Free Foxes by Suki Fleet

though I pretended I didn’t know he was here until he reached the table. Anticipation is like electric shocks all over my skin.
    I glance at the clock. Micky notices and grins at me. If he winks at me, my heart might stop. Self-consciously I wonder if he can see how my body reacts to him. Do I give off signals without even knowing? I’m desperately trying to gather myself in and not give myself away.
    I touch the hot-water bottle, feeling how warm it is. My finger vibrates as I run it across the funny rubber patterns that crisscross its surface. I pull it off the table into my lap. It’s a very bad idea. It’s almost hot and the warmth seeps beneath my skin and gets my stupid hormones all fired up. It feels nice, too nice, and all I can do is think Oh , before my brain switches off and I get hard staring at Micky’s full lips.
    “It kept me warm in bed this morning, thank you,” Micky says.
    He looks like he’s trying not to open his mouth too widely as he speaks, and then I see why.
    He has a bruise on his face, mostly hidden by his hair. From the edge of his left cheekbone to his ear, the skin is purple and swollen. I frown and grip the notepad in my pocket, the warmth in my lap forgotten.
    “What happened?” I keep my eyes on the table as I speak, then glance up again.
    I don’t even have to explain what I mean. Micky touches his cheek self-consciously and sags forward. All at once he looks exhausted.
    “Nothing major.” He catches my eye and sighs. “Fainted. Again.”
    Really fainted, or fainted into someone’s fist?
    I frown at the tabletop. My fingers dig into my palm as I clench my hand, trying to rein in the intense wave of anger that surges through me at the thought of someone hitting him.
    Gritting my teeth, I unclench my hands and clutch the empty mug in front of me instead.
    “You can’t fix my phone, can you?” he says.
    He rolls his shoulders back as if he’s trying to sit tall and make it not matter, but I can tell he’s upset. His bony fingers fiddle with the white ceramic salt and pepper pots in the middle of the table. He tips one then the other, making little piles of white and gray. The waitress behind the counter watches us.
    “It’s okay. It’s not your fault,” he says.
    It is my fault, though.
    “Here.” He pulls my phone out of his secret pocket and pushes it across the table to me. “I really can’t keep taking your phone.”
    I push it back. I wish he’d stop trying to give it back to me. “I’ll get you another.”
    “Another phone?” He draws his eyebrows together and shakes his head. His hair looks a little greasy. The boy who looked dressed for a club the other night, all bright and glittering, is not the one sitting before me. Nor is the bright smiley boy of yesterday. Strangely it’s this one I like more. Not because he’s hurt or anything—I hate that he’s hurt—but because he’s real, he’s not spaced out, he doesn’t seem to be hiding behind a façade. He’s tired and sort of sad, but there’s this warmth about him too, this honesty. Like he was in that picture I saw so briefly before I fucked everything up, I somehow feel closer to the truth of him.
    He makes my heart beat faster than ever.
    I wonder what he’d have to do to not have this effect on me. It’d probably have to be something spectacularly awful that I can’t imagine, because right now it feels as though we’re inhabiting the same space, and I can count on my fingers how often I’ve felt like that in my life.
    “It’s not your problem. Really. It’s mine,” he carries on.
    “Take it,” I say firmly. A wild idea occurs to me. “Keep it. I’ll wipe all the data and then it’s yours.” I hold eye contact with him, though it does something weird to my stomach, and for a second my heartbeat seems to go flat-out crazy.
    “No. It’s not fair. I can’t pay you. I don’t have anything to give you at all. Well, apart from the obvious.” A sad smile plays briefly on his