Page 8 of Total Creative Control
What the hell was wrong with him?
“Are you just going to stand there in the way?” Colin groused, coming into the flat behind him.
“Sorry, I was just…”
“Thinking?” Colin said acidly. “Yeah, what a surprise.”
“Christ, thinking isn't allowed now?” He immediately felt guilty for snapping.Hewas the one who’d ended it, not Colin.Hewas the one apparently incapable of a normal healthy relationship. The least he could do was be generous about their parting. Grimacing, he ran a hand through his hair. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—” Christ, he was tired. “Long day.”
“They’re always long days, Aaron.”
Another of Colin’s peeves, one they’d discussedad nauseam. Aaron let it go. He took himself around the breakfast bar and into the living area, perching on the edge of the sofa as he watched Colin bang about in the kitchen cupboards.
“I’m taking the juicer,” Colin announced after a while. “I know it was a joint purchase, but you don’t use it, and I need my—”
“It’s fine. Take it.”
To avoid the sight of Colin systematically dismantling their shared life, Aaron turned his gaze to the Blu-Ray copies ofLeecheshe kept in pride of place on the shelf below his TV. In turn, that led his thoughts back to the evening’s work with Lewis. Season seven was going to be fantastic given the way Lewis was developing the bromance between Faolán and Skye. Well, Lewis called it bromance; Aaron called it romance. Which is exactly how all the Skylán shippers would see it. He couldn’t wait for the episodes to air. The fic potential of that last line of dialogue Lewis had agreed to tonight was—
“You’re doing it again,” Colin said, yanking open the door of the cupboard where the juicer lived—on the top shelf where Aaron couldn’t reach it, but Colin could.
Aaron half suspected Colin kept the thing up there for that very reason.
“Doing what?” he said wearily, though he knew what was coming.
“Zoning out,” Colin fumed as he dragged out the juicer. “You can’t stop thinking about Skye bloody Jäger for five minutes, can you?”
Aaron considered pointing out that he’d mostly been thinking about Lewis, but that would only open another can of worms. One he couldn’t afford to unleash. He sighed heavily. “Don’t be stupid.”
Colin turned back, dumping the juicer down on the worktop. “Oh,I’mbeing stupid?” He levelled a finger, pointing into the living room where a life-size cut-out of Skye Jäger brooded in the corner. “The only stupid thing I did was get involved with a bloke who’s so obsessed with a dumb TV show he has no time for an actual relationship.”
“That’s not true—”
Colin laughed. It wasn’t a nice sound. “You work for the man who writes the show, and when I say work, I mean you’re at his beck and call twelve hours a day, even at weekends—”
“For which I get generously paid.”
Ignoring that, Colin bulldozed on. “And when youareat home, you spend all your time writing weird porn about—”
“It’s not porn!” Aaron howled—this was an old, old argument. “It’s fucking fanfic, Colin. Loads of people write it.”
Colin scoffed. “No, Aaron, they don’t. Not normal people.”
Normal people?Christ.
Aaron opened his mouth to start on all the reasons why Colin was wrong—why fanfic was not only wildly popular but creatively important—but really, what was the point? They’d been over this a million times. They were never going to agree. So in the end he just shrugged and said, “I enjoy it. I never understood what your problem was with it.”
Cramming the juicer into the least-full box, Colin said, “My problem isn’t the writing, Aaron—it’s Skye Jäger. It’s that you’re in love with a fuckingfictional character. It’s that you write all that romantic shit about Skye and Faolán because in your head,you areFaolán.” He gave a derisive snort. “No surprise you dumped me. I can’t compete with that. Nobody can.”
“Bollocks,” Aaron snapped, suddenly angry. Okay, so maybe he was a bit in love with Skye and Faolán’srelationship, but that was totally different. That was just fandom fun, just entertainment. It wasn’t bloody real. “Leecheshad nothing to do with why I—With why things didn’t work out between us.”
“Didn’t it?”
“No, it didn’t.”
Colin snorted. “You need to face up to facts, Aaron, or you’re going to end up alone, stuck in your shitty job as a secretary—”
“I’m a Personal Assistant!”