I exhale. “All I meant was that if your girlfriend cheats while you’re at work, I think she’sthe asshole.”
He stares out at the street. I can see the lights reflecting in his eyes.
My mother has always told me I’d make a great diplomat, and I see it sometimes. But usually my mother is referring to fights about things like pizza toppings, not unhinged young hotel workers who seem like they’re about to blow.
I feel like I’ve been slowly trying to defuse a bomb up here.
“So what’s your name, then?” I ask.
“Fuck off. This isn’t?—”
“Just tell me.”
He breathes out. “Chase.”
“Nice to meet you, Chase.” I say, holding out my hand to shake his. “I’m Logan.”
“You’re so… proper,” he says. “Do you do Shakespeare plays or something?”
“Not recently, but a long time ago,” I tell him.And I’m not elaborating about my career. “Why were you saying you wanted things you can’t have?”
“I told you. It’s who I am. For example, Iwantto smoke that cigarette I threw away. I want better friends. I want to start painting again. I want to find somebody nice tonight to fuck because if I don’t come, I’ll go buy another pack, and the cycle continues. I can’t stand the idea of being in my bed alone again.”
“You’ll find someone else,” I assure him. “You should have no trouble with that.”
He cocks his head to one side. “You think I could get anyone?”
Yes. I do.
I pull in a long breath, a cresting wave of sadness filling me slowly, the tide rising again in the vast, dark ocean inside me.
You're young… and completely free.
There are no expectations on you, and your wonderful, attractive, chaotic life, where your strongest need is for nicotine or just a good fuck.
“Yes. I think you could have anyone you want.”
“Doubtful.”
I puff out a breath. “Chase, if you weren’t straight, I’d have already offered to get on my knees for you.”
Something lights up behind his eyes. Since the moment he walked out here, some portion of him has been faraway, detached, like he doesn’t quite know why he’s bothering to talk to me. He’s been intense, but removed.
“I don’t believe you.”
I shrug. “It’s the truth. And I had too much Scotch to keep it in right now, so I apologize.”
But now his gaze burns like the engine of a rocket, pointed straight at me.
“I don’t fuck men,” he says.
“I’m not telling you to. I’m just saying that you could have anyone you want, regardless. I can’t imagine anyone would turn you down.”
He’s silent for a while as the wind whips at his hair.
“I still don’t think you’d do it,” he finally tells me.
Just more proof that you don’t know me at all.
