Chapter Ten
For all my exit might’ve seemed purposeful, Flynn emerging to find me squinting at the map on my phone probably undermined it. He dropped his hand onto my shoulder, turning me to face the opposite direction down the sidewalk.
“This way, bold explorer.”
I shoved my phone back into my pocket and let him propel me into motion.
“I’m excited about Thai food,” I told him as we walked.
“Good.” He glanced across at me, then back at the street ahead. “Do you regret what happened last night?”
It was galling, how his bluntness could so easily unbalance me.
“Why, do you?”
I’d thought he’d call me out for trying to flip the conversation around and redirect the question to him, but Flynn just shook his head.
“No. I mean, was I surprised when you walked in the door? Sure. I didn’t even know you were in the city.”
“Why would you?” I asked, rhetorically.
“Right. But William was clearly into you - had been, ever since he saw your profile - so...”
“And is that all that matters?” I pressed, curious despite myself, and the strange churn in my stomach. “If William is into the guy?”
Flynn made a face. “I mean, he’s the one having sex with them.”
It was one of those entirely sensible answers which also completely misses the point.
“He is, yeah. But it’s not like it’s just two people hooking up. You’re there, too.”
He side-eyed me. “You don’t need to understand it, Oli. Just accept that’s what some people enjoy.”
“I wasn’t questioning whether you got something from it. Only saying that you’re involved, even if it’s not in a hands-on way.”
“Right.” Flynn sounded wary, now.
I, meanwhile, was warming to my argument. “So, surely there’s more to it than just whether your boyfriend is into the guy? Unless it’s... sexier, for you, if you don’t get a say, and you don’t even necessarily like the person he picks?”
A beat. “Are you asking me what I get out of watching, or are you asking me if I was attracted to what I saw of you in your profile, and wanted to watch you and William together?”
Any satisfaction I might’ve felt at flipping the conversation around, fled me.
“You don’t have to explain anything to me,” I pointed out.
Flynn laughed. “You’re so cagey. Is it because you’re usually having to self-censor what you say, around people back home?”
It probably was, but I didn’t like the way he said it. The criticism I couldn’t help but read into it, into his tone.
“Is this the place?” I pointed at the sign.
Flynn gave me a grin that suggested he knew I was avoiding answering, but still reached for the door. “Sure is, Oli. I hope you’re hungry.”
#
I was hungry, and more so when I started to read through the menu.
My mom was a good cook, and there were actually a couple of pretty decent family-style restaurants in our town - as well as the usual fast food alley, with all the big names lining the same street off the highway - but “American classics” was the theme across the board.
One of the burger joints did a “Chinese-style sweet-and-sour chicken,” but I suspected that China would declare war if it discovered it was being credited for the gloopy, radioactive-bright sauce.
“I want everything,” I muttered, re-reading the list of appetizers as my mouth literally watered.
Flynn chuckled. “Everything here is good, if that makes it any easier to pick.”
I glanced up at him, over the menu. “Thanks. It doesn’t.”
He laughed again. “I think you only realize how limited your options are, back home, after you’ve moved away and then come for a visit.”
I snorted. “That’s bullshit.” Looked up again to find him staring back at me, curious. “You know. What you’re missing out on, what the options could be if you left. You just make a choice, based on whether the opportunities are worth what’s involved in leaving.”
Flynn’s silence dragged me from my reading.
“So your choice was to stay somewhere you were always going to be lonely, where you couldn’t tell more than a handful of people about who you really are?”
Carefully, I set down the menu. “Strong words, coming from the man who just a few hours ago was telling me about his crippling debt, and how he felt trapped here.”
It was the bare hint of a shrug. “I didn’t say you had to come here, specifically. Or make the decisions I made, whether they were good or bad.”
“Oh,” I said, forcing amusement into my tone. “So, I just head out... somewhere, into the big, wide world. And what, seek my fortune and look for love at the same time?”
Flynn didn’t laugh. “Is the plan simply to stay there forever, then?”
I shrugged. My glance down at the menu was more about the intensity of his stare, than actually being any closer to knowing what I wanted to order. “At some point, my parents are going to be old, and need help.”
“Oh, come on, Oli,” he scoffed. “That’s what, two decades away? Getting on for three, even? So, what, you just bide your time, sifting through second-hand clothes and old blenders, watching porn with the volume turned down and jerking off while your parents sit in front of the TV downstairs?”
