Role Play - Alison Hendricks Page 0,32

Harris, alright? I'll be right over here if you need me."

Reuben shut the door, but wisely walked a fair distance away from the vehicle.

"Good call," he said with an almost shy grin. "Probably not the best idea to plan a hookup in there."

"No, definitely not. But, ah... there's something you should know. About me, I mean."

His brows lifted, and he took a step back from me. It was the most obvious manifestation of wariness I could imagine, and my stomach immediately sank. My mind started to backpedal fiercely, urging me to just let go of this crazy need for transparency.

I tamped that knee-jerk response down and instead said, "Um... so this is probably going to sound weird, but when I first joined Grindr, I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't know how to talk to guys or how to do the whole... hookup thing. So, I got some advice on how I should act."

"...Advice? What kind of advice? From who?"

"Well, my friend Keith, at first. But honestly no one with any sense should follow his advice, so..." I was rambling. And not looking him in the eye. I cleared my throat and tried again. "It was this service I found. Dear Lonely Guy? I don't know if you've heard of it..."

He shook his head, still watching me as if he were keeping his eye on a snake that was about to lunge at him.

"It's this guy... or maybe multiple guys, I'm not sure..." Dammit, Elliot, get it together! "He gives advice. For dating, sex, those sorts of things."

"And what advice did he give you?"

"To pick a role and play it up. Just find something I could be comfortable with and push that to the extreme. So I did, and... that was the result." I reached up and rubbed at my jaw. "I wasn't intending to deceive you--"

"But you did."

The steel in his voice gave me pause. I felt something shrink inside of me, my stomach plummeting even further. "Yeah. I did. I understand if that changes things. I mean, I'm sure it does..."

"I know this is bullshit after-school special talk, but you don't need to take advice from some random guy. Just... be yourself. Whatever that is."

I laughed at that, my eyes turning up toward the sky for a moment before I looked at him once more. "'Myself' is an anxious thirty-something who has no idea how to have a casual relationship because he's never been in one before."

"Yeah, well." He shrugged a little. "From what I've seen of that guy, he's cute. So be that."

As soon as he said it, he started to walk toward the van, hands in his pockets. Completely casual, as if he hadn't just sent the world spinning about me.

"Wait, so does that mean...?"

"I'll send you a text later with the info," he said, his lips curving in an almost devious smirk that made that single dimple pop.

All I could do was stand there as he got into the car, closed the door, and drove away.

14

Reuben

Leaving that Friday, I wasn't sure how I felt about that revelation. It wasn't a huge deal. He'd been nervous so he looked for outside help. I would never have really known if I hadn't seen him again, and neither he nor I planned on that happening. It would've been a bigger deal if we were starting a relationship and he'd pretended to be something he wasn't, but the most this would ever be was casual sex.

Still, something about it made me think of the kind of shit my ex used to pull. He was always good at being a chameleon. His thoughts, his opinions, his beliefs were malleable, based on whoever he was with at the time. When it was no longer useful for him to agree with me on basic human decency, he suddenly believed something else. I had no idea if even that was who he really was. I think he just decided to mold himself to fit the guy he ended up cheating on me with.

My gut told me Elliot wasn't like that, but my gut had been wrong before. My cock probably had more say in the matter, because it reminded me that we weren't trying to build a future with the guy. If he wasn't going to take bad advice again, what did it matter?

That sentiment won out, but just as I was about to text him Saturday night, Ruth gave me a call. She'd taken David not an hour earlier,