“You look like you need another drink,” Rio says to me.
We’re back at our favorite place, the Tapas Bar, managing to snag a table on the small patio that ducks out into the middle of the alley. The weather is beautiful, a welcome respite after a week of rainy gloom and we’re in the heat of summer again.
She pours from near empty jug of sangria and it splashes noisily into my cup, spilling a bit on the table. “Shit, we need more,” she says, signaling to the waiter for another. She gets half out of her seat and yells after him, “And napkins too please!”
I fish the orange out of my glass and suck on it with a sigh. “I’m fine.”
I’m not really sure how to tell her I’ve been sleeping with Blake for a month now. She’ll definitely be hurt that I didn’t tell her earlier and when she gets hurt, she likes to hurt others. Like, physically.
“I’d say you need to get laid,” she muses, eyeing me over her gigantic sunglasses, “but I’m not sure that’s it. Either you’ve been hitting it hard with your battery-operated-boyfriend or you’ve managed to snag dick elsewhere. You seem a bit…spent.”
“Well I have been running a lot,” I tell her, taking a long gulp from my glass. That’s still true. When I wake up in my own bed, I try and go running, and sometimes when Blake hits the gym in his apartment building, I’ll jump on the treadmill.
Just like fuckbuddies would do, I tell myself dryly.
“That’s not it,” she says. She leans in closer, her layers of brass bracelets rattling on the table. “Are you doing hard drugs?” She attempts to whisper. Very loudly.
I jerk my head back. “What? No!”
Tell her. Tell her now.
“So, whatever happened with that guy you were seeing?” I casually ask her.
Damnit Amanda!
She cocks her head, studying me. “You’re trying to change the subject. You’ve never ask me about any guy I’m humping.”
“Because you always tell me, whether I want to know or not. Anyway the last text I got from you, you said that God was testing you with copious amounts of brownies and dick.”
She shrugs and sips her drink. “Both were enjoyable. But you know what. I’m over men.”
“Again.”
“Yeah. I mean, what’s the point? What can they offer that my fingers can’t?”
“Fingers cramp up.”
“As do hands when they’re giving a handjob for the millionth time.”
I give her a look. “Handjob? Who have you been with lately, a sixteen-year-old?”
“Ugh. Even I wouldn’t do that. No, seriously. After I get my degree I’m blowing this popsicle stand—”
“Too bad you’ve already blown everyone in it,” I mutter under my breath, just loud enough for her to hear it.
She narrows her eyes at me. “I heard that.”
“Well I said it loudly,” I retort.
“Don’t use Friends’ references at a time like this. I’m telling you my life plans. This is serious business. Once I’m out of here, I’m traveling the world and teaching English and I’m probably going to go stay at a yoga commune in India and learn to be one with myself, then go to Bali to surf and maybe fall in love.”
“That’s the plot of Eat, Pray, Love.”
“It was a good book.”
“Yeah.” My stomach growls even though I’m not hungry. Nothing like second guessing your current quasi-relationship to kill your appetite. But I know drinking sangria on a hot day without food is asking for trouble.
I pick up the menu and start considering the options.
Olives?
Fried potatoes?
Rio taps me quickly on the hand. “Oh my god, Amanda,” she whispers harshly. “Look but don’t look.”
Of course I follow her gaze to the alley and look.
Walking up amongst the throes of people out for dinner and drinks is Blake.
He’s wearing black pants and that slate grey dress shirt he wore when we had sex in the library, the shirt that unbuttons just enough to see a hint of chest hair, that showcases those shoulders and large forearms in which I’ve memorized every freckle and hair. It’s one of my favorite shirts on him and when he wore it the other day for the cover of the Billionaire book, I couldn’t help but throw myself at him. As usual.
His hair is shiny, disheveled, catching the evening light and he has this cagey look in his eyes, making him look brooding and intense and all the things I want to see in him.
He looks like mine.
I want him to be mine.
I swallow it down though, prepared to just sit there and watch him move past, his long legs taking easy, casual strides.
Then I realize there’s some guy with him. Shaggy hair to his shoulders, tanned, wearing skate shoes, board shorts and a Quicksilver tank top. The guy probably smells like surfboard wax too.
The two of them look like men on the prowl and a pang of horror runs through me when I imagine what their plans are. After all, me and Rio are out and I’m keeping an open mind about the guys I meet. Why would I expect less from Blake?
They’re almost gone, Blake’s gaze now directed at the bricks on the ground beneath them. I almost exhale the breath I’ve been holding when Rio stands up in her seat and yells.
“Hey Blake!”
“Oh my god,” I hiss at her, grabbing her dress and trying to pull her back down. “What are you doing?”