Addendum #11

Series 1, episode 6: Incorporeal Music


Shea called Julianne his little girlfriend, and some chord inside Lloyd started swinging. In A-minor, or C-major ... or D-minor ... He liked D-minor.

But already the next moment he nervously doused the vibration inside, dampened it with a big ball of cotton-words. Big words, convoluted; because it couldn't be, wasn't allowed to be.

If Julianne was his girlfriend, then that would implicate that he was her boyfriend, and he wasn't, because he wasn't boyfriend-material. His mother had told him so. Actually, no. No, she had made him so. She had scrubbed every boyfriend-quality he'd ever had out of him. Plus, what would Julianne do with a guy like him? A guy she'd get to see only every once in a while, and never alone. How could they be together? Impossible.

He felt the distinct need to explain himself to her, apologize even, for the sheer idea of anyone suggesting there could be anything between them. Because there wasn't. There couldn't be.

Much as he wished.

He called it ridiculous – which should tell her pretty much everything about how he really felt for her, but she just shook her head, laughed it off. As much as she was capable of laughing in other people's company, anyway.

It hurt more than it should.

Her offer to let him use her phone to call his mother was sweet, though. Almost made up for the sting.

But he refused. Somehow Lloyd knew that he was shy by nature, but his mother had multiplied that a hundredfold, until he was practically incapable of talking with women he had romantic feelings for. Like Julianne. So screw her – Mother, not Julianne, obviously. If Beaumont tried to blow up his mother, at the moment, Lloyd couldn't have cared less. She'd fucked him up in so many ways, and she'd fucked him up good.

But maybe, since the subject had come up earlier... He asked her to track down his dad for him. He wasn't sure why, but her readiness to comply, and that smile...

Lloyd felt the chord go off again inside himself. It definitely was a D-minor. It tingled all through him, and he could look at her all day long, smiling or not, she was... she was...

He forced himself to look away, but stayed near her desk, touching it just lightly with his fingertips, since he couldn't touch her.

There were base-drums now too, pounding inside him. Beating out his pulse that was way too quick, and resounding nauseatingly in the pit of his stomach, pulling his heart down.

He swallowed. He forced himself to step away from her desk, break the contact.

He'd liked her from the moment he'd met her, and every time he'd seen her since then he liked her a bit more.

To say that he had a bad track-record when it came to being in love would be an understatement. For once, he'd only been in love twice before. And both times it had come to nothing, because he couldn't get himself to open his mouth and say something.

They do say that the third time's the charm, but Lloyd wasn't a believer in sayings. All he wanted was to fall the fuck out of love.

'cause it sucked.