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“Fantasy,” I repeat. “What’s your reality, Hunter?”
“I don’t discuss my reality with sexual partners.”
“What if I were more than a sexual partner? What if I were a friend?”
“That’s not the way I do things,” he says simply.
“Why is that?”
“Does there have to be a reason?”
“I think there’s usually a reason for most things you do in life, whether you realize it or not.”
Two young women walk by us. “Hi, Professor Stone,” one of them says.
Professor Stone? He knows literature. He’s a student of language.
Of course. A professor.
“Good morning,” he says, waving to them.
“Professor Stone…” I say.
“Frankie…”
“Professor Hunter Stone. Someone who knows literature. Someone who’s a student of language. I’d say you’re an English professor somewhere.”
He doesn’t say anything.
“So I’m right, then. Where do you teach?”
“Frankie…”
“Hunter, I can easily search for you on the Internet. Professor Hunter Stone. I will find you.”
He gazes at the coffee shop window. “Don’t you have someone in there you need to attend to?”
I glance over to the table where Tom was sitting. He’s gone.
“Apparently not. I guess he saw us kissing.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why? I’m not. I told you he’s just a friend.”
“If he were a friend, he’d still be there. Apparently he wanted a little more from you than friendship.”
“He’s not going to get it. I’m only interested in one man, and it’s not him.”
“You don’t even know the man you’re interested in,” Hunter says.
“I’d like to.”
He sighs. “Come on.” He takes a seat at one of the outside tables and motions for me to join him.
I sit across from him, give him a good once-over. He’s clearly been exercising, as his hair is messy and slicked down with sweat at his hairline.
“I’m a professor of English literature at Mellville,” he says.
My alma mater, no less. “I see. Where did you study?”
“Mellville.”
“So you didn’t stray far from home, then.”
“No. I’m comfortable there. It’s a good school.”
“I know.” I smile. “I went there too.”
“Oh? What did you study?”
“English and journalism. But I only got my bachelor’s. I went straight into the workforce after I graduated.”
“When did you graduate?”
“Are you asking me my age? I graduated five years ago. I’m twenty-seven.”
“And you’re already a junior editor at a major magazine? That’s pretty amazing, Frankie.”
“Believe me, I’ve paid my dues. I did nothing more than get coffee for the first two years. But I’m happy with how things are going.”
“Good.”
“What about you? When did you graduate?”
“I finished my PhD five years ago. In English and comparative literature.”
“The Great Gatsby.”
His brown eyes brighten. “You remembered. My favorite book.”
“So that doesn’t really tell me how old you are, Hunter. People finish graduate work at all different ages.”
“I’m thirty-five.”
“How did you end up as a professor back at Mellville?”
He doesn’t respond at first.
“The cat is already out of the bag, Hunter.”
“This is difficult for me,” he says. “No one at the club—other than the owner, who had to approve my application, and Claude—knows who I really am. I keep that part of my life separate.”
“I understand. Your secret is safe with me.”
“I’m not worried about that.”
“That’s good, because I signed that nondisclosure agreement. So even if I wanted to, I couldn’t say anything.”
He doesn’t reply.
“And I don’t want to, Hunter. I would never do that to you. I’d never do that to anyone.”
“What about your ex-fiancé?”
“I can’t tell anyone else I saw him there, but I can definitely mention it to him.”
“Will you?”
“No. I don’t want to talk to him—especially not at the club.”
“Does this mean our date is off? Are you uncomfortable at the club?”
“No. I don’t want it to be off, Hunter. I’d like to go.”
“What if he’s there again?”
“It doesn’t matter. Not if we’re in our own private room.”
“You don’t care if he sees you there?”
“I assume he signed the same NDA that I did.”
“He would’ve had to.”
“Then what does it matter?”
“I don’t want to be a pawn in some kind of game,” Hunter says. “Maybe you want him to see you there.”
I shake my head. “Did you really just say that?”
“It’s a valid concern.”
“Penn and I are over, Hunter. He admitted to me that he had been cheating on me, and now I know where it went down.”
“Did you and he…?”
“Do anything kinky? No, we didn’t. Totally vanilla sex, usually in missionary. In fact, he was pretty boring.”
“Does it bother you that he never wanted to do more with you?”
“You want me to be honest?”
“Of course.”
“It irks me a little. But honestly, I’m over him. It was a lot easier getting over the loss of him than it was getting over the humiliation of the whole thing.”
“So you’ve said.”
“Yes, so I’ve said. And I’m not a liar, Hunter, and I resent the implication that I am.”
“I wasn’t implying any such thing.”
“Weren’t you?”
Anger nips at my neck. I like this guy. I really like this guy. What’s going on with him? He clearly had a good time with me, or he wouldn’t have asked me out again.
