Offensive Behavior

But I can’t be with you anymore.

You’ll find this hard to take. But when you clear your head and think about it, you’ll see I was right. Yes, you’ll hate being wrong, but I promise, this is for the best.

Remember that one big fight we had. Remember the shirt tearing angry forgiveness sex. I know you do. I told you I was going to need you to need me? I’m sure you believed it when you said you needed me more ways than you could count.

The thing is though, it’s not true.

Partly you and me are a factor of timing that should’ve been obvious to us both. You weren’t working so you didn’t have any reason not to give your attention to me. Now that you’re back to your regular life at Plus, you don’t have any time left to give. I understand that and I’m not asking you to choose between the things you love, so I’m making it easier for us both.

The other thing that should’ve been obvious to me is that at heart you’re still the weird, loner kid. You turned your brand of weird into greatness and you learned to be loud, but you’re perfectly happy alone. You got that tattoo for a reason. ‘It’s your road and yours alone, others can walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you.’ I looked it up. It’s Rumi. When I first saw it I thought it was sad, now I understand it’s part of your strength. And with your work, I don’t think you even feel alone.

The confusing part is the sex, right? We kept having it, right up to last night, and it was never bad, not even from the first time when you almost gave yourself concussion on the bathroom tiles. I loved the sex as much as I love you. The problem is we can’t just be about the sex. You said it in Paris. That’s how we started and that’s on me. That’s all I wanted. But you showed me more and going back to that is simply not enough for me.

I think it’s an algorithm, those things you like so much. I understand them as a kind of sum and I think ours looks like this:

Loner guy (special virgin edition) + free time x crisis of the soul + scorching hot pole dancer lust = unexpectedly beautiful sexy relationship.

But if you subtract the free time and the crisis of the soul, strike out the special virgin edition and add in the fact that you know everything you need for a healthy sexual relationship, all you have left is loner guy and scorching hot pole dancer, and that’s the story of every man every night at Lucky’s.

I deserve more than that. But I need to make more of me at the same time.

You know I fudged it when I said my sexual fantasy was you on your knees at my pole bidding for me to strip. I was messing with you. I didn’t think it would be cool for me to tease you about having a fantasy if I didn’t put something on the line for myself.

What I didn’t tell you is that not everyone has a sexual fantasy. Some people only want to fall in love with a person who gets them, and work at that love for the rest of their lives. I thought that was what you wanted, and you’d found it in me, but I didn’t understand all the things that drive you then like I do now.

We had a good thing, Reid, it became a great thing, but now the last thing either of us wants is for what we had to sour.

There’s good news. I kept it till last because you’ll worry otherwise. I didn’t win the Madame Amour scholarship. I did better. Eglantine Foss, that’s Madame’s real name, wants to pay my college fees and has offered me a low interest business loan if I decide to start something up for myself. I think I know what that is and one day when we’ve both got the time and this doesn’t hurt so much, I’d like to tell you about it.

I know you’ll want to call me. I’m asking you not to. I already feel like a coward for writing instead of talking to you. And please don’t hassle Cara.

The night in Paris, when you told me you loved me you said if I didn’t love you, you’d still build a great life. I know you will. It’s time for me to do the same.

I’ve ticked some boxes to help you put all this in perspective.

Had this great thing with a sexy pole dancer

She taught me everything I needed to know about sex

Tried some kinky stuff—you only live once

I’ll always regret our timing was off

We’ll always have windows and park benches and Paris.

Zarley

THIRTY-ONE

There was a disturbance in the atmosphere. Reid trusted whatever sixth sense told him things weren’t right. It’d always bothered him how other people ignored that prickle of awareness that made his brain do a double take. And things weren’t right. The way she’d kissed him. On the cheek. That meant . . . what? Zarley had kissed him on the cheek before so it wasn’t about that one thing. But their thing wasn’t right.

God, he wasn’t spending enough time with her. She’d said she missed him that one morning, and she hadn’t meant to let that slip because it sounded like a complaint and she never complained. And he’d told her he wasn’t going anywhere. Flaming idiot. There was more to missing a person than their physical presence.

He started going cold from the soles of his feet, by the time that icy uncomfortable feeling hit his chest he had to move, needed motion to help him think this through. It wasn’t only this morning’s kiss; it was last night’s sex. He closed his eyes to see it better. It was amusing and glorious and Zarley was incandescently bright but what he’d missed in her last night, he found now.

She was also unbearably sad.

He gripped the edge of the table and stood.