She's promised him she wouldn't have more than one glass tonight but she's already three quarters of the way through a cheap bottle of red. Cheap but still more than she could afford.
Her feet stretch in front of her and onto the cardboard box she is still using as a coffee table. Shes still using it because he has not shown up nor is he answering her calls and she can only presume he has grown tired of her already. Tired of normal, their normal, her normal.
Maybe he liked her when she was more of a mess, maybe he just liked to play hero. She thinks she could try and fall apart again if it meant he'd come back to put her pieces together. The thought of being without him makes that thought very plausible.
She's wearing a pair of his boxers as shorts and her favorite of his shirts, it's grey and she wears it done up only to where her bra sits, letting too much of the black lace material show than would be considered appropriate. She wasn't angry with him when she changed out of the outfit she'd specifically chosen to go out with him and into his left clothes that smelt of him and his aftershave and slightly of her too, entwined as though they were meant to be something. More than nothing.
She's angry now though as she gulps her fourth glass of the night, wishing he could see how she was doing everything he told her not to but knowing the truth was that if he was there, she wouldn't be doing it at all. She's angry because he did what no else had done. He stuck around when she was at her very lowest, making promises he was already breaking.
It's gone eleven when the door of her flat clicks open and she frowns, stumbling up from the sofa, wine glass still in hand. She can already feel his disappointment but she's too annoyed to care.
"What the 'ell are you doing here." She leans on the arm of the sofa and tries to steady herself and steady the wine glass, empty already, back on her cardboard box. Makeshift, like everything else in her life felt.
"You're drunk." Nick sighs and Carla almost smirks in response but she doesn't, not outwardly at least.
"Ten points to Sherlock. You can't just barge into my flat at nearly midnight you know Nicholas. I might 'ave been sleeping."
He half rolls his eyes and walks towards her, not giving her the option to fight as he forcefully but yet gently, his hands not too tight on her upper arms, places her back onto the sofa and pulls the blanket over her, ignoring the way she is pouting like a naughty school child. As much as he had enjoyed letting his eyes devour what she was wearing it is cold and late.
"It's hardly barging in when you gave me a key. Why have you had so much to drink? We agreed one glass." He is up and tidying around her, putting glasses in the sink and bottles in the bin and Carla finds it so frustrating in her drunken state. She wishes he would just sit.
She shrugs and suddenly feels foolish because he's back in front of her, placing a lingering kiss to her head before reaching for the empty crisp packet next to her, placing that too in the bin, "thought you'd gone off me." She mumbles and Nick frowns from where is is turning on the kettle to make her a sobering drink.
"What? Why on earth would you think that?" His eyes are confused as they stare at her across from the kitchen and her body is twisted to face him, her fingers pulling at thread on the back of her sofa.
"Have you forgotten?" She looks up at him and her voice is suddenly soft and vulnerable and Nicks head is in his hands as he groans and walks the short distance to the sofa, "coffee table shopping.. Carla I'm so sorry-"
"Forget it." She cuts him off and pushes the blanket away with a sigh, standing up with more stability than she had shown earlier, as though his lack of thought for her sobered her up all on its own. She walks past Nick and doesn't let him grab her hand like he tries to.
She doesn't want his excuses, not knowing or wanting to know what had kept her from his thoughts. Maybe he was held up at the bistro, maybe Leanne needed a friendly shoulder to cry on, maybe anything at all seemed like a better option than her.
"You know, I really thought-" She's leaning against the door and sighing and half crying and she doesn't even realise how irrational she is being. She is still not even half way back to being herself yet and she is more fragile than she cares to admit. She doesn't take into account the bags under Nicks eyes or the way he seems quieter, with less fight than when he'd left her that morning because all she can see is the rejection she feels and it's eating her alive.
"Carla don't you dare doubt how I feel about you. Don't you dare." His voice cracks slightly and he is pulling at his tie roughly, throwing it haphazardly onto the sofa with his blazer. She simply watches from the door, dancing from foot to foot almost awkwardy.
"Please don't make me depend on you if you're not going to stick around Nick." Carla's eyes stare intently at the floor because she cannot bare to look at him, focusing instead on the chipped red nail varnish on her toes.
"I ran Max over today." He says it so bluntly she thinks she hears him wrong but the way he looks at her as she catches his gaze finally tells her she didn't.
"I didn't, I mean I didn't hit him, thank god. But he ran out from Callum in front of the van, I couldn't stop in time. I could have killed him Carla."
She is already by his side, her arms around him and her lip against his ear, then his cheek and then his jaw.
"God I am so sorry, I'm such a selfish cow." She kisses occasionally between words and already he feels more at ease. He shakes his head, sighing quietly, "I should have phoned, I just got caught up with everything. I'm sorry I made you doubt me. That is the last thing I wanted."
For the first time since they started their dysfunctional relationship, she is the comforter. She holds him against her chest in the bed they have come to know as theirs instead of hers and listens as he tells her of his day and the guilt he feels despite it being completely out of his hands. She listens and speaks when necessary, providing words she knows are probably of little comfort because she had heard them all herself in her own time of need. But she says them anyway because that is what you do.
"I'm sorry for being drunk and stroppy when you came 'ome." Neither of them mention how she calls her flat his home, probably because she has said it one too many times already and it is almost natural now.
"Don't worry, I'm used to it."
She nudges his arm with a pretend frown and he simply gives her a throaty chuckle in return. She can't help but smile back at that, "Well not tomorrow, I promise."
And she means it.
Tomorrow, they go shopping.
Tomorrow, they buy a coffee table.