NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT YOUR PENIS

LEVI

“I’m out.” Ash coughs and beats at his chest as if he’s a decrepit old dude with pneumonia. He hands me the bottle of tequila.

“What happened to you, man?” I side-eye him and take another swig. “All those ’roids you’re pumping through your system turn you into a pussy?”

“Fuck you, I don’t do ’roids.”

“You’re doing somethin’.”

“Yeah, it’s called working out.” He stands and stretches, but he begins shivering almost immediately now that he’s no longer under the duvet he pulled from his bed. “Jesus, fuck it’s cold out here.”

I pull my own cover closer around my neck. “Pussy.”

“Just ’cause you’re too drunk to feel it. Do me a favour, take a warm shower before you hit the hay. You’re gonna get frostbite on your balls.”

“S’not like I need them anymore,” I mumble, but despite the doona cover and the eight layers of clothing, my balls really are cold.

“Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you. In ten years you’ll want kids, and you’ll have to ask Zed or Coop to be your sperm donor.”

“Nah, you’d do it for me.”

His face turns serious. Ash is always serious, but he’s never been sad or forlorn a day in his life, not since I’ve known him—but there’s something not right with the way he’s looking at me. Then again, maybe I’m just so fucked up I’m seeing things.

“What’s wrong with you?” I slur, but he’s already at the balcony door and probably too far away to make sense of my incoherent words.

“I’m going to bed. Don’t freeze to death out here.”

“Can’t make any promises.” I can’t feel my face. I can’t feel anything. I’m numb, and I fucking love it. I may just sleep out here. Pitch a little duvet tent, crawl inside, and never come out. At least then I wouldn’t have to hear Ali and Coop fucking.

“You sure that’s such a good idea,” Ash says, and I roll my eyes back inside my head wondering what the fuck he’s going on about.

A snow fort is exactly what I need.

“I just wanna talk to him.” Red. My insides twist up in knots. My Red. Only she’s not mine. She never was. “I’m not going to hurt him.”

Ash laughs, and it’s a humourless, empty sound. “You just being in the same room hurts him, Ali. Fuck! You being halfway across the world tears him apart—”

“I didn’t come here to hurt him.”

“And yet it did anyway.”

“Ash,” I grumble. “Leave her alone.”

“Whatever.” He sighs, and I turn my head to see him leave; it makes me dizzy. I stare at the falling snow as it blankets the city. The door closes softly behind Ali, and I can’t help it. I stare at her, because when she’s around, I can’t look away.

“You look really good, Red.”

She sighs. “You’ve told me that already. You look like shit, Levi.”

“You told me that already too.” I grin and bring the bottle of tequila to my mouth, taking a hearty swig and wincing as it burns the ever-living fuck out of my oesophagus. Ali places her hand over mine and pulls the bottle from my lips. She takes it from me, but not without a struggle first.

“I know this is hard for you.”

“Well, not yet, but shove your hand down my pants, and it won’t be long.” I pause. “Actually, we both know that’s not true. My cock is huge.”

“Yes, it is,” she says quietly. “But you know I’m not talking about your penis. Not everything is about your penis, Levi.”

“Sure, it is.”

“Look.” Ali sighs. “I can leave if this is too hard.”

“I thought we weren’t talking about my cock?”

“Levi.”

“What do you want me to say, Red?” I ask. “Yeah, it’s hard. Seeing you here, having you sit right next to me and being unable to touch you, fucking sucks, but I’ll get over it. Eventually.”

“I don’t like to see you hurt.”

“But you like to see him hurt even less.”

“That isn’t it.”

“You chose him, Red. You chose the man you couldn’t live without. Of course, I think you’re wrong, but what the hell do I know?”

“You’re going to make some other girl really happy one day. You just need to find the right one.”

“I already did,” I murmur. “She’s marrying someone else.”

She straightens, but her brows crease with confusion. “What?”

“Nothing,” I say with a sigh. I get to my feet, kiss the top of her head and stagger inside.

“Levi—”

“Goodnight, Red.”