“Yeah, same,” Flynn says.
“Why don't you have relationships?” I ask.
“It's just too much pressure, and I can barely be responsible for my own life.”
I sense a cop-out there, and I want to call him on it, but not while we’re dancing around the topic of us.
“Have you ever had a girlfriend?” It's none of my business, but I just shared my ugliest secret with him, so it seems only fair to ask him to share something back.
“I had a girlfriend in middle school,” he says. “She was my first.”
“First girlfriend?”
He gives a rough laugh. “Yes, but I meant the first girl I had sex with.”
“And what happened?”
“It got really intense.” Flynn’s voice is low and gravelly like this secret is just for me. “She was super possessive and freaked out on me if I didn't call her every day after school or if I did anything with anyone else. Things got pretty bad before I finally broke it off.”
“I guess you're the kind of guy a girl wants to hang on to,” I say. I certainly understand the urge. To be in Flynn’s field of attention is to bask in the sunlight. He’s definitely a guy worth keeping.
But I don't ever want to be that clingy girl to Flynn. I won’t be.
And then I wonder what it would take for Flynn to feel that way about a girl. What kind of woman would make him get possessive the way Adrian is possessive of Kat? What female could make Flynn want to be with her all hours of the day? To want to know where she is and what she's doing at all times. To want to be her everything.
“How old were you when you had this girlfriend?” I don’t know what middle school means in America.
“Fourteen.”
“Fourteen? Oh God,” I laugh. “I was stupid with boys at fourteen, too. I’m not sure you should completely write off relationships based on that experience.”
He gives a low chuckle. “Maybe not, but I’m not looking for anything intense.”
Again, I want to call bullshit. He isn’t afraid of intensity. He’s unflinching in the face of my panic attacks. In the face of getting punched in the face for trying to calm me down when I freaked out after attempting sex. He’s the opposite of afraid. I want to root out the real reason behind his reluctance to take on a girlfriend, but I shouldn’t care. I don’t want that, anyway.
I finally work up enough courage to bring up the topic of sex with me again. “So, was that a no? I don’t blame you for not wanting to try again with me.”
“Nah, we’re definitely having sex. I’m totally down.”
My heart skips a beat. “Yes?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“We’re going to the burlesque show Thursday, right?” he reminds me.
A fluttering in my chest starts up. We have a date. One I wasn’t sure was even happening. “Yes.”
“The Storytellers have our rehearsal at the Kremlin on Thursday this week,” he tells me.
My heart flutters just knowing he’ll be in the building in a few days. Thursdays have long been the highlight of my week for those chance–or sometimes orchestrated to seem like chance–meetings with Flynn in the hallway before or after.
“We could hang out after rehearsal and then go to the show.”
“Yes,” I say as if he’s asking me to marry him. I don’t know how us watching the burlesque dancers will turn into sex, but it doesn’t matter.
I’ll be with Flynn.
There have been many days these past months when I could barely get myself out of bed because of depression and anxiety, but when I’m with Flynn, I feel like I’m alive again.
“Great. I’ll see you Thursday.”
Thursday. Four long days away.
“Yes, okay. See you Thursday.”
I end the call and press the phone to my chest. I have a date.
Non-date. Whatever.
I’m going to see Flynn again, and maybe this time, I won’t freak out.
CHAPTER 6
Flynn
I stick around in the studio after rehearsal Thursday, trying out some new riffs on the guitar. What we’re doing with the band doesn’t feel like enough anymore. What I’m doing with my life doesn’t feel like enough, either.
Knowing Nadia’s walking around trying to rebuild her life after having so much taken from her suddenly makes my lackadaisical approach to living feel empty.
I carried the weight of Nadia’s pain all week. It’s not a burden. I know I chose to pick it up. But, fuck, if I could help it! My eyes burned, and I wanted to cry like a fucking baby when she told me.
And then when she asked if we could try again, I was even more conflicted. On one hand, it seemed like even my mom was right. Nadia had way too much going on emotionally to forge any kind of relationship with someone right now, particularly not a sexual one.
But, of course, like the first time she asked, I was also incapable of denying her anything at all.