She laughed. “I know. That’s what I said too. I kept asking them, ‘Are you absolutely sure?’ But they sent me all the information on email. I’ll send it to you so you can take a look at it. Anyway, they said they want to schedule the procedure for the fifteenth of July if that works for you.”
I glanced at Nine. “Yeah. Of course. We’ll figure something out on our end and make it happen. That’s amazing, Mom.”
“Well, I’ll let you go. Tell Nine hello from us. It’s nice to see you looking so happy. Much better than that Lee person.”
Why did everyone keep bringing him up? Jesus. “Mom. Lee wasn’t a thing. There was nothing between us.”
She made a scoffing sound. “Anyway, good riddance.”
When we ended the call, I stepped back over to our little stove and nudged Nine out of the way. “Sorry about that. Mom said she got a grant to cover Jacks’s procedure. Can you believe it?”
“That’s great. Who’s Lee?”
I glanced up at him to see furrowed eyebrows. Honestly, I was surprised Eli hadn’t already told him all about Lee.
“Nobody important.”
I poured the jarred sauce into a small pan and turned the burner on.
“I see.” Nine moved over to sit at the table. He didn’t say anything else, and the silence wrapped tight bands of guilt around my chest.
I reached into the cabinet for two pasta bowls and then fixed us each a glass of ice water. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Lee Chambers lived in the apartment above ours in LA. Actually, he owned the building.” I continued to find things to do so I wouldn’t have to look at Nine while I told this story. “I had a crush on him from the very beginning. We flirted and stuff—no big deal—but then we went out dancing one night with a group of friends and ended up hooking up.”
I squatted down to dig our pasta strainer out of a low cupboard, ignoring the little growling sound coming out of Nine’s throat. “And then we did it again and again. I developed feelings for him, but he clearly wasn’t interested in anything more than physical stuff. Which was fine, I thought. But then I realized he was hooking up with other guys. Which should have also been fine with me because I know tons of guys do that even when they’re in a committed relationship, and we weren’t even in a relationship or anything.” I realized I was babbling, so I stopped and took a breath.
“I should have stopped, but I liked him too much. So I got into this shitty cycle of taking what I could get. He’d call me up late at night and tell me to come upstairs. As soon as we were done, he’d politely but firmly tell me to go.” I made a humorless laugh sound. “Drove Evie nuts. She hated him for playing me around like that, but I told her I was a big boy and he was being nothing but totally honest with me about not wanting a relationship.”
“Why did you like him so much if he treated you that way?” Nine’s voice was rough with frustration.
I sighed. “He was… charismatic. Like one of those magnetic personalities you can’t help but be drawn to. He’d traveled everywhere and had amazing stories. His apartment was full of interesting art, and he had this eclectic style that was so… him. I envied his life. He lived it on his own terms, and I thought that was somehow brave or bold. Which is why him choosing to stay single and play around was something I had to respect, right? I mean, that was part of what made him so free and desirable to me.”
“Mpfh.”
I chuckled at Nine’s familiar grunt of disapproval. “Anyway, he finally changed his mind one day. Told me he wanted to be with me, that he cared about me. He still wanted an open relationship, but he was ready for an actual commitment where we were there for each other and made each other our top priority.”
The timer went off on the pasta, so I drained it into the sink. I quickly dished out big bowls for both of us and sat down across from Nine to continue the conversation. His legs immediately wrapped around mine the way they always did under the dinette table.
I continued. “For like… I don’t know… three weeks? It was great. He called me his boyfriend. He introduced me to his friends and coworkers at the studio where he worked—”
“Hold up. He worked in the film industry and didn’t help you get a job?”
I appreciated his indignant tone, but I shook my head. “He’s a game show producer. Not really my thing.”
“But surely he had friends in the business.”
I shrugged. “Yes. But I didn’t really want to get a job that way. Can you imagine me showing up for an audition that my boyfriend arranged? No. It was fine. My agent was doing a decent job, I just wasn’t getting the offers. Turns out, a theater degree from the University of Wyoming doesn’t get you as far as one would think.”