The next morning at work, I was surprised that Adrian wasn’t avoiding me and though he could barely bring himself to look me in eye, he was more than civil, which made me feel even worse.

It was apparent though to those who knew what was going on that something was up between us and David cornered me in the lunchroom when I went to make my morning tea.

“I take it you told him about Justin,” he whispered standing close beside as I poured hot water into my mug and waited a while for the teabag to steep.

“Told him, no. Found him standing outside my apartment when I came down from Justin’s place wearing nothing but a bed sheet, yes.”

“Oh Sophie,” David said shutting his eyes and shaking his head.

“I know. Trust me I know, and to top it off, Adrian doesn’t think much of Justin and pretty much told me he gives us a month…which now that I am thinking about it is more than I would have given us.”

“Well do you feel like you’ve done the right thing? I mean who cares what others think as long as you’re happy,” David shrugged and I sighed.

“See that’s the problem, I don’t know if I am happy with Justin and obviously two nights of sex does not a relationship make-“

“Unless you’re me.”

“Right! But it’s a different kind of feeling with Justin…I’m not in love and I’m not exactly trusting, but, I’m just so…” I paused trying to find the word I was looking for.

“Horny?”

“No…I don’t know…curious. I’m so intrigued by our dynamic, it’s like watching a really frustrating television show where you hate the characters, but you keep watching because you have to know how it ends.”

“Well maybe Adrian is onto something, curiosity killed the cat you know?”

“Well I guess it doesn’t really matter, he knows now and I think Justin kinda thinks we’re on now…I guess,” I said half heartedly.

“Wow…take the enthusiasm about being in a relationship with a rich, handsome and talented superstar down a notch would you,” David said sarcastically and I looked up at him and smiled.

“He is pretty cute,” I conceded, smiling at the thought of him and that weird grin he had as I carried my tea out of the lunchroom and carefully back to my desk.

My computer alerted me to an email message and my heart rate picked up a little when I saw it was from Adrian. 

I’m sorry I said what I said about Justin being a collector.

I hope he makes you happy. 

I couldn’t believe he was apologizing to me and I didn’t even know where to begin trying to respond.I kept reading it over trying to decide if he was being genuine, but it was hard to imagine that he would be anything but and I really felt that he deserved the courtesy of a response. 

I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you sooner Adrian, but it all just sort of happened all at once.

Truth be told, I still have very real feelings for you, I kept telling everyone that you are the perfect guy and you are, and I’m still not 100% sure about Justin.I know that must sound very contrary to my actions, but it wouldn’t be fair to be with you and all the while wondering about him.

Maybe this will all blow up in my face as you predicted, but at least I’ll know.

I’m sorry I hurt you. 

I read it, and re-read it over and over, until I was sure it properly captured how I felt, and though it didn’t even come close, I sent it anyway because it was the best I could do.

The minutes ticked over into hours during the day and I busied myself wherever possible to try and make the time go faster.

Every time Adrian walked by my desk, I still watched him the same way I did when he first started.He was tall and strong and carried himself well and the way people responded to him was indicative of his easy-going nature and it got me thinking.

I’d never seen Justin with anyone else.

Whenever we’d hung out, it had always been just he and I alone in his apartment or in mine.We hadn’t walked down the street or into a market. I couldn’t even recall him even having interactions with a pizza delivery guy.

In fact the only person I’d ever seen Justin interact with was Adrian, and that was clearly a disaster.

I felt like you could tell a lot about a person by the way they associated with other people and I knew Justin obviously had the potential to be very charming and pleasant, but he was also too smart for his own good, with an over developed attention to detail coupled with the inability to let anything go.

He had moments when he was capable of leg jellying tenderness and sometimes when his passion didn’t set him off on a tangent it was exciting to watch him in full flight.

It was just so strange to feel like I knew so little about Justin having known him for a year and a half and then there was Adrian, an open book and I’d known him for just barely a month. 

That night when I got home, I had a note attached to my door. 

Dinner at my place, 7pm.

Hope you like sushi. 

I gently tapped my forehead against my door with a sigh.I hated Sushi. 

I had time to have a shower, change into some jeans and get covered from head to toe in pet fur.

I left a couple of minutes after seven and when I made it upstairs, I knocked on his door and waited.

He opened the door dressed down in a grey t-shirt and jeans, his usually waxed down curls were this time particularly messy, but it suited him so much.

“Good evening,” he greeted standing at the door and I smiled and stepped up to him for a kiss.

“What’s up,” I greeted casually as he stood aside to let me in and we started down his hall.

“Not much, you hungry?” He enquired and I was, but not for sushi.

“Uh…yeah,” I said without a lot of conviction which he seemed to ignore and overtook me into the kitchen where the island had been set up quite romantically with candles and wine, had it not been for the array of swirls, slabs and slices of every imaginable piscean offering from the sea.

“Oh boy...wow…look at that.” I stood looking at the tray and Justin looked so pleased with himself, I couldn’t bring myself to tell him of my indifference toward his chosen cuisine.

He poured two glasses of wine and all I could do was hope he had a lot more of it because I was going to need buckets of it to get through this meal.

“You know how to use chopsticks right?” he asked holding out a set of beautiful mahogany chopsticks and I took them from him and smiled.

We sat down and for a moment he just sat there looking at me and I couldn’t help looking at the food anxiously and then I realized he was looking at me and promptly snapped myself back to attention.

“Thank you for this, by the way, it’s…really…wow…there’s a lot.”

“You’re welcome…now, let’s eat,” he declared holding his chopsticks up and looking over the assortment trying to decide which one he wanted first.

