Chapter 18 #2
“You’re… chipper again. Are you still worried about the dress?”
“I said I’m great,” she insisted, and poked him in the arm.
Vanessa passed them their cocktails, and they migrated into the center of the living room.
Nina and Dani had just arrived, so they talked to them for a bit.
Then, when Nina and Dani set off to order cocktails, they found Claude, who introduced them to a bunch of Seth’s other friends.
With every new person she and Ryan met, Simone fought the urge to randomly announce she was bi.
But when the playlist threw it back to 2008 with Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl,” Simone saw an opportunity. She interrupted one of Seth’s friends to squeal, “Oh my God, who else had a total queer awakening when this song came out?”
Technically, Simone hadn’t thought twice about the song when it came out, and her most profound queer awakening had occurred last fall, when she was sobbing uncontrollably in the shower after her breakup with Bree, but who really cared about historical accuracy?
Oh right: her boyfriend.
“Didn’t this come out when we were in, like, middle school?” Ryan asked her, when no one else could hear. “I thought you didn’t know you were bi back then.”
She made up a rambling story, something about how she’d always been secretly obsessed with the song but didn’t know why, and then she’d finally put two and two together years later.
She could tell Ryan didn’t quite believe her, but what else could she say?
That she was embarrassed to be seen with him?
She put what was left of her Water Sign on a side table, slid a hand into his curls, and pulled him down for a kiss, hoping it would be enough to quell whatever suspicions might be swirling around in his mind.
As she kissed him, she abruptly thought of the guys outside the Rainbow Museum and pulled back, bumping into the side table and sending her drink tumbling to the floor.
Thankfully, the liquid was clear, and the cup was plastic, but Ryan was even more unsettled than before.
“Simone, why are you being weird?” he asked, grabbing a handful of napkins from the table and stooping to wipe up the spilled drink and collect the empty cup.
Standing again, he looked at her like he didn’t recognize her.
In his defense, Simone didn’t recognize herself, but she was in too deep to turn back now.
“Nothing,” she insisted. And then, to stop the line of questioning in its tracks: “C’mon, let’s get more drinks.”
Simone was tipsy after consuming ninety percent of her first drink, which had also tasted like it was ninety-percent hard liquor. “I love your hair,” she gushed at Vanessa, as the woman mixed them another round. “It’s sooo pretty. Isn’t Vanessa’s hair so pretty, Ryan?”
“Oh, yeah—um, really pretty,” Ryan stammered, clearly not wanting to offend Vanessa but also baffled by the words that were tumbling out of his girlfriend’s lips.
Vanessa paused what she was doing and looked back and forth between the two of them, her face slowly contorting into a grimace. “Listen, you guys, I’m just gonna put this out there. Yes, I’m bi, but that’s not really up my alley.”
Simone had no idea what she was talking about. “Sorry, what do you mean?”
Vanessa gave her a look like it should have been obvious, and then, suddenly, it was obvious, and Simone had never wanted the floor to open up as badly as she did right now.
“Oh my God. Vanessa, no. I’m so sorry. I—” Simone looked to Ryan, hoping he would swoop in and save her from what was fast becoming the single most awkward experience of her life, but he wasn’t there.
He was walking away.
He was headed for the door.
Shit.
“Ryan, wait!” She frantically apologized to Vanessa one more time, then took off after her boyfriend.
That is, if he even wanted to be her boyfriend anymore.
She caught him by the sleeve of his floral T-shirt.
The one that totally wasn’t his style, but that he’d worn anyway, because it made her happy.
When he turned around, she saw how tightly he was clenching his jaw.
“I’m so sorry,” she blurted at him. “I’ve been an absolute nightmare this whole time. ”
The muscles of his jaw relaxed, but not all the way.
“Can we go somewhere and talk?” she pleaded.
Ryan breathed out a jet of air. “Fine.”
They went into Seth’s bedroom, which was empty, and closed the door behind them. If anyone assumed the straights were off to bang each other in missionary, well, Simone would just have to let them think that.
