Even more frightening was the thought of finally seeing Julia again. I hoped that Sophia had given her the re-graded paper that had gotten me into this mess to begin with, and that she might be slightly less inclined to yell at me when she saw that I had made sure it was graded fairly. But she hadn’t contacted me and I could only assume that, in her mind, our arrangement was over. I hoped that I’d make her rethink that decision before the night was over. The real problem was that I had no clue how to do that. I had wronged her, and I had hurt her.
“I don’t know what to do when I see her,” I finally admitted, not taking my eyes off the traffic.
“You just need to be totally casual and aloof,” Matt said. “Let her come to you. Chicks hate it when guys ignore them. If it were any other club I would tell you to start flirting with another girl right in front of her. That shit works every time!”
That didn’t make any sense. “But Julia will probably know that I’m there to see her. It’s a gay bar, after all.”
“Oh, no problem-o. Just tell her that we’re there for Shawn’s sake because he’s the gayest gay man alive.”
“But I’m not,” Shawn piped up from the backseat.
“Come on, man. Can’t you just act like that dude married to the other dude from Modern Family?”
“Cam?” Shawn asked. “But he’s such a cliché!”
“I would never ask you to do that,” I said quickly.
“Do it for Stephen,” my brother coaxed. “He was finally getting laid and he was a lot less uptight.”
I hated to admit it, but I had felt a lot more relaxed in the brief period when Julia and I had been sleeping together.
“Fine.” Shawn sighed. “I’m doing it for you, Stephen.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I really appreciate all your help.”
“That’s OK. I’m a sucker for romance,” he said with a grin. “But in my opinion, you should disregard Matt’s advice.”
I knew it.
“What’s wrong with it?” my brother asked.
“Um, everything,” Shawn said. “He can’t just show up and ignore her. He should be attentive and compliment her.”
“No way!” Matt half-yelled. “Then she has all the power.”
She already does.
“She already has the power,” Shawn said, as if he had read my thoughts. “He can’t act like an asshole when she’s still mad at him. He’s trying to win her back, remember?”
“Yeah, but even so. He can’t act like a complete pussy in front of her. Women like men who are confident,” Matt argued.
“Well, that is true, I suppose,” Shawn admitted.
My head was spinning. Now I was even more nervous! Ignoring Julia really didn’t seem like a good idea. But would she really prefer it if I were more confident? It wasn’t exactly a quality that I possessed in droves, and it hadn’t seemed to bother her one bit that I was so inexperienced. But she had also told me that she liked it when I’d been in control, the night I got drunk and had my way with her repeatedly. In fact, I remembered her saying that it was the best sex she’d ever had.
Like I could ever forget her saying that.
Now I was torn between throwing myself at her feet and begging her for forgiveness or playing it cool when I saw her.
God, this is so complicated.
“So what should I do?”
“You love her, right?” Shawn asked. “This isn’t just a sex thing?”
“Officially it’s just sex, but…yes, I’m in love with her.”
“What do you mean, ‘officially’?”
“It started out as a casual thing, but lately it’s been more for me. A lot more.”
“But she doesn’t know that?”
“No. At least, I don’t think so,” I said quietly.
“Huh. So you’re going to try and convince her to start fucking again when really you’re in love with her and want a relationship. You’re in over your head, my friend.”
“Don’t I know it,” I said with a sigh.
“Oh, but the plot thickens.” Matt grinned. “She’s his student and they can only see each other on the DL or Stephen will get fired.”
“What’s the DL?” I asked.
“The down low,” Shawn explained. “When you’re keeping something secret. It’s actually a specific term in the gay community for men who sleep with other men secretly because some are scared to come out to their families. There are even guys who are married to women who sleep with men secretly on the side. Pretty messed up, if you ask me. It’s 2014, not 1914, and we live in San Francisco.”