Reignition

"You want this girl to stay with me?" Ivan said into his phone.

"You have that whole place to yourself." Harry replied, his voice scratching with static from the poor signal, "You can't make room for just one friend?"

He gave a sigh, "It's a Lonsdale street apartment. I can shit into the toilet from my shower."

"Doubt she wants to share the bathroom."

An apartment in Melbourne CBD is never very comfortable. They exist for the convenience of working, for those that never really want to go home. Fitting anything larger than a double bed wasn't possible. Nor was it cheap.

Having anyone come and crash at his place wasn't really something Ivan had ever done, because it was a single bedroom hole in the wall. Not something to celebrate and spin into a neighbourhood party.

"Look, I promise you she isn't a kid. She can take care of herself." Harry tried to encourage him, "Besides, who doesn't want a gal around the place? You gotta get a bit lonely."

"I work. That's enough for me."

Harry gave a heavy sigh, "That's really the point of it all, is it?... Look, just... Help her out, would you? I know she's a stranger, but I owe her."

Ivan winced instantly. When it came to owing someone, he owed Harry more than he could ever reasonably repay. After their graduation, it was Harry who had kept him alive, after the car accident. Man's hands on his chest, had been all that kept him around.

Not that Harry would ever bring it up.

Ivan fingered the scar on his chest, through his shirt, and gave a heavy sigh, "Well, if she's happy living with a total stranger, and a guy at that, I'll try and make it work."

"I promise you, Grace is an angel."

(TG)

"G-grace?"

Two weeks after Harry's call, Ivan found himself looking at a young woman on his doorstep. She was towing a travel bag that was bright pink, and featured a unicorn, but her outfit was more fitting to her age.

A short black skirt, featuring an edge of roses. A grey pullover hoodie with a picture of a metal band, drinking something out of skulls. Lace-up boots that went all the way up to her knees.

Her hair was also dyed black, with a left fringe of purple. But seeing her green eyes, he remembered the hair being blonde. He remembered her grinning with a lopsided tooth, even though it was now straight. Same grin, but dentist's had been at it.

She was grinning that grin, right now. "Oh. My. God! Ivy? Holy shit! Ivy!"

"It's Ivan." He winced at her childhood nickname for him, but stepped back from the door to let her in.

Instead of going by, though, she wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged in tight. He smelled blackberries. "Thankyou, so much, Ivy."

Grace leaned back, shook her head with a grin, and then walked her case into the tiny apartment. She leaned it up against the wall, and spun around with a flaring of her skirt. "Holy shit. Guess we're both friends with ol' Harry, then?"

"Met him at uni. We were... Trouble." Ivan said, "How'd you meet him?"

"One of those troublesome nights." She snorted, "Wow. My childhood boyfriend, all mine again. You better not get any ideas."

"No ideas." Ivan held up his hands nervously.

Grace gave a chuckle, but it seemed almost forced. Like she was building up her courage.

The two of them were in the main part of the apartment. Half of the open space was taken up with a desk, chair, and a single corner off a modular couch. The other half was fridge, stove, and bench worktop.

Two doors led off to the bedroom, and to the bathroom. Grace took it all in, and put both her hands into the front pocket of her hoodie, biting the corner of her lip nervously.

"I tried to warn Harry that it was tiny. Sorry."

Grace shook her head, and sat up on the edge of the kitchen bench, "No, it's okay. Actually, it's kind of amazing. Two minute tram to the station, and I'm walking distance from work."

"And all the garbage restaurants you can dream of, within walking distance."

She grinned, "It's Melbourne. Real Melbourne, not the suburbs. I don't think your apartment could be terrible."

"Still tiny."

Grace shook her head, "I can't thank you enough for this, Ivy. I know Harry probably forced you into this, and I'm sorry, but... I really didn't have any other option."

"It's fine." Ivan answered, "So long as we can make it work. Besides, it's... You. I think we've got some catching up to do. Preferably with that."

He pointed over at a small black box sitting under his tiny TV. It was the same game console he'd been given for his birthday by his parents, back when the two of them had still been working out what the difference was between boys and girls, and whether that should really be as significant as people treated it.

"Hell to the yeah!" Grace lit up excitedly, "Backstreet... Whatever. The beat 'em up thing we used to play! I can't wait to kick your butt, like old times."

