“Okay.” His arm didn’t tighten. His voice didn’t change. He said, “okay” the way he said most things when he was processing; flat, measured, the surface calm while something underneath did the math.
“Ellis.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s clearly not fine.”
“It’s fine, Jett. You went to a club, someone recognized you, you told them you’re taken. That’s exactly what’s supposed to happen.” He pulled me closer, which contradicted everything his voice was doing. “Go to sleep.”
I didn’t push. Maybe I should have. But the night had been good, the first time I’d felt normal in weeks, and I didn’t want to crack it open looking for problems underneath.
I closed my eyes, let his arm hold me, and tried not to think about the way the ghost had looked at me. Not with desire. With familiarity. With the casual intimacy of someone who’d been inside my apartment, inside my life for exactly one night, and then been escorted out before the coffee was ready.
I’d done that to a lot of people. I knew the number. Rough estimate, at least. And every single one of them was walking around Brooklyn with a version of me in their memory, a version Ellis would never meet but might keep running into.
My past wasn’t behind me. It was distributed across five boroughs, and eventually enough of it would surface that Ellis would have to decide what it meant.
I hoped he’d decide it didn’t mean anything.
I wasn’t sure that was true.
Chapter eighteen
Two weeks later, Ellis met one of my ghosts.
We were at a bar in Park Slope—not our usual territory, but Ellis’ coworker Derek was having a birthday thing, and Ellis had finally started saying yes to work events, which I took as progress. He’d introduced me to three different colleagues as “my boyfriend, Jett” without stumbling, and Marcus had shaken my hand and said “So you’re the reason Ellis has been smiling at stand-ups” and Ellis had turned red from his collar to his hairline, which was the best thing I’d seen all week.
I was feeling good. Better than I’d felt since the phone call with my mom, actually. Ellis loose and laughing with his work friends, me holding a beer and charming Derek’s girlfriend with a story about a corporate gala where the ice sculpture melted into the shrimp tower. This was the version of us I wanted. Public and easy.
We’d stepped outside for air. The bar had that overheated, too-many-bodies thing happening, and Ellis wanted to cool down before he sweated through his shirt. We were leaning against the brick wall, his shoulder against mine, sharing a quiet that only worked because we trustedeach other not to ruin it.
“I like your work people.”
“They like you. Derek’s girlfriend already put us on the couples-only trivia list. She wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
“I hope you said yes.”
“I saidtry and stop us.” He bumped his shoulder against mine.
I was about to kiss him right there on the sidewalk, in Park Slope, in front of God and the bodega across the street, when someone stopped on the sidewalk in front of us.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
The voice was sharp. Familiar in a way I couldn’t immediately place, which was the problem with having a past the size of mine. Too many faces compressed into a blur of skin and exits.
I looked up.
He was maybe twenty-six, twenty-seven. Shorter than me, stocky, dark hair that fell across his forehead. Puerto Rican, if I remembered right. He was staring at me with an expression I’d seen before but never directed at me with this much heat. The expression of someone who’d spent a long time being angry and had just been handed a target.
“Nathan.”
The name surfaced from somewhere deep. A night, eight months ago, maybe nine. His friend’s rooftop in Bed-Stuy. He’d been funny and nervous, told me about his sister’s wedding. We’d gone back to mine. I’d kicked him out before 2 A.M., the way I kicked everyone out, with some line about an early morning that wasn’t real but sounded believable. He’d asked at the door if I’d want to do this again. I’d said sure. I’d lied.
He’d texted. Three times. I hadn’t responded.
“Nathan,” he repeated, mimicking me. “Just ‘Nathan,’ like we ran into each other at a grocery store. Like you didn’t ghost me.”
Ellis went very still beside me.
