Chapter One #3
He doesn't laugh, but something around his eyes softens. Then he waits. Most people try to fill a silence to make it less awkward. Graham doesn't. He just lets it sit there until you're ready to talk.
So I sit with it for a minute. Then, because it's late and the whiskey is good and he already knows something went wrong, I tell him more than I planned to.
Not everything. But I tell him it happened again.
That I got in my head. That I went soft.
That I felt myself leave my body and watch from somewhere else.
As soon as I say the word "again," I hear it.
Graham catches it right away. He doesn't say anything at first. He just nods slowly, like he's filing it away.
"Again," he says. Not unkind. Just noting it.
"Again." I laugh, and it comes out worse than I meant it to. "I'm very consistent. You could set a watch by me."
"How many times is again?"
And here's a strange thing. I've never told anyone the real number.
Not my sister, who'd be gentle about it and somehow make it worse.
Not Dev, who'd turn it into a project. I've got a whole system of half-answers ready for this question.
But Graham asks it like he's asking what year a building was built.
Like it's just information. Like there's no wrong answer.
And before I've decided whether to say it or not, I do.
"All of them," I say. My voice comes out quieter than I expected. "It's never worked. I've never actually had sex with anyone."
The kitchen goes quiet.
I stare at the counter. I've just told him the one thing I've spent my whole adult life hiding. I wait for the usual reactions. The awkward pause. The overly bright reassurance. The quick change of subject. None of it comes.
Graham just nods slowly, like he's taking in the weight of it.
"Twenty-nine," Graham says.
"Twenty-nine," I repeat. It sounds heavier when someone else says it out loud. Twenty-nine years old and I've never had sex. Not once. Not even close, really. I've spent almost three decades finding ways to avoid this exact moment, and now it's sitting between us like something I can't take back.
Graham doesn't rush to fill the silence. He just nods slowly, like he's letting the number sink in.
Something in my chest loosens that I didn't even know was tight.
"That's not a small thing to carry," he says. "That long. On your own."
"It's not that big a deal," I say, on reflex. And he lets that lie sit on the counter between us where we can both see it isn't true.
I try to change the subject. That's what I always do when someone sees too much.
I ask how the Pier project is going, the big civic job his firm has been chasing.
He gives me two sentences about a zoning fight and then stops.
Easy. He lets the quiet come back to my side of the counter.
He's not going to let me dodge tonight. Not in a way I can get away with.
It's like reaching for the check at a restaurant and finding out it's already been paid.
I've watched Graham do that with real checks more times than I can count. I've never once beaten him to it.
"You spend a lot of time taking care of the people around you," Graham says. Plain and direct, the way he'd read a measurement off a drawing. It catches me off guard that he noticed. "Meg tonight. Me right now. Your sister, I'd bet. Whether she knows it or not."
He turns his glass a slow half-turn on the counter.
"I'm just saying somebody could take care of you for once. That's allowed. It doesn't cost you anything."
He reaches over and tops off my glass even though I haven't finished what's in it.
Outside, a car passes and throws light across the ceiling, then takes it away again.
Graham looks at me with an expression I don't have a name for.
Warm. Patient. A little distant, like he's already thinking several steps ahead.
"You know," he says, and his voice is almost casual. Too casual. "We could probably do something about this."
"About my personality? Bold. Little late for surgery that big."
"About the other thing." He smiles. It's a good smile.
The same one that made me feel picked eight years ago when he called about a misspelled caption.
"You've been trying to fix this out there with strangers, in the worst possible conditions.
Bad lighting. Wallets with expired condoms. Anyone would freeze. "
He nods at me, gentle.
"You're not broken, Teddy. You've just never had someone in your corner who actually knew what they were doing."
I should say something. I'm good with words. It's the one thing I'm usually good at. But right now I've got nothing.
"Think about it," he says. He picks his book back up like the conversation is over for now. "No rush. I'm not going anywhere."
I finish the whiskey. Whatever came loose in me is still loose, but for the first time in a long time it doesn't feel like something is ending. It feels like something might be starting.
"Okay," I say. "Yeah. Maybe."
"Maybe," Graham says, already reading. He turns a page.