Before they could launch right into the nostalgia, Ivan felt the need to be a little bit of a downer. "So... Um... I don't exactly have a bedroom. Or... A bed for you."

"Oh. Yeah."

He shrugged, "I'll be working most of the time, and we can trade the bedroom every couple of days or something. But... I grabbed a lilo. It's beside... What I generously call my couch."

She hopped down and skipped over, picking up the flat roll of plastic, "I should be at my internship most of the time, too. But I'm more than happy to sleep on this, no need for swapsies."

"We'll see how we go." Ivan said, "And hey, maybe you'll meet someone, and end up crashing at their place. Girl like you, city like this, it's the horizons, right?"

Grace gave him a really odd look, but didn't respond. His fault, he had probably just made things awkward, and seeming like he didn't want her there.

Which wasn't true, he just wanted something better for her.

(92)

The first few days were awkward.

Grace and Ivan shared memories of putting bandaids on each other's knees, following falling over across the asphalt of the school yard. But now that they were both adults, there really wasn't a lot to go on. They were strangers who just happened to know each other's names.

And schoolyard crushes.

The size of the apartment did not help. Whatever moments the two of them had together, were filled with awkward accidents, and more uncomfortable incidents. The wooden hardness of a suited shoe upon bare toes, or an almost-boiling coffee down a shirtfront, it seemed like the only things they said to each other was apologies.

The awkwardness did not stop there, either.

At the start of the second week, Ivan was in the shower, just stepping in after his morning run around the block and still breathing hard, when the door cracked open.

"Shit!" He said in surprise, looking through the glass door at the girl whose cheeks were suddenly, entirely, bright red.

Grace slammed the door, and screamed a sorry, which also immediately had a neighbour yell at them about the noise.

Ivan went to breathe a sigh of relief, when the door cracked open a little. He frowned, looking at the eye in the doorway, "Grace...?"

"I..." She said, looking down, and whispered something he didn't catch.

He turned the shower off, and leaned on the wall so he could see her better, "Try again?"

"I need to pee!" She said quickly, nervously.

"One second."

Ivan grabbed his towel and wrapped, before opening the door and letting her in. She seemed still stuck in shock, so he had to edge around her, his bare chest brushing up against her, before she suddenly bolted in and shut the door.

That was probably the moment when he first realised he was sharing his home with someone who... In other circumstances... He would probably be asking out on a date.

(ZS)

Grace returned the favour, that weekend.

Ivan was in his bedroom, eyes rolling with exhuastion as he took an emergency work call. It was supposed to be his time off, but they did not seem to know what the heck they were doing without him there to hold their hand through it.

Frustrated by the end, he opened the door to go grab a beer from the fridge, and was instantly confronted by the sight of Grace's naked calves.

She had laid out the pajamas across the couch, and had stripped down into exactly nothing. Her hair was hanging down her back, swashing back and forth above her perfectly symmetrical backside, and she was humming a pop song to herself.

"Shit." Ivan said, and mirrored her, stepping backwards and slamming the door.

"Oi! No peeking!" Grace called out with a nervous laugh.

(Bp)

The next morning, at breakfast, Ivan thought that they might need to talk about it. "Sorry, about last night. Again."

Grace went red, and mumbled something as she dipped her spoon into the chocolate rice pops of childhood, that nobody could tell you off for eating as an adult.

"I think... We might need some ground rules. Something to know when one of us is changing, so we can't walk in on each other?"

She winced, "I thought about it, but... You were on a call. I didn't want to make your boss angry, or whatever. It sounded intense."

"Intense, yeah." He frowned, thinking, "Maybe... I should knock, before I leave the bedroom."

"Knock before leaving your own bedroom?" Grace said dubiously.

"Entering yours."

She shrugged, poking at her breakfast, "My body isn't so terrible you need to run from it. Maybe."

"Your body is amazing." Ivan said in shock.

She gave a tiny smile, "Really? Not what the last guy said. But you're not bad either! That chest is solid, and... Running works for you."

Ivan's thinking stumbled, as he tried to work out which half of those incredible statements to respond to, but instead he said, "Housemates probably shouldn't say those things about each other."

"No, but..." Grace put down her spoon and shrugged, "Look, living here, like this, it's going to let things happen. It shouldn't be a big deal. It won't be, unless we treat it that way. You're going to see me again, and I'm going to see you. Maybe even what's between those legs. It'll happen. We just need to... Make it work."

