3-4
387 Words
THE CONVERSATION ABOUT Bjarki sleeping over has to wait until that night, once Alex is back from work, Vic and Claudia are asleep and everyone’s sure Ali isn’t going to come barging out into the living room again looking for a book or a stuffed animal or a snack.
“You haven’t dated anyone since Victor died but you totally f****d the Icelandic bartender?” Alex asks disbelievingly, once they’re all sitting around the living room. He’s not angry, not exactly, but he’s baffled and annoyed.
“Are you upset it wasn’t you?” Liam asks.
Alex stares. He’s not, that’s light years from the point, and only Liam would have jumped to that conclusion. “You think my feelings are hurt because you f****d somebody who wasn’t me? You’ve been f*****g people who aren’t me for ten years.” Out of the corner of his eye, Alex can see Paul and Carly exchanging judgmental looks, probably about the ongoing bizarreness of his and Liam’s relationship. Like Carly and Paul’s relationship is any more normal or sensical.
“Arrangements change and relationships evolve,” Liam says. “Also, rules can be different from what they normally are when we’re on vacation.”
“No they can’t!” Alex does not like where this is going. He does not want to have a conversation about whether he and Liam should sleep together. Now or ever.
“Yes they can. We can talk about it,” Liam says as if anything that is happening is reasonable.
“I thought we agreed we weren’t going to have unscheduled family meetings,” Alex says, changing tack.
“Well, we unscheduledly f****d your bartender,” Carly says. “So now here we are.”
“Okay, yes, see, that is the thing we should have talked about,” Alex points out, grateful for the rescue. “Because you do not f**k random people in my and Paul’s house at home. I didn’t know we had to discuss that about houses not at home.”
“But this is like a hotel?” Liam says. “Because you don’t really live here? And you didn’t even decorate this house? And the studio hired housekeeping for you and everything?”
“You know,” Carly says with a thoughtful frown. “That seemed way more logical last night when I’d been drinking.”
“Aren’t you going to have an opinion?” Alex turns to Paul.
“You seem to be doing fine on your own,” Paul says. He seems more amused than anything else. “But, yes, definitely with Alex on this one,” he says when Alex glares at him.
Alex turns back to Liam. “New rule, okay? Because apparently we need to have this rule. No f*****g third parties in shared living spaces without warning or discussion beforehand.”
Liam looks over at Carly sheepishly then back at Alex. “Yeah. Okay. Sorry.”
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- Writer
