“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I almost shouted.
Chris took a step back. “Pardon me?”
But I wasn’t even listening to him. He ceased to exist. All I was aware of was the sharp buzzing in my ears, how my palms became instantly sweaty. I knew I was turning red and I was fighting a losing battle to curl up in on myself. I knew when (if) I spoke next, my voice would be soft, so much so that my words would be unintelligible. My shyness and awkwardness were trying very, very hard to take over, and I was fighting against them in a losing battle.
Because, oh because, standing in front of me, dressed in expensive-looking slacks, a crisp white shirt adorned with a silk tie and suspenders (really? Really? Suspenders?), looking like he just walked out of a photo shoot for a magazine called I Look Better Than Anyone Ever, stood the man I’d spent the last two nights fantasizing about. Mr. Yes Please. Dimples, of course, on full display.
“Paul,” Vince Taylor said, his voice deep and looking inordinately pleased about something. “How nice to see you again.” He grinned at me like we shared a great big secret.
My boss looked confused.
Sandy continued to sound like he was dying.
“Fuck,” I whispered.
Chapter 4
I Am Going To Freddie Prinze Junior You So Hard
“GOD hates me,” I groaned to Sandy at lunch later that day. We sat at some restaurant that was supposed to be a hip and trendy vegetarian place. So, of course, all I could think about was how hilarious it would be if I went next door to Burger King and got the biggest bacon cheeseburger they had and ate it in the vegetarian restaurant in front of all the hip and trendy vegetarians. I suck like that sometimes. “It’s like he got bored and thought, ‘Hmmmm. I don’t want to mess with Africa today, and I don’t want to send Hurricane Ebonica to wipe out Florida, so I’ll just fuck with Paul.’”
“Hurricane Ebonica?” Sandy asked, his lips twitching.
“I thought the hurricane could use a bit more ethnicity,” I muttered. “They always sound so white. It’s not fair to other races. You always hear about hurricanes called Carl or Diane, but you never hear of Hurricane Rodrigo Sanchez or Ji-Ting Kao.”
“Only you would fight for the civil rights of hurricanes,” Sandy said, smiling sweetly at me.
“Someone has to,” I insisted, wondering just how we’d gotten to this point in the conversation, but realizing it was probably my fault.
“Let’s focus on Hurricane Paul for a second,” he said.
I looked at him, horrified. “Are you saying I should suck and blow him?”
Sandy looked startled for a moment. “Paul Auster,” he said, chuckling. “Just when I think I know you completely, you can still say shit that surprises me.”
This pleased me for some reason, but I ignored it. Instead, I frowned.
He reached over to pat my hand before diving back into his salad. I looked down at my own. I guarantee you there has never been a single person in the world who ate a salad and said, “Gee, I am so full now. Thank God I just had that.” It’s just not possible. My body needed bacon to live.
“Next time we come here, I’m bringing my own Bacon Bits,” I threatened Sandy. “You may have your girlish figure to maintain, but I’m a man. I need steak.”
He snorted into his radicchio, which I admired because it was a pretty purple. The radicchio was purple, not his snort. Just in case you got confused there. I don’t think it’s possible for people to snort colors. We’re not unicorns, after all. “You’re all man,” he agreed. “So, I had to go to a meeting. What happened with your boyfriend?”
I blushed and mumbled threats at his person.
“What was that?” he asked. “Couldn’t quite hear you.”
“I said I’m going to cut you.”
“Ah. That’s what I thought you said. So what happened?”
“God hates me,” I said again. And he did. I don’t know what I ever did to God (maybe the Christian Reich was correct and God did hate homosexuals; that could be the only possible explanation as to why he was torturing me so).
I couldn’t tell Sandy what had happened when Vince arrived because I didn’t know. Everything from the moment I saw him until the moment Sandy snapped his fingers in front of my face, asking me to go to lunch, was a haze. A deep, murky haze, punctuated with little flashes of light, like the moment Vince sat down next to me and extended his hand to shake mine, his grip calloused and warm. This was followed by words he said to me with a grin: “Quite a small world.” Then, everything went dark for a bit until there was another flash of light when he leaned forward and said in a low voice, “Not a whiskey drinker, eh?” The haze descended again until my phone rang and I picked it up, hyperaware of just how close he was sitting next to me, his knee accidentally brushing against mine. I don’t remember the phone call in the slightest, and I don’t know if I told the person on the other end that I’d give them a million dollars to go fuck themselves or not. I heard Vince chuckling next to me, and I didn’t know what was so damn funny, but it didn’t matter, because his laugh was a low, throaty thing that sort of rumbled out of him as if it’d crawled from the depths of his stomach.