I grin at him as we cross the canal in front of my place.
“You look like a gift I can’t wait to unwrap.”
“Only good boys get presents.” His breath is thicker than a deep drag of Purple Haze.
“Love, please. You’re the first to strip naked the second we get home, don’t act all hard to get.”
A little smile. He knows.
There’s a thin layer of ice on the cobblestones, so we watch our step. It’s only a ten-minute walk to our first stop, and I’m hoping we make it without either of us face-planting on the street.
We enter the Red Light District, the first establishments already cropping up.
“McKenna!” someone yells behind us.
I turn and raise a hand, no clue who I’m waving at. Bartender at Joan’s club, maybe. Hard to say. My memory tends to black out the second I make it past the bouncer.
The guy pats my shoulder as he passes us on his bike.
We round the corner, another familiar face pops up.
“Tom, is that really you?”
It’s Nella, in apple-green velvet leggings and a candy-pink fur coat. One of the neighborhood’s many birds of paradise. With Nella, the voice always arrives before the spectacle.
“How are you, honey?” I lean in for the Dutch three kisses.
“Haven’t seen you in forever. Did you just crawl out of a coffeeshop?”
“Actually, the opposite. Just got out of rehab.”
She chuckles, sparks her lighter, cigarette tucked between lacquered stiletto-nailed fingers.
I cup my hands around the flame out of habit. The tip glows red almost immediately.
“You’re hilarious, Tom.” She exhales smoke sideways. “I’m on my way to your sister’s. You heading there too?”
“No, we’re going to SACS.”
“Alright, sweetheart. See you around then. Love you.”
“Bye, Nell. Oh, don’t tell Cherry you saw me. I want to surprise her.”
She blows me a kiss and vanishes into a side alley. Cheryl’s office is just down the road.
I turn back to Yosh. “No fucking way am I going to visit my sister.”
Yosh throws me one of those therapist looks. Impossible to read, especially with half his face covered.
“Tell me, Doctor, what’s your analysis?”
“I can only make it when all my questions are answered.”
“Okay. What do you want to know?”
His head snaps my way. “Who was that?”
There we go. Turns out my calm, zen boyfriend loses the zen the second jealousy shows up. It’s cute, until it isn’t.
