“Well, yeah,” he said.
“Don't you want to go to the table? Aren't you worried about getting crumbs in the bed?” I asked.
He laughed, his mouth still full of pizza. “This ain't my bed, Al, I'm just the pizza delivery man.”
“Okay then,” I said. I took another big bite of the pizza. The flavor was sweet and savory. Chicken and red peppers were on the top while a layer of sweet sauce was under the cheese. “You were right, this is delicious.”
He swallowed his bite. “One thing I've never quite gotten used to is the food that rich people eat. Sometimes I have to take someone out somewhere nice to make a deal with them, but the way your dad used to cook burgers on the barbecue was some of the best food I've ever had.”
I thought back to those summer barbecues we had. Dad had insisted that we enjoy ourselves, and he had always given beer to James as part of it. I didn't realize until later that it was all a business deal, that my dad was paying off James to be nice to me. I didn't care then, and I didn't really care now. James was interested in me for me now- no beer necessary.
I hopped off the bed and grabbed my own piece of pizza, then snuggled back in bed with James. He continued to munch on his pizza, chewing loudly behind me. I giggled. He was such a boy.
“So, are we done with the whole 'pictures on my laptop' thing?” he asked.
I swallowed my bite. “I honestly don't know. I don't know how I feel about it. It's kind of a big deal to me.”
I felt him tense up a little bit. “Look, I'm twenty-one years old. I'm barely out of my hormone-crazy teenage years, even if Forbes Magazine calls me 'wise beyond his years when it comes to business.'” He said it with a pretentious voice as he brought his hand up in the air, as if writing it on a piece of paper himself. I giggled.
“Yeah, but-”
He cut me off. “If you saw a hot guy on the street, would you look at that guy and think, 'Damn, that's a hot guy.'”
I sighed. “Sometimes I think boys and girls are wired differently.”
“So you're saying you never notice how attractive other men are.”
I sighed again, this time even louder. To tell the truth, for my entire life I had been comparing men to James. He didn't need to know that, though. “Yes, that's exactly what happens.” I started talking in a monotone voice, like a robot. “Attractive male found. Commence gawking protocols.”
“Well, same here, robot voice and all. And we can't get mad at each other for that.”
“This is a little different,” I said.
“You're right, Allie. Absolutely right.” He spoke with the same passion that he had when I've heard him talking about 'The Deal' before. “I've simplified the problem but, you're right, it's a lot more complicated than that. But I've always been single, never locked down to a single girl like I am to you. And if I'm supposed to look single, I've got to at least maintain the illusion that nothing has changed.”
I thought about it. “So you get pictures from girls like Nicole regularly?”
“All the time. All the fucking time, Allie. Most of the women I meet either think that I'm an easy target to gold dig or think that I'm the man of their dreams.”
I wasn't sure exactly how to respond to that. I didn't care about his money at all, but I did think that he was the man of my dreams. “You make it sound like a bad thing,” I finally said. “I mean, of all the first world problems to have, 'everybody loves me' is a pretty good problem to have.”
He laughed. “Well, when you put it that way...” He reached down and grabbed another piece of pizza. After shoving a bite in his mouth, he said, “I've guess I've got it pretty good.”
I let that sit for a moment. “How do I know?”
“Know what?”
“If you want to maintain the illusion that nothing has changed, that you're still single, how do I know that something has changed? How do I know that you're only with me?”
He tensed up again. “You think I'm fucking Nicole behind your back?” He gave a laugh, but it was clearly forced. “Seriously, if nothing else, when do you think I've had time?”
I didn't know his schedule. He claimed to have been too busy to have me there for the past two weeks, but I didn't know if that was true. “No, of course I don't think that you're seeing Nicole. But you said it yourself that you've never ever been locked down to a single woman. How do I know that there's not someone here in Boston? Or Los Angeles?”
There was a pause. “I don't know what to tell you. Would it make you feel better if I let you look through my phone?”
My breath practically caught in my throat. Was this the same James who had freaked out when he found me on his computer? The same James who never kept a computer around his house if he wasn't there? And now he was willing to let me go through his phone.
“Maybe,” I said, unsure of what to say.