so. My mistake came when I brought up the last date with the guy he’d invited over.
“That was your fault it didn’t work out.”
“I dunno, I seem to recall that Words With Friends was the bigger draw than hittin’ the sheets with that guy.”
He growled in frustration. “Listen, I’m not talking about having someone over. I want to go to their place.”
“Really? You think it’s still gonna be hot with me sitting in their living room?”
“What?”
“Well, you know I’ll be tagging along wherever you go. When you invited whatever-his-name-was to the house, that was great because I could make myself scarce, but if we go to their home…I mean, I can take my Kindle, I guess.”
His explosion had been loud and apocalyptic. The argument—discussion, fight, negotiation—had been raging on ever since.
“You can have him, or her, come here.”
“It’s none of your business who it is,” he barked at me.
“Well, it was a guy the last time, but I’m giving you the option to––”
“I can’t have you––”
“As I was saying,” I continued, refusing to get mad, no matter what he baited me with. “You can have someone over, or you can go to their place, but if you go anywhere, I have to go with you, and that’ll probably kill the mood.”
“You think?” he almost yelled.
My tone wasn’t helping. I was using my Bob Ross voice, which tended to drive people right up the wall. “What if this whoever has drugs at their place?” I asked calmly.
“So what, I’m not going to do any!”
Slow nod then, like I completely understood, being both placating and patronizing at the same time.
He shouted, and it was loud in the small space of my bathroom. “How about a little fucking faith for once?” he railed, balling his fists up and stalking to the door and back.
“I have faith in you,” I assured him. “But what if he roofies you?”
“I don’t have friends who—”
“Oh, this imaginary person is a friend, then?”
“No, not like—God!”
“I don’t understand why this hypothetical whoever can’t just come over here.”
“Because you’ll probably strip search them!”
“No. I would never do that,” I assured him. “I’d have one of the guys do it like I did the last time. And we didn’t strip him down, we just made him turn all his pockets inside out.”
“You––”
“I didn’t even get out my glove.”
He threw up his hands as I chuckled.
“You’re a giant cockblock!”
I nodded, rolling up my sleeves and fixing my collar. The pale blue shirt and gray pants, along with the gray loafers, looked better than I thought they would.
“And I don’t want random hookups in my home.”
I turned to face him, leaning on the counter, crossing my arms and scowling at him. “That’s very telling, don’t you think?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh, I dunno,” I said, rolling my eyes, walking by him, out into my bedroom and over to the chest of drawers. Grabbing my wallet, I crossed to the doorway and turned off the light on my way out.
“I just don’t want people thinking that I live with my uncle or something,” he snapped, jogging to catch up with me as I headed down the hall.
I snorted. “I don’t know that we look that much alike,” I replied casually.
“We don’t look a—do you even get when you’re being insulted?”
“Apparently not,” I goaded him, making the left to the kitchen to grab my phone, that I’d left there earlier when I was talking to my mother.
“Could those pants be any tighter?” he remarked, leaning on the counter, resembling a pissed-off fourth grader.
I laughed at him and then grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and left.
Four days later, getting ready to attend an event at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, I walked out into the living room in a lightweight black turtleneck, black dress pants, and cordovan wingtips. My date, there waiting for me, caught his breath.
Nick laughed. “It’s still summer! You’re gonna get heatstroke in that.”
“No,” Danny Tucker, a cardiovascular surgeon, told him. “It’s always freezing in the museum at night, and he can take it off later,” he offered, his smirk more than a little lewd, “if he gets too hot. But it’s supposed to be in the sixties tonight anyway.”
I grinned at Danny.
“I’ve never met anyone with black eyes before,” Danny murmured, staring at me.
Going to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water, I was surprised when I turned and nearly plowed into Nick, who took several steps back.
“You look like a gigolo or something, all in