I’m at?”
His lip works itself up into a smile, and I have to remind myself not to be charmed. “Well. You did recommend Nightsky in class today.”
My momentary courage deflates like Fred’s inflatable plastic microphone, the one I bought him on a whim the last time we were perusing the shops in Covent Garden thinking he’d like to use it to play rap star as he’s been fond of playing recently. He loved it instantly, but it only took two days before the sharp edge of a Lego poked a hole in the material and leaked all the air out.
That’s me, right now. My confidence seeping out as I realize he’s exactly right.
And in case I am about to try to save myself with a rant about how, just because I recommended the place doesn’t mean he should go—I mean, who does that? Who actually takes someone else’s unsolicited advice, on the very day the advice was given no less?—he nods his chin toward something behind him. “A few of them thought it would be fun to check it out. Get to know each other in the process. They convinced me to tag along.”
My face feels hot as I turn to look, my stomach sinking as I suspect I know what I’ll find. Sure enough, there’s six of them, sitting round a large table on the other side of the room. Including Hendrix, that’s over half the class that came out to Nightsky tonight, simply because I said I loved the place. In another situation, I’d be startled by the power of my words.
At this particular moment, however, I’m nothing short of mortified.
I turn back to the bar and press my hands to my face. They’re cool against my hot skin and smell like orange since I still have the peel tucked under my thumb, out of Hendrix’s sight. I’m already humiliated. He doesn’t need to realize what I was drinking as well.
“Yes, right,” I say because I surely need to say something. “Of course.” Of course he isn’t here for me. How self-centered to think otherwise. How narcissistic.
Though, he did come to this spot at the bar to order. And as the bartender sets down two negronis on the counter, my embarrassment lessens. “You came to London,” I accuse. “You took my class.”
“I did.” He doesn’t offer more. Just that twinkle in his eye and that half smile. He nods again to the table of his classmates. “Care to join us?”
I’m hit with a vivid memory of that night in Paris, the two of us sneaking away from the crowd of fellow conference-goers to debate about the best wide-angle lens, which quickly led to a discourse on the purpose of art and an instruction on how to react to a tiger in the wild. He introduced me to negronis and we’d thrown back more than a couple when he leaned in and whispered, “My recipe is better. Come to my room, and I’ll show you?”
He never did make me that drink.
“I shouldn’t,” I say, declining his invitation. Even if there’s a part of me that longs to sit among the bunch of them, drinking and laughing with ease, I can’t begin to imagine how it would work. I wouldn’t know how to be around them. I barely know how to be around myself.
“Shouldn’t doesn’t mean no.” He’s as much a tease now as he was then.
“But I’m saying no.” It’s with regret, knowing that my response will mean he leaves, and while I don’t want him to stay, I don’t want him to go either.
“Okay, then.”
He pays the bartender, and, against my better judgement, just when he’s about to grab his drink, I ask, “What happened to wildflowers in the countryside?”
It’s probably telling that I remember his agenda. Winter in the savannahs, spring wildflowers, Iceland in July.
He turns toward me, leaning his elbow on the bar. “I had a better option.”
My chest feels tight and my eyes prick suddenly. I pick up my glass and throw back the remains, which is just melted ice now. His better option is me, right? That’s surely what he’s saying. I’m not obtuse.
But, if he means me or if he doesn’t, I don’t know what to make of the statement. I don’t know what to make of him. Or men in general, if I’m honest. It’s why I stick to string-free sex and random hook-ups rather than relationships.
Speaking of string-free sex…
Dylan, the Thrashheads’ bassist, steps up to the end of the bar and