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“You really don’t need to. I know you have a lot else going on this month.”
“I do, which is why you really should look into that new part-timer.”
Chloe sighs heavily on the other end of the phone. “I know, I know. I’m looking into it. I swear. Henry mentioned a friend. I need to get him in for an interview.”
A friend of Henry’s could be promising. That guy is so sweet and nice it’s almost unbearable. Any friend of his should be a great fit for the café.
“My bus is coming,” I say. “I’ve got to go. But I’ll be there for the extra shift.”
“Thanks so much, Sebastian. I really appreciate it. I’ll see if we can bill it as overtime or something.”
“It’s alright, Chloe. An extra shift will be a nice bonus either way.”
She lets me off the phone as my bus lumbers up to the stop, and I hop on and flash my transit card at the scanner. The bus is nearly empty, which allows me to tuck myself in a relatively clean chair beside a window and watch the roads flash by as I head back toward Tripp Lake. I’m lucky there’s any bus at all in a place this far out. Though, in fairness, I’ll have to walk almost a full mile from the stop to my apartment.
My mind drifts as trees and road flash by. This extra shift should be a boon, a way to make some quick, easy extra cash. And I have time for it, even with my dancingand teaching. Yet I’m dreading the field trip. Or, rather, I’m dreading seeing Luke again. I promised him we’d be strangers when this inevitable encounter happened, and I’ll stay true to my word, but that doesn’t mean I’ll like it. This isn’t a guy who took me home from a club, a guy whose name I can forget during my “walk of shame” bus ride home. Luke left an impression. He actually talked to me. He actually seemed interested in my life, in my dance classes, in what I had to say. It’s the first time in a long, long time that a guy has taken the time to talk to me, really talk to me, before things turned physical, and unless I’m way off-base, the talking was what drew Luke to me even more than my appearance.
That’s a dangerous combination of factors. It threatens to make me feel like an actual person and not a piece of ass, not an easy lay for whatever guy buys me a drink first. Yet whatever Luke said, whatever made him come into my apartment that night, in the end he was like all the rest — eager to leave and forget about me. For some reason, it hurts a little more coming from him than from the others.
I almost miss my stop, too lost in my thoughts. I leap off the bus and start my walk home, but Tripp Lake feels big and empty and lonely around me. It’s like the trees themselves are laughing at me for being an unlovable loser.
Chapter Ten
Luke
CAN WE TALK?
My hands shake when I send off that text a few days after finalizing the details of the field trip, but I’ve barely been able to sleep since knowing the date of this journey to Rainbow Rescue Cat Café. I can’t stop thinking about what it will be like to be there again, what it will be like to see Sebastian again, what it will be like to pretend I don’t know him. What it will be like to pretend I haven’t touched his body, tasted his excitement, heard his pleasure filling a dark bedroom while I had him in my mouth.
I let out a shaky breath. The school day has just ended. I sent the text at lunch and have tried my best to forget about it since then, but it’s been hard to keep my mind from drifting back to it. I was the one who said weshouldn’t be in contact. I was the one who said we had to be strangers. Sebastian must hate me for reaching out after the way I left the other night.
Why do I care so much if he hates me?
It shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter at all. He’s just a guy I’ll never see again, except for during this damn field trip. And maybe today, if he responds to my text. Which I can find out now if I can summon the courage to look at my phone.
It takes a few minutes of deep breathing before I get there. A message is waiting for me.
Sure.
That’s all it says. So it seems that he’s leaving this entirely in my hands. I can’t blame him for that. I have been setting the rules for this from the second I found him scrubbing graffiti off that window. I’m the one with all the hang ups. It has to be me who dictates how this thing goes.
I’m at school,I say.Can I swing by after work? I’d like to chat.
Yeah, not a problem. I’m home.
I don’t relish going back to his apartment, but it’s the only private place we’re going to find. I certainly can’t invite him to my house. He doesn’t have a car, and I don’t want to give him my address. That could turn messy. It has to be his apartment and it has to be now.
Still, I’m a bit unsteady when I gather up my stuff and march myself out of my classroom. Thankfully, no one says anything to me as I slip through the halls and into theparking lot. Sebastian’s address is in my phone from when I drove him home the other night, so I let the GPS give me directions and force myself to start following them, but my heart is in my throat throughout the entire drive. My hands are so sweaty it feels like they could slide right off the steering wheel. I contemplate turning around and running away more than once, but somehow drag myself to his place in the end.
I park along the curb outside the little courtyard area. I need to text him to let him know I’m here so he can open the gate, but it’s hard to get my hands to move. I haven’t even taken off my seat belt yet.
No, I did this. I asked for this. I have to go through with it. I need to make sure we’re good before the field trip. I have to know that we’re on the same page. A hasty promise in the dark is not good enough when the stakes are so high for me. If Sebastian were to out me, accidentally or otherwise, it could upend everything I’ve built so carefully. What if people questioned me at my job? What if parents pulled their kids from the “gay teacher’s” class? What if I suffered the same fate thathedid? I’m not strong like him. I’m not confident in myself like he was. I can’t do it. I can’t face what he had to face.
So I have to do this. I have to reach for my phone and text Sebastian that I’m here. I have to drag myself out of the car. I have to not freak out when I see him heading toward the gate.
He looks great. He always looks great. He’s wearing baggy, loose pants that are fashionable and interesting and draped around him in a way that accentuates how beautifully he moves with every step he takes. He doesn’t smile when he opens the gate for me. He doesn’t make any comment at all, and I’m equally silent as I follow him through the courtyard and into his apartment.
It’s different when I can actually see it. For one thing, there’s a little kitchen to my right, complete with plants on the counters and framed pictures of artwork of food. The living room lies past a little wall, and it’s full of more plants and more artwork and a couch overflowing with colorful blankets. Everything is so lived in, so vibrant. There are pieces of Sebastian everywhere, from the picture that’s obviously him with his parents and sister to the painted tea pot sitting atop a stack of books on the coffee table.
