Chapter 4 #3
Taylor chuckled to himself like we were deep in conversation.
“You look like such an unapproachable ass from afar. That’s why they put me up to asking you out in particular.
They never thought I’d get near your table.
You’re a lot scarier than you realize. Well, until you open your mouth.
” My gaze slowly drifted back to him, leaning off my balcony as he spoke.
His shirt was tucked neatly into his dark brown pants, torso tapering from broad shoulders to narrow waist, one foot planted firmly on the floor and the other resting on the tip of his shoe, restless, swaying left and right.
He threw a look at me over his shoulder. “And you can boogie.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, though my voice was so low and quiet that I wasn’t sure he’d heard it until he grinned.
He leaned his back against the railing and swirled his wine around the glass, looking at me like some kind of embodiment of all my most private dreams. Then he spoke the words that made me feel the kinship in my very soul. “Do you ever feel like you’re out of your own time?”
I pushed down the excitement of finding someone who understood what it felt like. I had to be wrong about him. He couldn’t be like this, not even close, because it just didn’t fit the way he was supposed to be. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, imagine if we’d grown up in the seventies and eighties, driving a Cadillac El Dorado down a street at night, wind in our hair, going to an open-air cinema.
Wouldn’t you rather do that instead of whatever the hell we’re all doing now?
” He inhaled a deep breath, then drank the rest of his wine.
My foot moved toward him, but I planted it firmly on the parquet floor and measured him up. “Was there more to the dare your friends challenged you to?”
“No,” he said, his voice warm and confident, making me think of amber. “Why do you ask?”
Because you’re going above and beyond to make me fall for you, I thought. “No reason,” I said. “More wine?”
“Yes, sir.”
I went to the kitchen with both our glasses and set them on the counter.
Mine had a bit of wine left in it; his was empty, but the rim had a faint print of his lower lip.
I watched it, my heartbeat flooding my ears.
I planted my hands on the smooth, marble surface of the kitchen counter and held my breath.
If Emma could just see me like this, at ease, enjoying a moment with Taylor, she would realize just how close she was to losing me forever.
It would spark jealousy that would tell him once and for all that she did, in fact, love me.
It would show her that I wasn’t just some artistic, philosophical softie who could be taken or left to no effect, who lacked all the excitement one wanted in a partner.
It would show her that I could also move on from her, and it would scare her, because she would want me, too.
If she would just see me with Taylor like this.
I licked my lips and shook my head. Wine. We needed more wine.
Music came from the living room by the time I’d poured us a new round of drinks, and it brought a smile to my face.
He’d dug through my collection again and found David Bowie.
“Starman” filled the space as I walked back to the living room, and Taylor was playing an air guitar before switching to some imaginary drums.
He lifted his gaze from the invisible instruments to see me, but he didn’t stop drumming and greeted me with a grin that quickly turned into the iconic lines of the song’s refrain.
I brought him the glass, and he abandoned the drums to take it, his fingers brushing against mine and not even making me jump.
This, too, would pass. I would put up my boundaries tomorrow, and we would stick to the script for the rest of our arrangement, and I would remind myself that I was messing around with a straight guy, and I would hopefully accomplish my objectives, thanks to this.
“Have you ever had a boyfriend?” he asked. “Other than me.”
“Yes.” I drank a little in hopes this would give him enough time to distract himself with a song or some other topic.
“What happened?”
A sigh got stuck in my throat. “Didn’t work out. He said so.”
“Oh? And what did you think?” Taylor asked.
“Ask me something easier,” I said.
He laughed and shook his head. “I have a plan. We could pretend to be together and make sure we run into him. It’ll make him jealous, and he’ll realize what he’s lost.”
“I’m beginning to think you just need reasons to fake-date me for longer.”
He laughed louder. “I wish.”
My arched eyebrows made him blush a little. He wished?
“Yeah, I mean, wouldn’t that be cool? There’s something fundamentally broken in me that prevents me from having relationships, even with the girls I chase and spend weeks and months trying to impress.
