Page 53 of The Boyfriend Experience

But they’re still… different somehow.

What is it? Why are they different?

And that’s when it hits me.

That’s when I figure out why Hanna isn’t into Lawton.

He needs some tattoos.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN - LAWTON

Even though I don’t know Larry personally like Oaklee does, I’ve been in Funsville plenty of times with Bric. This place has been a fixture in Denver for more than twenty years and Larry here has been its one and only owner.

So I tell him that as I watch Oaklee walk over to the skeet ball and start playing. I say, “My sponsor used to bring me here back when I was a teenager.”

“That right?” Larry says, making change for a kid at the counter.

“Yeah,” I say, remembering back on those days.

“You were… an alcoholic?” Larry says. “So you two used to meet up here, what? When you had the urge to drink? Not a good plan since this is a bar too.”

For a second I don’t even understand the words coming out of his mouth. Then I say, “Alcoholic? No.” And I laugh because I guess that’s what people think when you say ‘sponsor.’ “No. Elias Bricman was my Boys Without Brothers sponsor. He gave me a scholarship to attend private school and changed my life. And this place was part of it. Because we used to meet up here to, ya know, talk through shit.”

“Ah,” Larry says, laughing at his presumptions. “Sorry. I’m jaded. Don’t mind me.”

“No problem,” I say. “I guess I never thought of it that way. I don’t talk about Bric much. You know him?”

“Who doesn’t?” Larry laughs again. He’s got an easy laugh. It’s nice too. He’s got a look about him that says ‘don’t fuck with me.’ And that’s how I always pictured he’d be if I ever had an opportunity to talk with him.

But that’s not how he is at all.

“I’ve known Bric since he first moved here as a teenager. Used to come in all the time. And now that I think about it…” Larry does one of those looking-at-the-ceiling moves, like he’s trying to remember something. “I know you. Skinny kid. Always wearing a leather jacket. Bad street attitude.”

“Yeah,” I say, smiling. “That was me.”

“You don’t look much different now, truthfully. Bric ever make an honest man out of ya?”

“He did,” I say. Because one, I get that because I’m dressed like this today it’s easy to imagine nothing’s changed for me. And two, he didn’t say it in a mean way. He wasn’t judging me. “I run a multi-million-dollar real-estate agency here in Denver now. But I’m doing a favor for Oaklee this week and she wants me to look like a tough guy.”

I shrug and so does he. A mutual, Girls are all crazy, what can you do? gesture.

“Well, I’m glad to hear that, Lawton. Real glad to hear that. It’s nice when the kids come back and show me who’s boss.”

And with that he shoots me one more smile and walks off to help a customer near the token machine.

It’s weird. How my past has been missing for so long and meeting one crazy girl named Oaklee has brought it all rushing back.

Like that jacket. And the Johnny Cash t-shirt. The motorcycle and the boots on my fuckin’ feet.

I look at Oaklee, who is frowning down at a couple of tickets the skeet ball machine is spitting out, and decide… it’s kinda cool. That she’s taken me on this two-day whirlwind down memory lane. And I still have twelve more days with her. It’s not even the sex, either. Though that was pretty goddamned fun and if she’s on board, we’re totally gonna do that again. It’s just… her.

She’s got a wild side, I see that. And now that I’ve known her for two days I can understand how the guys who turned Jordan down for her game would’ve thought she’d be hard to handle. Or unreasonable. Risky, maybe.

She is all those things in some ways. But in others… she’s just a little girl who lost her dad and is getting shit on by someone she once called a friend.

I walk over to her and she smiles at me over her shoulder. “I suck today. Usually I kick ass at this game.”

I pick up a ball, roll it around in my hand, then toss it down the lane and it goes smoothly into the center hole.