“Don’t forget my occasional, wide-eyed trips to the magical big city.” I didn’t bother to hide the acid in my voice. “You know, where I get to see the bright lights, and invited to eat at fancy restaurants, and to fuck other people’s boyfriends for them.”
He opened his mouth to respond, then shut it again. Jaw visibly clenching, nostrils flared.
“I don’t want to argue with you,” Flynn said, finally.
I spread my hands, as if to say “and yet look where we are.”
He sighed, knuckling his eyes. “My therapist would’ve probably said this was all because I want someone else to validate my own decisions.”
“If you can predict them so well, maybe it doesn’t matter you can’t afford to pay for the sessions.”
A slight smile, maybe more down to the thaw in my voice than my bad joke.
“And, I mean, obviously I get defensive, too,” I conceded. “Which your therapist would probably say was because I know my life is kinda fucked up right now, and so I lash out at anyone who reminds me of that fact. Assuming they cussed in sessions.”
Flynn chuckled. “Occasionally. I think he tried to match the energy I brought.”
“Oh, then plenty of cussing,” I teased. “I see.”
He shook his head, rueful. “Fucked if you stay, and fucked if you leave. I wonder if there’s a third option, one that neither of us figured out.”
“There are probably millions of ways you could do it. And I doubt very much that any of them are easy, or feel completely successful.”
“Great.” Flynn made a face. “So I’m even ignorant about my ignorance.”
I scooped up the menu again, tilting it so he could see it too. “If it makes you feel more intelligent, you can help me pick what to have.”
He laughed as he leaned over the table.
#
I settled, eventually, on three different dishes. Plus a verbal agreement from Flynn that I’d at least get to try his meal, too. Even so, I was reluctant to hand over the menu to the waiter, and only pacified with the suggestion that I could always order more if I was still hungry.
“Do you always eat this much?” Flynn was looking at me with an expression somewhere between bafflement and deep respect.
I snorted. “It’s been literally a year since I’ve had Thai food. I can’t afford to let this opportunity go to waste.”
He laughed. “Okay. I’m not judging.”
“Usually,” I added, ever so slightly defensive, “I’d show a little more restraint.”
“Just a little,” Flynn said.
“Right.”
“Well, good. Because otherwise I was gonna assume you spent half your life in the gym, to look like that.”
Annoyingly, and ridiculously, I could feel myself blushing. I took a sip of the beer that’d just been brought over, in the hope that Flynn wouldn’t notice. “Come on...”
Another laugh. “You’ve got a great body. But you know that already.”
I shrugged, awkward at the reminder of how he’d seen it. “Thanks. But, I mean, so have you.”
Flynn frowned. “I was dressed.”
I raised an eyebrow. “In the car, remember?”
It was gratifying - even if hypocritical - to see his cheeks flush at the memory.
“Oh. That.”
“Not that I was looking,” I pointed out.
“I should hope not,” Flynn said, haughtily. “I was being rescued at the time. Probably deeply traumatized.”
“Your fancy car broke down in a storm and you got wet,” I corrected.
“My version is more entertaining.”
“Let me guess, you’ve got a private gym in your glamorous apartment building,” I said, laughing.
He shrugged. “That extortionate rent has to get me some perks, surely?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Just how extortionate are we talking, here?”
Flynn made a face - it looked more embarrassed than anything else - and then named a figure that made me feel light-headed.
“Every month?”
He sat back, and took a big gulp of his drink. “Yes, Oli, every month.” It was the sort of tone you’d use when speaking to a kid who expressed horror at having to brush their teeth before each and every bedtime. “But on the plus side, look how close I live to Thai food.”
I nodded, albeit grudgingly. “It’d better be fucking excellent Thai food.”
#
It was fucking excellent Thai food.
Three entrees were, rationally speaking, too much for one Oli: my eyes had definitely proved bigger than my stomach.
Yet I couldn’t say I regretted that, not when faced with huge portions of tom yum goong, massaman curry, and pad kra pao moo.
Still looking somewhat awed by my appetite, Flynn obediently pushed over his bowl of larb so that I could sample that, too.
“Do you want to order more?” His grin said he was joking.
I sat back, defeated but contented with it. “Gimme a few minutes and I might say yes.”
Flynn shook his head. “You’re unbelievable.”
It was easier, I decided, to simply take that as a compliment.
“Okay, this is another good reason to live in the city,” I conceded. “A really, really good reason.”
He smiled. It might be the few more beers I’d had, but it was a nice smile, I couldn’t help but think.
“What was the other good reason?”
“More choice on the apps.”
Flynn laughed. “So, two good ways to get filled, got it.”