugh.

“I don't regret it either,” he says.

I pull my knees towards my chest and wrap my arms around them. “But I don't know what this is.”

Colin doesn't rush to answer, which is annoying because I would quite like him to tell me exactly what this is, what happens next, and preferably provide a colour-coded timetable. Instead, he simply says, “We don't have to know yet.”

“I have cancer.”

“I know.”

“I don't know what I'm going to want in six months. I don't know who I'm going to be. I don't know what treatment is going to do to me. I don't know whether I'm going to want relationships or sex or whether I'm going to decide to fuck off to Peru and find myself.”

“Why Peru?” Colin asks.

I stare at him. “I don't know. That's where people find themselves.”

“I thought it was Thailand.”

“Not the point, Colin.”

“Right. Sorry.”

I tighten my arms around my legs. “I can't promise you that because you told me you love me, and we had sex, I'm suddenly going to become your girlfriend, and we're going to do Sunday roasts and buy a Labrador.”

“We're not getting a Labrador.”

My mouth drops open. “Why?”

“Because you'd make me walk it.”

“That is incredibly presumptuous.”

“You once made me drive across town at midnight because there was a moth in your bedroom.”

“It was trying to kill me.”

“It was sitting on the curtain.”

“Watching me… Plotting my downfall. Bet it’s raging that cancer beat it to the punch.”

Colin stares at me for several seconds, clearly deciding whether this is an argument worth pursuing. Sensibly, he abandons it and instead, his hand reaches across the duvet and finds mine. “Bea.”

“What?”