“You’re the weirdest person I know,” I told him. “And Santiago is probably going to put pubes in my food.”
Vince rocked his head back and laughed. “I’ll make sure your food is pube free.”
My eyes burned a bit. No one had ever said that to me about pubes before. Part of me still wanted to believe he was pulling my leg, that this was all going to end badly. But that little hopeful part that had grown out of nowhere, that little light flickering way down in the dark, got brighter, and I latched onto it, hopeful for something I couldn’t quite name.
And then Vince had to go and ruin it by asking seven words that I should never be asked, given my history of being incapable of holding any kind of intelligent conversation with a hot guy, even if he’d just essentially proclaimed he was my boyfriend. I wanted to stay in the afterglow of the moment, staring deeply into each other’s eyes as if to communicate with each other’s souls without speaking or some such bullshit. I couldn’t make a jackass of myself if I didn’t speak (well, that’s not entirely true, since I’d proven earlier that I was perfectly capable of being a jackass by simply trying to walk down a hallway).
But Vince must have realized that we couldn’t spend the rest of our lives just staring at each other, so he made it all that much worse. “So, Paul,” he said as he leaned forward, “tell me more about yourself.”
“Excuse me?” I squeaked.
“Well, I know a few things about you. But since you’re my boyfriend now, I obviously need to know more. I don’t know if I can get by on just knowing you like black dildos and action movies.”
“Keep your fucking voice down,” I hissed at him, looking around to see if Santiago was listening in, trying to eavesdrop for the intel he could use to tear me away from Vince like some Victorian heroine. I saw the top of his perfectly manufactured head through the window near the kitchen, and I wondered if he was pulling out his pubes one by one in preparation for when we ordered. “I told you that dildo wasn’t mine! I’m holding it… for a friend.”
“You’re watching a dildo for a friend?” he asked in disbelief.
“Yes! My friend….” Think of a name, think of a name! I looked down at the table. “My friend… Salt. Cup. Straw. Table. My friend Saltcup Strawtable. He’s Indonesian.” I was building a relationship on lies, all lies.
Vince waited with a smirk on his face.
“Fine,” I growled at him. “It’s mine, okay? I tried to use it once, but it was too big, so I put it in the box under my bed and left it there. It felt like it was going to tear me in half.”
“We’ll just have to try it out again,” he said, his voice going all husky.
Synapses fired. Fireworks across the sky. Angels sang. Jesus clapped politely.
“Sure,” I managed to say.
“What about the other ones in there? Blackie wasn’t the only dick in the box.”
“No comment.”
He smirked. “So what else?” he asked. “I want to know everything.” He leaned forward again.
And there it was, folks. One of those defining moments. This was the beginning, the start of something that I thought could quite possibly be amazing if it turned out to be real. I’d been alive for thirty years. There was thirty years of history that he could get to know. I glanced into the café again and saw Santiago scowling at me, and I knew I needed to make it something badass. Sexy. Dangerous. I could have told him about the time Sandy and I had gone to Hawaii and went snorkeling and that I’d thought I was going to get eaten by a shark (conveniently leaving out the fact that the “shark” turned out to be a rock). Or I could’ve told him something heartfelt. Sweet. Kind. I could’ve told him about how I sometimes volunteered at Wingspan, which helps GLBTQ youth in Tucson who are going through a tough time with their family or friends or school. I could’ve told him about how I dreamed of quitting my job and one day traveling across Europe. Or that I wanted to learn to speak Italian. Or that I was still kind of scared of the dark some of the time. Or any other number of things that had happened in the past thirty years that made me who I was.
But no.
Of course not.
My subconscious hijacked my mouth and made me say the one thing I didn’t want to say at all. My deepest shame. My darkest moment.
“Last year I fell into the hippopotamus exhibit at the zoo.” Oh sweat balls!
He twitched his lips as he stared at me. “I’m sorry. You did what?”
“What’s good to eat here?” I grabbed the menu and put it in front of my face.