Page 31 of Wingmen

He nodded and looked up at a window on the second floor. As she went to her pocket for her keys she said, “Are you…coming in for a nightcap?” and gave him the universalBecause you definitely shouldlook.

Of course he was.

The sex they had was good. Elliot did all the moves and Drew seemed happy with his performance. Seconds before he finished, Bennet’s voice popped back into his head, but he managed to shut it down before it got to, “cue,” and he wasn’t thinking about Bennet when he came, gracias a Dios.

Afterwards, she walked him down to the street. Which was unexpected – he’d been preparing his usual script to get out of there without having to spend the night. She didn’t seem to care at all that he was leaving, and it bothered him. He wasn’tmadabout it, exactly, he was…kind of sad.

He liked her.

In a way he hadn’t liked other girls. He’d talked to her forway longerthan he’d intended to tonight. He figured it would be a get-in-get-out deal. But she’d turned out to be pretty cool. Which was weird because she dressed like a dude and wasnothis usual type…but maybe that’s why it was different?

It was a huge relief, honestly, after the week he’d had worrying about Bennet. This was a girl. The sex was good. Hewasn’t sure it was ‘religious experience’ good, like Sal said it should be, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever had any other kind of religious experience either, so he had nothing to compare it to. He liked her enough to be sad he was leaving…that seemed like the right thing to be feeling. More right than what he was feeling about Bennet, anyway.

So as she said goodbye at the door and turned to go back inside, he grabbed her arm.

“Maybe you could – orIcould – give you my info? And if you wanted to hang out again, you could…” –ay, fuck, why was he nervous– “...use it?”

She got a saucy look and made a show of very obviously sizing him up. Her eyes returned to his, and she shrugged, poking her tongue into her cheek. “Okay.”

Elliot pulled out his phone. “Instagram?”

“That’s fine. What’s your handle?”

Ah, fuck. That handle was so fucking stupid, he really needed to change it. “It’s, uh,” –he cleared his throat– “Elliot the King of Hockey.”

Her lips immediately pinched together and she looked down at the phone to hide her smile. She typed it into the search bar, and he braced for the thing that always happened the first time a girl saw his Instagram. Usually, he couldn’t wait to do that flex. Tonight, he felt mildly embarrassed.

“Oh,” she said, and looked at him. “You have a lot of followers.”

He sighed. “Yah.”

“Like…” She looked down. “A lot.”

He watched her scroll through his profile and waited for the next thing that always happened. Sure enough, her thumb stopped in the same place all the girl’s thumbs did – over the shot with Reef and Diego by the pool in Miami. She tapped to enlarge it. He watched her absorb it – the three of them shirtless,Elliot in the middle with his tattoos on full display – and when her eyes came back up, she said, “Do you wanna call them up and you guys canallcome up for a nightcap?”

He laughed and looked down at his phone. “What’s yours?”

She told him –Cape Fear Sea Witch– and he found a profile with about four hundred followers and alotof pictures of fish. He frowned at one of her grinning in a river with one in her hands, and tapped it.

“You know how to fish?”

“No, not really. We were tagging them. Catch and release.”

He nodded, looking down. “Cool picture.”

“Thanks.”

He followed the profile and looked up. The air went still. She lifted her eyebrows. They stood there.

“Okay!” She stepped back and presented her hand. “Until next time, good buddy.”

He chuckled and shook it.

And she pulled him in, went up on her toes, and kissed him on the cheek. The side of his face lit up, and before he could say anything, she kissed the other cheek as well. She stepped back, scrunching her face, and said, “Those were for the other two guys in the picture.”

Elliot felt completely thrown off his game, but managed to return her cheeky look with an equally cheeky one. “I’ll be sure to pass them along.”

“Ooh!” She did a little curtsy. “Well alright, Your Highness. Please do let me know what they say.”