Page 21 of The Comedown

“You like the car, huh?”

“My panties didn’t soak themselves on the drive here.”

Julian chokes and I laugh.

“Goddamn. I didn’t know you’d be so scrappy.”

“Like I said this morning, you don’t know me.”

He busies himself eating, then once his plate’s empty, I ask, “What made you get into it with Bodee?”

“I fucking hate that guy.” He looks away. “Always have.”

“Did he do something to you?”

Julian’s eyes meet mine again and hold, but he doesn’t answer, only continues looking at me like I should already know somehow. But I don’t. I don’t have a clue what they’d be fighting about aside from their egos. Both men clearly have one, and egos flare like fireworks on the Fourth of July at award ceremonies—that’s a given—but people don’t typically risk getting physical. Also because of egos. And possibly losing future work.

Does Julian share those same reservations though?

I close an eye, squinting the other, and ask quietly, “Did you win?”

“Would you be pissed if I did?”

Even though I know what he’s asking, I still shake my head. I don’t know why I’m being honest with him. Perhaps we really are bonding.

Julian’s eyes thin. “Would you be pissed if I didn’t?”

This time I’m not quite sure what he means and he doesn’t bother explaining himself.

“You did win.” I smile and Julian licks his bottom lip, brushing the piercings underneath with his tongue.

“Fuck yeah, I won.”

I’m not surprised I didn’t hear about it. Bodee would never let something like that get out.

“I didn’t know you’d be so brave…”

He holds his hands out. “You don’t know—”

“…but stupid.” I interlock my fingers, resting my chin on my knuckles. “Nobody goes after Bodee Keys and lives to tell the tale.”

“You did.”

“I didn’t go after him.” Not really. I ran and I have yet to look back. Only forward. Always forward, because I can’t go back to the night I ran away from him. I refuse to.

“You’re trying to tell me you’re not a scrapper?”

“When I need to be, yes, but I wasn’t always.”

A tween girl with her phone aimed at us catches my attention, and I force a laugh, changing the subject by asking, “You said he bit you?”

This isn’t the time or place. There will never be a time or place where I speak freely about what Bodee did to end our marriage quicker than it started.

“Yeah, right here.” He points to a faint crescent scar on his earlobe. “I figured that’s why you keep a knife on you.” His laugh sounds just as fake as mine but with an added dark undercurrent to it. Dark and dangerous.

“Hmm…” I consider my next words. Bodee himself was not the reason for me carrying a knife for protection, but that doesn’t mean my time with him wasn’t. “Now that I think about it, he was a bit of a biter,” I joke, trying to break up the tension now blanketing us, but if anything, it only hugs tighter, practically choking the conversation dry.

“I, um, I meant in bed,” I clarify.