He was shocked. He would have thought most people in her position would throw a right fit about being violated. Instead, she was being mature, and just looking to make it work. She was taking everything in stride, and he was the one making it a thing.

"That... Makes sense."

She gave a small smile, "That doesn't mean you get to perv whenever you want."

"Grace!"

(cy)

The two of them settled into an easy routine.

They did still occasionally walk in on each other, but it stopped being a big deal. An apology and turnabout foot was all it was. It helped that Grace's internship, and Ivan's job, just about ran the both of them into the ground.

Ivan was working six to seven days a week, a full ten hours every day. He didn't have a lot of time to see her. Despite the offer of it, neither of them had played a game on the console since that first day, and certainly not together.

They just didn't have the time.

The most they ever saw each other, was at the breakfast table. Or rather, Ivan leaning on the kitchen bench and scoffing down his food, whilst Grace brushed her hair with one hand and tried to beat him in a race to cram down the necessary calories to get through the day.

Watching TV on the weekends was something they did together. Usually Ivan would give her the couch, and lean up alongside it, but sometimes they'd swap and Grace would end up falling asleep with her head falling onto his legs.

They found a certain equilibrium to it all, tired and exhausted, but living in the same space.

Right up, until Grace caught him.

(B0)

Ivan was lying back in the bed, laptop lying beside him on the bed, one hand wrapped around his rather private piece.

He was in full flow, right near the tipping point, feeling the familiar stir deep inside his balls, when the door flew all the way open.

"Hey, Ivy! I just found the recipe! I..." She trailed off, mouth falling open.

He clenched his eyes shut and grabbed the pillow from behind his head to slam it across his privates.

"I'm... So sorry." Grace said, the cringe plain in her voice. But she didn't leave the doorway.

"Uh... Grace?"

"Right. Sorry. Uh... I was about to try and make some cookies? You remember the girl scouts cookies you always used to bum off me? I found the recipe! I thought we could watch a movie with them and... You know... Nostalgia...?"

"Grace!" Ivan snapped, eyes opening to stare at her.

She did actually look embarrassed, for how oblivious she was sounding. It took Grace a heartbeat before she suddenly realised, "Oh. Right."

The door closed slowly, clicking shut quietly, as she slowly retreated. Far too slowly for his tastes. It had, however, absolutely killed the hard-on he'd had. That wasn't coming back anytime soon.

Not that she wasn't alluring. She was absolutely attractive, and might have been edging into his thoughts during his private times. But getting caught was not in Ivan's turn-ons, and he didn't know how it could be for anyone.

More than the embarrassment, though, his thoughts turned over to the relative stranger in his house. She'd just caught him in a rather private moment, and then behaved a little bit like an air head.

There was every chance she was freaking out in the main room of the apartment.

Ivan weighed it in his mind, moving back and forth several times. If he went out there, he could make it infinitely worse. Trying to talk about it could be the wrong move. It might be easier to drop it, forget it, and never mention it again.

However, he remembered Grace being a sensitive sort of girl. She put on a big front, and could trash talk with the best of them. Still, she was the kind of girl to pick a fight with the opposite team, and then be found crying in the shower by herself.

He cleaned up, pulled on a t-shirt and some trackies, before slowly coming out to the loungeroom.

He found Grace sitting by herself, curled up into a ball on the couch, staring at the black screen of the TV.

She looked up with a fright as she noticed him, "Ivan, I -"

"S'okay." He held up his hands quickly, "Like you said. These things are going to happen. Just coming to apologise that you saw me like that. Saw... Yeah. Let's not go there."

"I'm the one who is sorry." Grace cringed.

There was something about her that just seemed off to him, and Ivan did something he would never usually do. He crossed to her, bent over, and put his arms around her in a hug.

Grace immediately burst into tears, both breaking his heart and sending such a shock through him that he could swear his hair went saiyan.

"I'm ruining it all." Grace sobbed, "You and this city... I can't even remember the right coffees... And then I come here and you can't even... You can't be... A boy... Without me interrupting you."

"Tough day, at work?" He asked, holding her lightly.

Grace gave a bitter laugh, "The fuck is the difference between a latte and a cappuccino? Is it really worth threatening to fire the shitty intern?"

