Page 39 of Wait for Him

He looks at me.

“Good call.”

They back away, and the doors slide shut on my last opportunity to pretend I'm behaving like a normal member of society.

For the first few floors, I'm fine. Completely fine.

Then the remnants of the last hour start in on me. David and Jet. The sounds the two of them were making. The look on David's face when he saw me. Jet fighting for his life against a pair of pants.

And then, because my own brain is a hateful little bitch with excellent archival storage, it starts supplying the sounds David and I used to make.

Nope.

I squeeze my eyes shut and shake the reel loose because I don't care. I genuinely don't.

This is one more blow in a long, well-documented and distinguished career of taking them standing up, and I am nothing if not practiced. I have a whole résumé of this. References available upon request.

So what if I thought he was the one?

That's hardly a crime.

So what if I gave him a key?

People give people keys every day. Locksmiths would go out of business otherwise.

So what if, on the drive home Tuesday, I caught myself idly thinking about what month would be best for a wedding?

It wasn't a plan. It was scheduling.

I schedule things professionally.

And the seating chart was purely hypothetical. Mostly.

The only real, actionable takeaway from this entire episode is that my gaydar has developed a fault and requires recalibration, possibly a full factory reset.

That's fine. That's fixable. A maintenance issue.

Maybe I should've known something was wrong when he cared that much about throw pillows.

No. That's homophobic.

See? I'm already growing from the experience.

Everything is fine. Everything is absolutely fucking fine.

The elevator keeps climbing. And somewhere around the twentieth floor, the bullshit stops working.

I lean my head against the wall and close my eyes.

I loved him.

There.

Fucking traitor.

The thought sits in my chest now that I've finally let it surface, and I hate it because it makes this morning something I can't file under David is an asshole and move on from.

I loved him.