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“What do you want, Loïc?”
I shrugged. “I don’t want to feel alone anymore. I want to havepeople.”
“I wasn’t trying to start a philosophical conversation with you. I want to know why you called.”
“Oh.” It was a small word, but it held a lot of my chagrin.
“I don’t owe you anything, Leduc—especially not to play therapist to your drunk ass at this time of night.”
“So cranky.” I couldn’t help but grin.
“Some of us have to work for a living.”
“You have enough money to retire if you wanted to.”
“I have goals in life that don’t include sitting around doing nothing.”
I snorted. “Americans are so devoted to their work. Little worker bees buzzing around for the sake of buzzing.”
“Maybe if you were busy buzzing, you’d stop being such a nuisance.”
“I am busy buzzing…around you and your beautiful wife.”
“Yeah, like a fly on shit.”
I laughed. “Which of us are you insulting with that simile?”
“You’re such a pain in the ass. Shut up, and let me sleep.”
“If you were that annoyed, you could always end the call. I do believe there’s a button for that on your phone.”
“I’m a grown man. Unlike some people, I’m not big on drama.”
I didn’t dignify that with a response. Even though the rye I’d drank had set my ceiling to spinning, arguing that point would only make me sound more ridiculous.
“You’re never lonely?”
“My god, Loïc—you have your family, Tarryn, me, and hopefully at least one therapist to talk to. How can you be lonely?”
“The inside of my head gets lonely. It doesn’t matter who’s around.”
He sighed in exasperation. “Maybe that’s what sex is—the human endeavor to get as close as we can to another person.”
“Even you know that sex isn’t an adequate substitute for real intimacy.”
“Even me? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, you cis het men aren’t known for being very deep.” I smiled, bit my tongue, and waited for him to blow up.
“We’re taught to hide our emotions, or to convert them to something socially acceptable, like anger. It doesn’t mean we don’t have the same need to connect.”
I whistled into the echoing darkness of my nearly empty room. “Valor Davenport is in touch with his feelings?”
“Valor Davenport did a lot of therapy when he was in foster care.” The smile in his voice made me feel warm. I wanted to crawl through the phone and lie in bed next to him—not that I wanted to cuddle. It was late there, but it was later here.
His breathing at the other end of the phone was deep and even, and I thought maybe he’d fallen asleep. I wanted to hate him, but he was growing on me, damn him.
“I do get lonely,” he admitted. “I used to be able to finish Tarryn’s sentences, but now I don’t even know where she is half the time. I love that her career is going so well, but I miss being together every day. I miss being a team. I miss watching her dance around the house, and I miss rolling over in bed and getting a face full of her hair.” His voice drifted, as though remembering what that was like, his tone filled with regret.
