Page 18 of Soft Flannel Hank

Hank’s head shot up. Nadja had a placid look on her face, as if she had just asked him whether or not he’d remembered to floss his teeth that morning.

“You’re an adult, Hank. You’re allowed to have intimate encounters.”

“Ms. Stonebreaker?”

“Nadja,” she corrected.

“Okay, Nadja?” Hank huffed out a long breath. “Can you stop saying the word ‘intimate’?”

“Okay then. You had sex.”

Hank groaned. That wasn’t better. But he counted his lucky stars that she hadn’t said “made love,” a phrase which still made him, at forty-five years old, want to shrivel up into his shoes.

“Then what happened?”

“With the sex?”

Nadja shook her head, biting back a smile. “I don’t need to hear about that, Hank. Unless there was a problem. Was there a problem?”

“Goddammit,” Hank moaned, covering his face with his hands. “No.”

“Okay then. So what happened after?”

“I drove her back to the motel. She kissed me goodnight.”

“Do you want to see her again?”

He stared down at his clasped hands again. At the callouses and thick fingers, the nails he’d just trimmed that morning. “It doesn’t really matter if I do.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because she’s gone.”

“Gone? What do you mean gone?”

“I mean she left without a word. Early this morning. Couldn’t get away fast enough, apparently.”

Hank looked at the floor, at his worn brown boots against the tattered Persian rug. He’d need to buy new laces soon. Images immediately surfaced of unlacing Esther’s boots last night, her naked thighs between his knees.

“How did you feel when you found out that Esther had left?”

How had he felt? Heartbroken felt like too strong a word, and yet hehadbeen. Heartbroken and embarrassed that he had so misread a situation that had seemed so clear.

“I only met her last night. I shouldn’t feel anything.”

“Hank,” Nadja said, putting down her coffee. “There is noshouldwith feelings. We are entitled to feel how we feel.”

Hank shrugged and stared at the floor, rubbing his thumb against his forefinger. Hesqueezed his eyes shut tightly as he inhaled a gargantuan breath.

“I felt hurt.”

“That’s a valid thing to feel. Why do you think it hurt so badly?”

He hung his head and shook it. From behind the curtain of his long hair, he said, “Because she made me feel like she liked me. But she was probably just being nice and I read it all wrong.”

He felt Nadja’s eyes on him. The heat cycled off, and suddenly the room was unbearably quiet.

“Hank,” she said gently. “If I may, I’d like to reframe that statement.”