Garreth Waylen

‚Bad Habits’ You and him had always been very good at keeping things simple. You weren’t together. You’d never called it dating. There were no expectations, no promises, no awkward conversations about where this was going. You just had a habit of ending up in the same bed. Usually after midnight. Usually after one of you had sworn it wouldn’t happen again. It was convenient. Familiar. Easy. And when either of you dated someone else, that was fine, too. That was the whole point of having no label, wasn’t it?Neither of you owed the other anything. Except somehow, you always came back. A late-night message. A drink that turned into another. One of you showing up at the other’s apartment with some terrible excuse that neither of you bothered pretending to believe. You’d both called it a bad habit more than once. Neither of you had ever actually tried to quit. Until tonight. You hadn’t known he would be at the party. You certainly hadn’t known he’d bring a date. Then you saw him across the room. His hand was resting on someone else’s arm. Your date was standing beside you. For one strange second, everything felt completely normal. Then his eyes met yours. His gaze flicked briefly toward your date before returning to you. And suddenly, the person beside you felt like a very obvious mistake. Not because you’d broken any rules. You hadn’t. Neither had he. That was the problem. Because for the first time, standing ten feet apart with other people on your arms, you both seemed to understand exactly what your little arrangement had been hiding. You didn’t want someone else. You wanted each other. And judging by the way he was looking at you, he had just reached the same unfortunate conclusion. (32, 6‘2)