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“Did you forget your keys?” she asks me. She’s standing on the landing, hip cocked, and I can’t tell for sure, but her grin might beknowing. As if she can read the scrambled thoughts straight from my brain and knows the exact effect the words she sang, coupled with her miles of legs and that flippy skirt, are having on me.
Right. I need to unlock the door.
“Uh. No. Sorry. Long day.” I reach into my pocket to retrieve my key ring and quickly unlock the front door before taking the bags from her hands and gesturing for her to enter first. Lorelai flips on the light and my cat, Waylon, rounds the corner and dashes between her legs, nuzzling her ankles, that bastard. I drop the food on the counter as Lorelai is kicking off her sandals and scooping Waylon into her arms.
My cat hates everyone, including me, but for some reason loves Lorelai. Lore says it’s because “a catty bitch knows another catty bitch,” but I think it’s because they’re both secretly softies.
Or maybeI’mthe softy.
Never mind, I’m definitely the softy.
With the exception of my cock, that is.
Moving on.
After an appropriate amount of baby talk and cuddling, Lorelai lets Waylon go to do whatever it is asshole cats do when no one’s looking and hops up on a stool at the island, sipping from the glass of Pinot I’ve poured her.
She swirls it a little and I can feel her eyes on me as I divide dinner between two plates to take on the balcony.
“Go ahead and ask,” I say mildly, taking too much care to scrape the bottom of an already empty container of brown rice.
“You listened to my song?”
I roll my eyes lightly, not reminding her that we already established I listened last night and again this morning. “Of course I did.”
She’s quiet a beat and I put down the Chinese takeout container to give her my full attention. Lorelai’s dark eyes are bright in her pale face, and she’s worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. This is the Lorelai no one sees. The one I’ve had the privilege to know almost from the start.
The one I’ve loved nearly as long, but we don’t need to rehash that shit again.
I lean forward, moving before I’ve even made the choiceto do so, and with my thumb, gently tug her chin, freeing her lip. “I have a question but I’m not sure how to ask it.”
She nods, reaching for her glass, but only playing with the stem, her eyes intent on mine.
“This is seriously the most humiliating thing I’ve ever asked, and depending on your answer, we might have to crack open a bottle of absinthe so we can erase it from our memories.” Old Huck, the one from all those years ago, had a lot more swagger when it came to women. He could wash down awkward conversations with a beer and laugh off rejection with an overabundance of youthful, fame-adjacent bravado.
Craig of today pre-games with ibuprofen and wakes up every morning feeling the press of time in his bones. He couldn’t spellswagwith a dictionary. And he really needs not to ruin things with his friend. She’s too important.
The corner of Lorelai’s mouth quirks ever so slightly, as if she can read my hesitation, and somehow that familiar movement strengthens my resolve.
Because I know I’m important to her, too.
“Was that a real song or…”
“Or…?” she prompts, her eyes dancing over the rim as she takes a healthy sip of Pinot.
Christ.
This one time when I was in junior high, my sister took me to a water park in Georgia and forgot sunscreen. I had second-degree burns all over my body. I peeled like a fucking rattlesnake for weeks after.
But that was nothing compared to my face right now. I swallow and take a deep breath. “Or was it just for me?”
Lorelai’s cheeks puff as she exhales before licking the wine off her lips. “Maren and Shelby told me to pretend to accidentally sext you, but of course that’s asinine, so I decided to write a song that was the equivalent of a sext.”
My air rushes out of my lungs and I slump against the top of the counter, trying to stave off the tunnel vision. “Oh god, Arlo was right. He’s never gonna let me live this down.”
“You told Arlo?”
I speak in the direction of the oiled wood block underneath my sweaty palms. “I thought it might be a real song.”