I decided I needed to shock my taste buds with a nice big sip of wine to prepare them for what I considered a viscous assault.It was white and dry and just what I needed to loosen myself up a bit as I glanced over the assortment trying to find the one with the most rice and least filling.

“I’ll try this one,” I decided settling on one.

“Smoked eel, good choice,” he commented and my chopsticks promptly moved to the one next one over.

“Or maybe this one.”

“Jellyfish, really? I didn’t think you were that adventurous.”

“Okay, which one is the fish, just plain fish,” I asked probably sounding a little frustrated but I was more upset with myself that I just couldn’t tell him that I was hating this and more so hating myself over what I had done to Adrian, but that part, I knew I couldn’t tell him.

“Any of these,” he said gently waving his chopsticks over the appropriate rows of Nori rolls and sashimi.

If you can’t smell, you can’t taste, I reminded myself and just picked up a tuna nori roll and popped it into my mouth refusing to breathe out of my nose as I chewed.

“Good huh?”

“Mmmm,” I hummed, my mouth full of rice and raw fish and I kept telling myself to imagine it was Indian or Italian.

“You don’t like it,” he stated knowingly, and I thought that I was doing a good job at hiding my indifference, but I decided I should be honest with him so that there weren’t any more sushi surprises in the future.

I swallowed what was in my mouth and smiled at him awkwardly.

“I’m not really all that into sushi to be honest,” I confessed finally and Justin dropped his chopsticks and sighed.

“Aw Soph, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Well I came in here and everything was set up so nicely and you looked so excited about it all, I just couldn’t.”

“Do you wanna get a pizza?” he asked and I felt terrible.

“No, no, no, no definitely not, it’s great really, I don’t hate sushi,” I lied, “I just…you know,” I shrugged indicating my indifference.

”Hate sushi,” he finished looking deflated and even though he picked up his chopsticks again, he didn’t appear as excited about it all as he previously had.

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” he shrugged but his disappointment was apparent.I picked out another one from the tray trying one last time to give it every chance and reached over to drown it in his dish of Wasabi and soy.

“I like wasabi,” I said as though would make everything okay.

“Yeah it’s good,” he said half heartedly and I sighed, sitting back in my seat.

“Justin come on, don’t sulk,” I warned him as he speared through a nori roll with his chopsticks with a defiant stab.

“How can you not like sushi,” He asked disdainfully, but I knew he was just having a childish moment of wounded pride.

“I don’t know, I just don’t understand what the big deal is about it, I mean rice just tastes like rice and seafood, if it’s really fresh, doesn’t really have a taste so…what’s the point?” I asked.

“It’s subtle and complex,” he defended.

“Yeah you know what that means? It’s like real estate talk, like “cosy” meaning small. Subtle means, little to no taste and complex is trying to taste anything but seaweed.”

“I can’t believe I am having a relationship with you,” he sighed shaking his head, his cheek round and puffy with food.

“Oh right, like we ever agreed on anything before. Besides, it’s the thought that counts and I really appreciate the thought, it was a very nice thing to do,” I said earnestly.

“You sure you don’t want a pizza?”

“Yes, I am sure. Look these ones here aren’t too bad, I’ll have these,” I said turning the tray so that the tuna ones were right in front of me.

“Well okay, but don’t feel obliged to-“

“So anyway,” I interrupted changing the subject “I have to tell you something.”

“Hmmm,” he hummed with a full mouth as I washed the taste of nori out of my mouth with wine.

“You know when I left on Sunday night?”

“Yes,” he nodded.

“Adrian was at my door,” I told him and watched his eyebrows flicker up with interest.

“Seriously, were you in the bed sheet still?”

“Yes…he called you a collector.”

“Really? Andrew Beige called me a collector,” he asked as though the thought that people said things like that about him had never crossed his mind.

“Yeah he did.”

“Do you think I’m a collector?” he asked as I made figure eights in my wasabi with the tips of my chopsticks.

“No,” I said finally laying my chopsticks down and pouring myself more wine.

“No? That’s not the impression I get from you when we argue about those women that come and go through here.”

“Well…it’s like you said, there’s sex and there’s relationships right?”

“Right,” he smiled because I seemed to be getting it.

“So what do you want from me?” I was finally able to ask him and at the end of the day, I realized that all my apprehension with Justin, boiled down to that one question.

“What do you mean what do I want from you, isn’t it clear?”

“Well you said, and I agree, that there’s either just sex or relationships right? But you weren’t all that interested in the relationship before the sex happened and I’m just making sure you know what you want.”

“We were having a relationship, before we had sex,” he said but I knew it wasn’t the kind of relationship I was referring to and I stared him straight in the eye so he’d know that semantics weren’t going to fly here right now.

“Look,” he said placing his chopsticks down, “If you’re asking if I told you to be with me just because I wanted to see if you’d pick me over Beige, no, I didn’t. Because for reasons I can’t yet comprehend, I do actually have feelings for you.”

“Okay good,” I nodded satisfied, “’cause I feel exactly the same way, you know I have no idea what the hell we’re doing together right?”

“Oh yeah, we’ll either be together forever or there’s going to be a homicide,” he responded and I now felt so much better about the whole decision to see where this thing with Justin was heading, now that he wasn’t quite sure why he wanted me either. In a strange kind of way that comforted me and I smiled at him and he gave me a wink.

“Are you going to eat that? I’d hate for that beautiful BlueFin Tuna to go to waste.” 

“You know they’re endangered right?” 

“Yeah, because they taste so damn good,” he retorted and I laughed and looked down at the last tuna nori roll I had overloaded with soy and wasabi and shook my head. 

“All yours.”