“Did you know it was me?” His voice shakes a little as he slides into the booth across from me, folding one of his long legs underneath him and plunking both elbows onto the table, leaning into my space. Fuck,he looks good.
“Fuck, no, I wouldn’t have —” I pause, studying Cole’s face. “Wait, didyou?”
“Ofcoursenot.” Cole tosses his head. “You made yourself pretty fucking clear the last time I saw you, and I’m not looking to get rejected twice.”
Look, I can’t read people for shit, but even I can tell that Cole is radiating hurt, and it makes me want to crawl under the table and die. “I —”
“The fuck you doing in New York, anyway?” Cole cuts in, and I’m grateful for a question I can actually answer.
“I moved here for grad school eight years ago, and I guess I just stayed. I teach at a couple of different schools now.”
“Really?” Cole studies me closely, his eyes piercing through my armor. And even though I’m shaking, I can’t help the heat that builds inside me whenever he looks at me. “You fucking hate noise. I’m surprised you can stand it here.”
“Who says I can stand it?” I can’t help a wry half-grin, and when I glance at Cole, the corner of his mouth twitches. “I mean — I dunno. I wanted to go someplace where I could get lost, I guess. Where I could be myself and nobody would give a shit.”
“How’s that working out for you? Being yourself?”
I chuckle drily. “Pretty fucking wretched, actually. Turns out I’mkind of a dick.”
Cole snorts, but he doesn’t contradict me. So I takea sip of my beer, and then try deflecting.
“So what about you? You said at the party that you’re still making art —?”
“Yeah, I just had an opening this week.” Cole chews on a fingernail, staring me down. “I’m surprised you heard anything I said at the party. You looked like you wanted to be literally anywhere else.”
“That wasn’t what I — I mean, itwas, but —” This isn’t the time or place to spill what it does to my insides, just being near Cole again. He doesn’t want to fucking hear it.
Not when his eyes are flashing, his mouth twisting as he looks at me. “I also got the distinct impression that you’re not out. And yet here you are meeting up with dudes for sex. So I just want to know — what am I getting myself into? How badly am I gonna get hurt here?”
My mouth opens and shuts a few times as I try to pin the words down. “I mean, this wasn’t — Look, my family doesn’t know me and they don’t need to know about me either. It’s my business.”
“Sure.”
Cole is staring me down, splashes of color dotting his cheekbones, a flush creeping up his chest, and I swear I can see his heartbeat through his thin shirt. That’s when my stupid brain decides to flood my thoughts with every one of the filthy texts we’d exchanged over the past two days, every depraved thingwe’d promised to do to one another.
“Wait—” I can’t believe the words tumbling out of my fucking mouth. “On the app — you said you were talking to me because I reminded you of someone you couldn’t fuck —”
“Yeah, guess who I meant.” Cole rolls his eyes. “This must be some kind of fucking record — we just speedranYou’ve Got Mailin two days.”
I blinked. “We what?”
“God,whyam I so attracted to you?” Cole huffs, sitting back hard in his seat and stretching his legs out underneath the table, brushing my ankle as he moves. “You also said that just because you’re a dick, that doesn’t mean we can’t fuck.”
“I did, but —” All the reasons we shouldn’t do this are flashing across my brain in glowing neon letters, but I can’t deny that I’m starting to press uncomfortably against the zipper of my jeans.
Cole leans forward once more, his long fingers creeping toward mine. “I can’t fucking believe I’m saying this, but — Look, I just spent half an hour cleaning out because I thought I was getting railed tonight. Either you’re going to do it, or somebody else will. Which is it gonna be?”
A pause, both of us blazing into each other’s eyes, my heart beating in my throat. Then I grab my glass, draining the last of my beer and slamming it back onto the table. “Let’s do this.”
Cole snatches my hand and drags me out of the booth. “Come on then — before I wake up and realize how fucking stupid this is.”
***
“So, where are we going?”
We’re heading down Seventh Avenue, and I’m nearly trotting to keep up with Cole’s long strides. The sun is low in the sky, glinting off the towers of stone and glass and lighting his hair up with gold.
“I live just around the corner. I don’t actually — you know, sex in public — at least not most of the time. Usually I meet a guy at a bar first to make sure he’s not an asshole, and if he’s not, then I bring him home.”
