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“A decent 29?” He tried to save himself. “In my defense, you were giving life advice to college students like you were so much wiser. You probably graduated what, a year ago?”
“Try three.” I pouted, drinking. “How old is she?” I knew I was walking on thin ice, but for some reason I really wanted to know about her.
“31.”
I grumbled, falling back against the wall.
“What?”
“Bash is 27. Don’t guys usually want the younger woman? She must be something.”
He tensed at Bash’s name for a moment before pulling out his phone.
I saw the photo of Hannah and him as his background. They were embracing, laughing. He didn't look half-bad with that smile on his face.
He held it low enough that I watched as he opened the settings menu, trying to change the photo but stopping at the last step.
“Urgh, I am pitiful,” he scoffed, slamming down the phone.
“We both are.” I lifted my phone to show him the photo that was my background.
“Is that—”
“The photo you sent me after you kicked his ass? Yes, yes it is.” I smiled at the image before frowning. “I get a little satisfaction every time I look at it, but doesn't that just mean I’m hanging on? I’ve moved, cut off all contact, even managed to leave behind some of the gifts he gave me, yet I’m still hanging on.”
He took the phone from me and handed over his. “Change the picture, and take satisfaction in the fact that they won't be together for long.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Because I’ve thought about it a million times since they ran off. When could they have been together? Hannah is just as much a workaholic as I am. Between us and the hospital, she didn’t have much free time, so how could she have had another relationship? Then I realized it probably wasn't a relationship, just sex. It must have been really exciting, sneaking around, worrying about either of us finding out. But a relationship based on nothing but sex and excitement can’t last. Any two people with working organs can have a great screw, but believe me, that doesn’t change how empty and meaningless it really is. They may not realize it now, but one day it will hit them.” He glanced up at me, showing me the newly changed screensaver of a baby panda. “Or at least, that’s what I tell myself.”
“Then I’ll tell myself that as well,” I replied, changing the photo for him.
“Shamelessly promoting your own work, I see,” he said when I handed the phone back. I had changed it to one of my oil paintings of a child standing in the rain.
“A girl's got to eat,” I joked, accepting my phone.
No matter how badly Bash and I had ended, at least I could never say our relationship had been empty or meaningless.
Eli
Groaning, I rolled over and reached for my phone as it buzzed and vibrated on the floor. My head felt as if it would break open.
Urgh, I drank way too much. “Dr. Davenport,” I yawned into the phone.
“Eli, where are you? Are you all right?”
My mother sounded a lot more worried than she should have, seeing as how I was a grown man. “I’m fine, Mom—”
“Then did you just forget about our brunch?”
“No, our brunch, that’s not until…” I tilted my wrist to see the time: already quarter to noon. “Shit—”
“Why are you so loud?” said none other than Guinevere, curled up in a ball beside me on her living room floor. Her dark brown hair covered half of her face, and drool leaked from the corner of her mouth.
That is definitely attractive, I sarcastically thought to myself as I sat up, my back aching from lying flat on the ground.
“Who was that?” My mom was still on the line.
