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Yael
Age Twenty-two
My boyfriend was beautiful. Perfect. Staggeringly ambitious. Sometimes I stared at him while he talked to his friends and wondered how someone like him could have chosen me.
He was my mother’s wet dream, that was for sure. When I first introduced Harris to my parents, my mom pulled me aside and warned me not to screw it all up by acting, and I quote, like myself.
Harris caught my eye and shot me a smug grin. I raised my wine glass, and he tipped his beer, then we continued socializing. Separately. He’d told me more than once he needed a wife who could schmooze and not be attached to him, so while we were still in college and unmarried, he often ditched me at parties topractice.
That was fine; my brother was here.
Somewhere. I’d lost him in the crowded two-story rental a few of my friends lived in. Mo had gotten sucked into the crowd and I’d found a spot to park myself for a while.
The people around me buzzed, and a chorus of “ooohs” and “ahhhs” started as everyone backed up at once. When the bodies parted, an upside-down man became visible, and this man moved in my direction on his hands. When he was right in front of me, he flipped upright and a faceless person behind him handed him a beer.
“Hello, Alex.”
He took a long pull from his bottle, eyeing me the whole time. “What’s up, cool girl? Been a long time.”
Oh, he was being the cool boy tonight, like we hadn’t kissed the hell out of each other the last time we were alone.
“It has. Congrats on booking the Swerve Tour,” I said.
“And the record deal and all our dreams being actualized?”
“Correct. Congratulations on it all. You’ve worked really hard for this.”
He reached out and brushed his fingers along my arm. “Next time you see me, I’m going to be big time.”
I laughed softly. “You’re big time in your head already. Don’t pretend.”
“Not when I’m around you. You always manage to cut me down to the quick.”
“I don’t.” I tucked my hair behind my ear, wishing my stomach didn’t churn with nerves in his presence. This was goofy Alex Murray from down the street. Sure, he played the guitar like a god and I knew what he felt like inside me, but that didn’t change things.
But it did, it did, it did.
“You do, Yael.” He touched me again, and I glanced over his shoulder to find Harris still engrossed in conversation. Alex’s hand flexed around my arm. “You’re looking for him?”
“My boyfriend? Yes. I’m just checking in on him.”
Alex stepped into my space and bent down to speak near my ear. “So, you’re not watching him flirt with that woman? Because that is most definitely what he’s doing.”
Yes, Harris was deeply engrossed in whatever he and Arden were talking about, but that wasn’t flirting. And even if hewasflirting, so what?
Only…I wondered if I should care more. Shouldn’t I be outraged at him brushing her hair from her face? Maybe on another day I would have been, but Alex’s proximity drove me to distraction. All I could think of was his warmth a hairsbreadth from touching my body and his familiar citrus scent filling me to capacity, reminding me of home.
“I trust him,” I said in the rote way I’d started saying many things lately.
“Do you?” His cheek skimmed mine, breath hot in my ear. “Have you told him about your art? Has he been to a show? Have you made a portrait of him?”
There. He’d hit his target and he knew it. I didn’t confide in Alex about my relationship, yet somehow he knew. He’d seen Harris and I together at a small handful of Unrequited shows and that was enough for him to have digested our relationship and spit out his summation of us.
My boyfriend flirted.
I couldn’t bring myself to react.
He didn’t know about a vital, yet closely guarded piece of me.
