14. Brooklyn
14
brOOKLYN
“ C ome again?”
“Married, Jeff, married. Are you not familiar with the term?”
“I’m familiar with it, I’m just trying to understand it. You’re married married? Like, walking down the aisle, legalized with the state, if one of you dies, the other one gets his stuff married?”
“Well, I haven’t looked into the will thing. God, your mind is morbid. But yeah, that kind of married.”
“But…why?”
Jeff looked up at me from behind his desk as I paced back and forth in his office. I realized I must have looked nervous, so I stopped, dropped my bag on the floor, and sank down into the chair in front of his desk.
“Because it seemed like a good idea at the time. Tanner Carmichael, much as he might be an asshole—and don’t get me wrong, he is—was practically waving money in our faces. All from that gross reality TV stuff he does, taking advantage of college students who are happy to be on camera because their brains haven’t fully finished developing. I just figured, we might as well put some of those profits to use for a good cause, you know? I mean, what would you have done?”
“I’m not sure. But you’re married now, Brooklyn. That’s an actual consequence. A big deal.”
I shrugged. “It doesn’t have to be.”
“Oh, is that what you’re telling yourself?”
“I’m not telling myself anything. You make it sound like I’m in denial. But this doesn’t change my life in any demonstrable way. Gabe travels every week for work anyway, so we only really see each other on the weekends.”
“Brooklyn, you are sending some guy you barely know daily pictures of yourself with your husband—”
“Fake husband.”
“Real husband. In the eyes of the state of Georgia, anyway. And you have to send pictures to some random guy to prove that you’re actually spending time with him? How creepy is that?”
“He’s not a random guy. Tanner is an asshole, but he’s a very specific, somewhat famous asshole. He’s not going to do anything super strange with them. He has a reputation to uphold. It’s a little weird, but honestly, it’s not hurting anyone. And it’s not like spending time with Gabe is torture.”
“Wait a second.” Jeff stared at me for a moment, pressing his hands flat on his desk and leaning forward. “Wait just one second. You’re not—are you—Christ, you’re hooking up with him, aren’t you?”
“I mean…”
“I knew it. I knew there had to be some kind of reason you would agree to do something this insane. You’re too cautious and controlling to do something this crazy otherwise.”
“I’d like to come back to that cautious and controlling comment in a minute.” I held my finger up to mark my objection. “But before we get to that, I will have you know that we were not, in fact, hooking up when I agreed to this.”
“But you wanted to be.”
“I didn’t say that. Don’t jump to conclusions.”
“You’re not denying it.”
“I’m not confirming it either.”
“That’s because you don’t like lying. Brooklyn, I’ve known you for how many years now? With the exception of your friend Jesse, I probably know you better than most people in Savannah. You wanted to hook up with Gabe, didn’t you? And that’s why you said yes.”
“I didn’t—I mean, I wasn’t trying to—fuck, Jeff, it’s complicated.”
“So I see.”
I looked at him, hesitating for a minute about telling him everything, before realizing that dammit, I needed to tell someone , and Jesse and Mark were still on their stupid honeymoon so I was pretty much out of options.
I sighed. “You don’t even know the half of it. First of all, up until Gabe started hooking up with me, he was straight…ish.”
“Wow. So what made him decide to hook up with you? Your magic cock?”
“This has got to be the weirdest advisor-advisee relationship in the history of ever.”
Jeff just shrugged.
“I don’t know what made him decide to hook up with me. Curiosity? Maybe he’d always sort of swung this way but had been scared to try it? It’s not like I can read his mind.”
“You haven’t asked him?”
“Well, that first night, I was too tired, and too drunk, and too full of your stupid instructions to care—”
“Hey, don’t try to pin this on me. You’re an adult.”
“—And then at his hotel, things got kind of awkward, and it wasn’t really the right time to ask.”
“Awkward how? Someone couldn’t get it up? Someone came too soon? Oh Jesus, don’t tell me one of you guys cried during it.”
“There wasn’t any during to cry in the middle of! We hadn’t even gotten our clothes off, but his brother kept calling, and finally I told him to answer his damn phone. Turns out his brother was going through a breakup, so Gabe had to talk him off the ledge, but I sort of accidentally eavesdropped and thought Gabe was talking about me when he was actually saying horrible things about his brother’s ex.”
“Yeah, I’d say that counts as awkward.”
