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“Alright,” he says slowly. “What do you have in mind?”
Usually I’m pretty quick on my feet, especially when I’m dealing with a guy, but this unexpected turn leaves me off-balance. I scramble to recover.
“Get me a drink.”
It’s a lame suggestion, but my brain fell back on defaults. I’m not firing on all cylinders today, alright?
“You can pick the place,” I say. “Here. I’ll give you my number.”
Luke offers his phone, and I program in my number. He says nothing, just stares at his screen before tucking his phone back into his pocket. I can’t tell if he’s shocked, offended or something else entirely.
“See you soon?” I prompt.
Luke’s throat works as he swallows. “Yeah. Sure.”
He hurries away without further comment, and I’m left even more confused than when my workday started with a spray painted window.
Chapter Four
Luke
I DON’T TEXT that evening. It’s late. It’s been a long day for both of us. It would be weird to text Sebastian so quickly, right? It would look strange and overeager.
Sebastian. That’s his name. The guy with the long, silky ponytail and those shrewd, dark eyes that glittered constantly with restrained laughter. He programmed his name into my phone along with his number, and I’ve looked at it more times than I should have, but I haven’t texted. I didn’t last night, then I got up today and had to head to work. I can’t text some guy I don’t know while I’m supposed to be teaching teenagers math, can I? Of course not. That would be irresponsible. I need to be Mr. Richardson, at least until my lunch break.
That break comes as less of a relief than it normallywould. I sit in the faculty break room with my sandwich and water, the unsent text hanging over my head.
I set my phone out in front of me and stare at the blank, black screen while I try to stomach my lunch. I shouldn’t be so nervous about this. It’s just a drink. Sebastian is right; I do owe him a drink. He had to scrub graffiti off a window. A simple drink is the least I can do for him.
But it was a surprise for a guy like that to make a proposition like that. Surely, he can’t know that I’m… No, that would be crazy. I’ve heard of gay-dar, but that would be off the charts. I didn’t give him any signs or signals whatsoever. Maybe Sebastian just really likes beer and saw an opportunity to get a free drink.
Either way, I need to bite the bullet and send the text. I know where we should meet, too. There’s a super boring bar full of wood and sports memorabilia right on Main Street in Tripp Lake. It should be close to his place, or at least his job. Sebastian will hate it, but I’ll be able to fulfill my obligation and move on. And it won’t give him any weird ideas about me. It’s definitely not the type of bar that attracts many queer men, which is exactly why I go there.
It’s just another layer of my self-imposed disguise. I can’t even let myself go get a drink after work except at a bar that feels “safe.” It’s the kind of place where my co-workers have met up before, the kind of place where no one bothers you if you want to get a beer and drink it in silence.
Part of me does wonder what would happen if I wasn’t such a coward. What if I proposed an obviously gay bar? What if I didn’t hide that I find Sebastian attractive? I mean, who wouldn’t find him attractive? He’s gorgeous, from those keen eyes to the casual grace with which he does just about everything. Even standing still on the sidewalk yesterday, there was something mesmerizing about his body, an unspent motion that lured me in with mere promises.
I shake my head before I manage to catch myself. I can’t let my thoughts go down that path. I’m thirty years old, and I decided when I was fifteen that this secret would stay with me, that I wouldn’t go down the path James went down, even if I admired him for what he did. What he had to do.
The boring bar it is. It’s the safe choice, the easy choice. I’ll get a single drink with Sebastian, try to keep the conversation light, and then leave this whole thing behind me for good. What other choice do I have?
I muster up my courage and set aside my half-eaten sandwich so I can reach for my phone and get this over with. But I don’t even manage to unlock the home screen before the principal enters the break room and makes a beeline for me.
Uh oh.
I set my phone right back down. Virginia isn’t the type of boss who is up our asses or anything, but when shewants something, you get it done. She isn’t going to waste her time with anything she sees as unworthy of her attention, either, so the second she marches toward me, I know this isn’t going to be a friendly little chat.
Virginia settles across from me at the break table, and all my co-workers are suddenly conspicuously busy. Virginia neither notices nor cares. Great. This little chat is all for me.
“How are you doing, Luke?” she says.
“I’m fine.”
She folds her hands on the table, which is how she sat when she interviewed me for this job. My stomach sinks further, and I’m grateful it’s mostly empty.
Virginia glances swiftly around the room, but no one is sitting especially close to us, and absolutely no one is trying to listen in on the conversation. Even so, she lowers her voice and leans toward me when she speaks.
“So, I heard what happened,” she says.
