The Hating Game

I realize I’m pressing my hands over my own heart. I want her to love me. Oh, jeepers.

“She’ll say she wants to keep you forever. Anyway. My dad is a cutter.”

I flinch.

“It’s the nickname for surgeons. When you meet my dad, you’ll understand why. He was mainly on call for emergency room surgeries. I’d hear all sorts of things over breakfast. Some idiot got a pool cue through the throat. Car crashes, fights, murders gone wrong. He was forever dealing with drunks with gravel rash, women with black eyes and broken ribs. Whatever it was, he fixed it.”

“It’s a hard job.”

“Mom was a surgeon too, but she was never a cutter. She cared about the person on her table. My dad . . . dealt with the meat.”

Josh sits on the sill lost in thought for a minute and I search in my bag for clothes, giving him some privacy. I start swiping on makeup in the bathroom.

After a few minutes, I peep through the gap in the door. In the reflection of the dresser he’s shirtless, gloriously so, and he’s unzipped my garment bag. He holds the dress between two fingers with his head tilted in recognition. Then he rubs his hand over his face.

I think I’ve made a mistake with my blue dress.

My Thursday lunchtime dash to the tiny boutique near work seemed like a good idea at the time, but I should have worn something I already had. But it’s too late now. He unfolds an ironing board and flaps his shirt over it.

I slide the door open with my foot. “Yowza. Which gym do you go to? All of them?”

“It’s the one in the bottom of the McBride building, a half block away from work.

I have to swallow a mouthful of drool. “Are you sure we have to go to your brother’s wedding?”

I have never seen so much of his skin, and it glows with health; honey gold, flawless. The deep lines of his collarbones and hips are an impressive frame. In between are a series of individual muscles, each representing a goal set and box ticked. Flat, square pectorals with rounded edges. The skin of his stomach pulls tight across the kind of muscles I usually stare at during Olympic swimming finals.

He irons his shirt and all the muscles move. His biceps and lower abdomen are ridged with those blatantly masculine veins. Those veins ride over muscle and tell you, I’ve earned this. His hips have ridges that point down toward his groin, obscured in suit pants.

The amount of sacrifice and determination to simply maintain this is mind-boggling. It’s so Josh.

“Why do you look like this?” I sound like I’m about to go into cardiac arrest.

“Boredom.”

“I’m not bored. Can’t we stay here, and I’ll find something in the minibar to smear all over you?”

“Whoo, are those some horny eyes or what.” He waggles the iron at me. “Get finished in there.”

“For a guy who looks like you, you’re awfully bashful.”

He doesn’t say anything for a bit, stroking the iron over the collar. I can see how much effort it is taking him to stand shirtless in front of me.

“Why are you self-conscious?”

“I’ve dated some girls in the past . . .” He trails off.

My arms are crossed. My ears are about to start whistling with steam. “What sort of girls?”

“They’ve all . . . at some point made it pretty clear my personality is not . . .”

“It’s not what?”

“I’m just not great to be around.”

Even the iron is steaming in indignation. “Someone wanted you only for your body? And they told you that?”

“Yeah.” He redoes one cuff. “It should feel flattering, right? At first I guess it did, but then it kept happening. It really doesn’t feel good to keep being told that I’m not relationship material.” He bends over his shirt and analyzes it for creases.