The One Month Boyfriend (Wildwood Society)

“We can’t break up yet,” I say.

“I’m very sure we can.”

“I told my whole office that I was taking you home early because you had food poisoning so bad you fell over and sliced your hand up,” I say, matter-of-fact as I can. “If I break up with you before Monday, I’ll be the asshole who dumped you because you ate egg salad.”

“You said egg salad? I hate egg salad,” she says.

“Well, you sure do now.”

She sits back against the seat, right hand still on the door handle, looking at me.

“We can tell people that it’s been coming for a while, and the egg salad incident was the final straw,” she says.

I turn a little in my seat and lean back against the window, left arm draped over the top of the steering wheel, and I look at Nakamura. At Kat. At the way her shoulders aren’t around her ears any more, at how her feet no longer look like they’re braced against the floor, at the way her glasses shadow her face like she’s wearing a mask.

“We’re here because you wanted to piss off Meckler,” I say, half a question.

She slouches against the seat, exhales hard.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t’ve—I mean, fuck. I can’t believe I did that.”

Her eyes close, and even from here I can see her tense, the anger leaking into her voice.

“Lover,” she mutters, mostly to herself. “Jesus.”

“Well,” I say, slowly. “I’m more than happy to help you piss off the useless son of a bitch.”

“That’s not the impression I was under this time yesterday,” she points out, eyes still closed.

“I’ve updated my opinion.”

“I broke a glass, got blood everywhere, made you leave a party early, and your opinion of me got better?” she asks, opening her eyes and looking at me, glasses still shadowing her face.

“I said updated, not improved.”

She’s silent for a moment, perfectly still, and I have the strange feeling that right now she could see through my skin to my bones if she tried.

“Your opinion’s not improved, yet you’re about to ask me on a second fake date?” she finally says.

I give Kat my most charming smile, run my right hand through my hair. Her face doesn’t move.

“How long’s he in town for?” I ask, sidestepping her accusation-slash-question.

“Until Labor Day,” she says. “A month.”

For a long moment, we look at each other across the cab of my truck, all shadows and streetlight.

“How mad you want him to be?” I ask.

Kat swallows, the shadow in the hollow of her throat deepening for a split second and she looks forward now, through the windshield, out at the quiet street.

“As mad as you can get him,” she says, softly. “Furious, raging, spitting nails, ready to—flip desks and punch through walls and scream impotently at the sky when he sees us together.”

Her right hand, the hand that’s not bandaged, is curled into a fist in her lap, the cords on her neck standing out, lit orange. Her jaw flexes. Her lower lip twitches the tiniest bit, like maybe she’s about to go on, but she doesn’t.

“You want him jealous,” I say, softly.

“I want him miserable,” she counters, turning back to me.