“I know, right? So I did the only logical thing, which was to assume the worst and leave before giving him a chance to explain. I just figured he was having second thoughts about hooking up with a guy, or that he just wanted to do it so he could tell a story about it afterwards.”
“Christ, that is jumping to conclusions. Only a sociopath would do that. Did you really think—”
“I don’t know what I thought. I just wasn’t sure I wanted to be the first guy he hooked up with, you know? Haven’t you ever worried about that? About someone not liking it, or being scared by how much they do like it, and then freaking out on you?”
“I can honestly say that no, that thought has never crossed my mind. If someone says they want to hook up with me, I trust them to make their own choices.”
“Then you have nerves of steel. I don’t know, the whole thing was just weird and confusing and made me think that it was probably better to steer clear of that entire situation.”
“So you married him. As a way to steer clear. Sure. Totally. Makes sense.”
“No, I fucking married him because I’d like nothing more than to see Tanner Carmichael eat crow and admit he was wrong. And because fuck, man, Human Nature needs funding. This may be an unorthodox way of getting it—”
“Understatement of the millennium.”
“—But it’s working. You can’t deny that.”
“Still, unless your bizarre marriage contract stipulated you provide proof of coitus, I’m assuming something happened to change your mind about hooking up with Gabe?”
I sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe he just wore me down.”
“What a lovely sentiment. I hope I can quote you when I give a toast at your fiftieth wedding anniversary. Maybe he just wore me down . The start of a beautiful love story, folks.”
“It wasn’t like I ever stopped wanting him. I just wasn’t sure it was a good idea. Or that he really wanted me. But he basically threw himself at me a week ago, and I don’t know, I’m only human.”
“Okay, but let’s circle back to the part where you tried to convince me that this wasn’t a real relationship and that it wasn’t a big deal. Because as far as I can see, you’re married. To a guy you’re fucking. That’s kind of what a real relationship is, Brooklyn. I told you to go get laid, not get yourself a boyfriend. You really don’t do things by half measures, do you?”
“But he’s not my boyfriend.”
“Yeah, he’s your fucking husband.”
“But neither of us is looking for a relationship. Gabe doesn’t want to settle down. He’s this free spirit. And I’m about to sign the next ten years of my life away to trying to get tenure, so it’s not like I even have time for one. This is just, I don’t know, husbands with benefits or something.”
Jeff put his face in his hands and massaged his temples. “I just wish you’d thought this through a little more. We could have found funding for Human Nature some other way.”
“Really? Because as far as I can tell, we haven’t made any progress on that since we found out we lost the Hawley grant. Jeff, face it, neither of us has the time to be a full-time manager for Human Nature on top of the other work we have. This will at least float us along for another year until we can figure out what to do.”
“Brooklyn, I just—” Jeff set his hands on his desk carefully and looked me in the eye. “I’m not trying to tell you how to live your life. I recognize that I don’t have any right to do that. And I appreciate what you’re trying to do for me, for Human Nature. But I gotta be honest, I’m worried about this. About you.”
“I appreciate that. But I’m twenty-nine years old. I can take care of myself.”
“Age has nothing to do with our capacity to get hurt. If this ends badly, or if things get weird between you and Gabe—I know you think you’re going into this with clear eyes. You’ve got your rationalizations. But this seems like a recipe for pain.”
“I’m not gonna get hurt. I think you’re assuming a level of investment in this that I don’t necessarily have. This is essentially a business transaction with some bonus orgasms. It’s a win-win. Win-win-win-win, really, if you include you and Human Nature.”
“What does Gabe get out of this? Why would he sign himself up for this sort of thing?”
“Gabe? Fuck, I don’t know. But he’s an adult too. It’s like you just said, you have to trust people to make their own decisions.”
Jeff shook his head, then leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. He gave me a long look. “I don’t know what else I can say, so I guess I’ll drop it. I still think this is more likely to blow up in your face than you think, but as you have so recently pointed out, I am your dissertation advisor, not your life coach. So I’ll let you make your own mistakes.”
“Thank you.”
“Just…look, Brooklyn. I just want you to know that I’ve been there. I’ve been in my twenties, when it seems like everything’s easy and possible, and you can’t imagine the decisions you make having negative consequences.”
“And?”
“And I’m saying, maybe this Tanner guy has a bit of a point. Relationships, married ones or not, take work. Just, be careful, you know. Don’t hand Gabe your heart to trample on.”
“Got it, boss.”
“Good. Now let’s take a look at your applications.”