She sat on the edge of the bed. She waited for Ryan to come and join her, but he remained standing six feet away with his arms crossed. “Mind telling me why you made it sound like we were trying to have a threesome with Seth’s roommate?”
Simone was so embarrassed she could die. “For the record, I wasn’t trying to have a threesome with anyone.”
“What were you trying to do, then?”
“I don’t know.” She was still too ashamed to tell him the truth.
Ryan let out an exasperated sigh. He reminded her of the Ryan she used to know, back when they were still enemies. “You’re the one who wanted to talk. So talk.”
She pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes. Why did this have to be so hard?
Now, instead of crossing his arms, Ryan was raking his hands through his hair. He looked almost desperate—frantic. “Listen, Simone. You know what I went through with Travis and Victoria. I can’t handle you keeping secrets like this. It’s killing me. If you’d rather go be with Vanessa, or anyone—”
“NO.” She leapt to her feet and closed the distance between them. She wrapped her arms around his torso, pressed her cheek to his chest. “Ryan, I swear, I want to be with you.”
He didn’t pull away, but he didn’t hug her back, either. “Then why have you been so off all night?”
Simone’s voice was small. “Because I don’t want people to think I’m straight.”
“What?”
Now she was crying, her tears soaking his floral T-shirt. She told him about the guys outside the Rainbow Museum and the real reason she felt so weird in the dress. By the time she was done explaining herself, Ryan was holding her with one arm and rubbing her back with the other.
“Simone, why didn’t you just tell me?”
She sniffed.
“Simone?”
“Because I didn’t want to let you down. I didn’t want to make you think I have doubts.”
She noticed his hand slowing down. “Do you have doubts?”
“Not about you as a person, or a partner,” she whispered.
“What are you worried about, then?” he asked.
A new wave of tears welled in her eyes. “That as amazing as you are—and as much I like you—that this is how I’m always gonna feel when we’re together.”
“Like you’re coming off as straight?”
“Like I don’t belong anywhere,” she sobbed, the tears plummeting down her cheeks and into his shirt.
“Like I’m too queer for straight people like my parents, but too ‘straight’ for queer people who don’t know I’m bi.
And sometimes I wonder if I’d be happier if I just had a girlfriend, but then—” Another sob wracked her throat, cutting her off.
“Then what?” Ryan whispered.
She looked up at him. Even in the midst of a total emotional breakdown, she could still get lost in his eyes. “Then I wouldn’t get to be with you,” she answered. “And you’re the best person I’ve ever met.”
“Oh, Simone.” He cupped her tearstained cheeks and kissed her hard—kissed her like he wanted to take away her pain. Then he held her to his chest, so close she could feel his heartbeat. “You’re the best person I’ve ever met, too,” he said.
She nuzzled against him. “Maybe I need to stop caring what everyone else thinks,” she mused. “If you’re my favorite person, and I’m yours, then—”
“Who else matters?”
He kissed the top of her head.
For a while, they held each other. Then Simone sniffed. “Sorry I made it seem like I was soliciting that woman for a threesome.”
Ryan snorted. “Yeah, I’m not sure how we’re gonna show our faces out there again.”
“Oh, we’re not,” she said. “We’re getting out of here as fast as humanly possible.”
Simone felt better, more sure of herself, than she had all week.
They slithered out of the bedroom, bursting out laughing like high schoolers who’d just snuck out of detention.
She called them an Uber and they went back to her place, where Ryan carried her straight to bed.
He ate her out with the floral sundress pushed up to her waist.
Simone woke up in the middle of the night needing to pee. That’s what she got for hydrating after sex. She tiptoed to and from the washroom, careful not to wake Ryan as she slipped back under the covers. He was sleeping on his side like an angel, hands folded beneath his cheek.
She tapped her phone on the bedside table to see how much time she still had to sleep. Phew, it was only a little after three. But her heart jolted into her throat when she saw the little green notification underneath: a new text message—from Bree Park.