Sometimes I just think it would be so much easier if I could date my buddies and play video games and have beer together. ”
“Sounds a lot like you’re putting the blame on the girls,” I said.
He winced. “It does, doesn’t it? That’s not how I meant it. I’m just not easy to bend and shape and fit well with someone who isn’t like me.”
I nodded my agreement. “You’re picky, is what you are.”
I sighed. “I go for girls who very much know who they are and what they want. It just turns out that a lot of the time, what they want is not someone like me.”
“What are you like, Taylor?”
“Ask me something easier,” he said, making me laugh. “How does it work for you? Is it an even split, or do you have a preference?”
He didn’t mean to be silly about it. He genuinely wanted to know, that much I was sure of. So I gave it serious thought. “There isn’t a split at all. It’s entirely irrelevant. Each genre has something that attracts me, and it’s not something I can compare.”
“I guess I’ve had enough alcohol for this. Can I ask you something personal?” he asked.
I shot him a deadpan look, but I’d also had enough to dive into this conversation with a perfect stranger who could boogie. “Neither is better at it.”
“Really?” he asked, clearly skeptical. “I always thought a guy might know more about what another guy likes.”
I folded my lips and tried not to smile.
This was not what I would want to encourage.
Then again… “Ah, well, if you really want to know, it’s the other way around.
When I’m with a girl, it’s not at all that she doesn’t know what I want.
It’s that I overthink it, then worry that I don’t know what she wants.
With a man, it’s different, because I know exactly what it feels like when I do something to him. And I’m certain that he feels good.”
Taylor’s eyes widened a little in fascination as I spoke.
Everything, to the very last detail, that passed between us tonight resembled so eerily an actual date, all to the very fact that we were alone, performing for an empty auditorium, asking personal questions, dancing together, and discussing sex as if we were carefully trying to see if we might make it work.
And it sucked. It sucked that I felt it rooted so deep within me, this pulse of assurance that whispered, yes, it’ll work, just reach out, he’s right there. Because of course, I misunderstood the most fundamental friendliness for flirting and attraction.
“I never thought about it like that,” Taylor said. “It makes perfect sense. Maybe that’s why I never…” He laughed suddenly. “Well, not never. I’m told I’m pretty good. But I never felt so confident, you know?”
“You? Lacking confidence? Impossible.”
“I know,” he said, waving a hand. Duh. “But I lack it when it matters. As you said, maybe I overthink things, and then it feels more like trying to do a task well than taking a deep dive into the vast blue sea.”
I liked the way he described it. I could feel the imagery sink into my head. Leaping off a cliff, flying, and executing a flawless dive into the depths that hugged you all over and held you and loved you for exactly what you were.
He emptied his glass and danced a little to Bowie’s “Space Oddity.”
I wanted to offer him more. I wanted to see him sway to the song until dawn, then stumble and swing over to the sofa, and crash there with a self-conscious smile gleaming in his eyes, humming about Major Tom. “I think I got a little drunk.”
“I think so, too,” I would say. “Take your shoes off. I’ll bring you a pillow.
” And I would go to the bedroom while his shoes rolled somewhere on the floor behind me, and I would walk to the closet to dig up a spare pillow and blanket, but he would follow me, pass through, and crash on my bed, and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it but lie down on the other side of it and wait until my breathing and his synchronized.
“I should get going,” Taylor said. “Tonight was fun.”
I nodded. “Don’t forget to bring that book you own tomorrow.”
He touched his brow with two fingers.
I saw him to the door, then watched him descend the stairs with quick feet and the ease of someone who was still far, far too sober to slumber in my apartment, and it was a relief. It was a relief to have him out of here, to have the reminder of all the impossible things hanging over my head.
As if Emma would ever truly be jealous of someone being interested in me.
As if Taylor had a passing understanding that all he had done tonight looked like flirting to someone who was single and heartbroken and alone.
As if…
As if.