"Melbourneans are coffee snobs." He said and gave her a squeeze, before joking, "But, really. There's a huge difference."

Grace looked up at him with a red-eyed glare, "Shuddup."

He grinned, "So... You want me to make you a cap?"

"Mocha." She looked down, and glumly whispered, "I know that makes me a coffee-snobs worst shitstain on the bottom of their boot, but... It's what I like."

"Someone had to invent the damn thing. Of course there are people who like to drink it." Ivan said reassuringly, and leaned up, before instinctively tousling her hair, "You're doing fine."

"It's not fine." Grace said, leaning over the couch to watch him, "You've had to change your whole life, for me. You can't even piss privately! You can't bring home any girls. You... Deserve to be able to hate me."

Ivan called out over the boiling kettle, "Wasn't doing that, before you got here, either."

"Bringing girls over?"

"Yup." He nodded, "I haven't actually been on a date in... Five, six years? Not since I started this job. I guess I... Got caught up in all the career things and it was just... Too hard."

It wasn't as if he'd lost his urges, of course. The moment earlier was proof of that. However, he'd just never been interested in dating apps, and he wasn't interested in a one night stand, either. He wanted a connection, but that took time and effort he didn't have anymore.

Occasionally, in the horrors of post-coital clarity, he wondered how long it would be before he bought a dog and called an end to ever trying again.

"So, you're not ruining anything." He said, turning to her with a smile. "Having anybody to come home to, is kind of nice."

"Even if it's this dork?" She said sceptically.

Ivan laughed, "Who the heck calls you a dork? You're just about a model."

"Who likes computer games." She pointed out. "And if you have to really know... Every single damn person at work. All of them call me the dorky whiner behind my back. I try and be so nice, and not complain at all about everything they get the useless intern to do... But... I'm apparently the worst complaint in the office."

Ivan moved back to her, and crouched in front of her, "Hey now, that's total rubbish. Who cares what those idiots think? You're amazing, and right on the cusp of living the dream. You're a lot of things, but a dork is not one of them."

"You barely even know me, Ivy." She said with a heavy sigh.

He nodded, "That's fair. But I do like what I've seen so far. You're working your butt off in a Melbourne firm, so you're driven, and you're smart enough to get your foot in the door. The last couple months must have been hell, but you've made it look easy. You've also made me laugh, and made me think, which does make me want to know you better. What more do I need to know about you?"

Grace jumped forward, hugging him, and pressing her face into the side of his neck with a heavy sniffle. "Thanks. You're the best."

He struggled not to fall over, with the bundle suddenly in his arms. He held her tight, and then leaned back and tried to make light of everything, because he wasn't that great with deep and meaningful emotions. "Nah. And with how close we're living, I s'pose it won't be long until I catch you, at what... I just did."

Her face went bright red, and she pushed on his shoulder, knocking him over. "Hey! I... I actually don't... Do that."

He looked up at from his hands and wrists, "Huh? Wait. Everyone does that. Even grandma does."

"Ew!"

"Old people get more STDs than anybody else." Ivan laughed, "It's true, though. Nothing wrong with working out a little frustration. Hell, I'm pretty sure there's some Song of Solomon stuff that talks about it."

"You still can't say the word." She pointed out.

He shrugged, "Urges are altogether normal."

"I... I've just never really got into it."

Ivan hesitated instantly, wondering if he was pushing something 'all natural' on someone who might actually be asexual. He might be messing her up, instead of helping her out. There was every chance, and he didn't want her thinking that she was sick or unusual.

"Do you... Have urges?" He asked cautiously, "It's okay, if you don't. That can be normal. I'm not trying to be a bigot."

Grace burst out laughing, "No, I'm not ace. Actually, if you wanna run down that street, I'm pretty sure that I'm bi. One of my bosses at work, she treats me like absolute shit, but... Damn, if she ain't hot. She is hot as fuck. But a bitch."

"You into that?"

"No! No way!" She stared at him, "No. I like to be treated just right. When a guy does everything to let you know he thinks you're worth it, that... That lights a fucking fire. See, I'm sexual."

He blinked, "You ever dated a girl?"

"Mostly guys." She shrugged, "I've dated a couple girls. But with the internship, and living here... Nothing's gonna happen until I save enough for my own place. Still got desires though..."