With no luggage, Cort changed clothes quickly and we left the apartment. The other three men trailed behind us and stood by the curb. Before I got into the car, I shook Austin’s and Frankie’s hands. “I’m not planning on hurting Cort.” The memory of our night together sent a rush of heat through me. “I’m going to try my best not to.”
Lastly, James took my hand. “Don’t waste this chance. You’ve got the balls to beat this thing.”
I wasn’t so sure anymore. “I’ll give it my best shot.”
“See that you do.”
Cort got into the car and slammed the door shut, and we drove off into the night. For the first ten minutes or so, we sat in silence, but then I couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“You weren’t my first,” I blurted out. “I don’t know if you could tell or not, but—”
“I could. And yeah, I guessed.” He slouched back in the seat, turned halfway to me. “You wanna talk about it? We got a ride ahead of us with plenty of time.”
“His name was Mickey, and I met him at boarding school. I played on the polo team, and he worked at the school and took care of the horses. We used to meet in the barn, smoke pot, and fuck. He was five years older than me. The ultimate cliché.”
“What happened?”
“I didn’t know I was one of many. Mickey not only worked for the boys’ polo team, but the girls’ as well. Turns out what I thought was something special between us, he was busy sharing.”
Cort took my hand. “I’m sorry.”
“It was no big deal.”
“Don’t lie. Not to me.” Cort slid his hand through my hair and cupped my cheek. “It don’t matter how long ago it was. You don’t forget somethin’ like that.”
“I told him I loved him,” I whispered, “and he laughed at me. He said I was just a silly kid, and that he had a girlfriend. Every year when she went off to college, he found someone at the school. He thought I knew the score.”
“That was cruel. You were only a kid.”
The hot pain of my decades-old humiliation washed over me. “I wanted to smash him in his face when he stood there and laughed at me. Hurt him the way he hurt me. I’d never saidI love youto anyone, not even my parents. It meant everything to me and yet nothing to him.”
“And since then?”
I shook my head. “Never again. I’ve never let anyone get close enough to me to hurt me again. Anytime I found myself attracted to another man, I’d get drunk or high and find some woman to fuck.”
“That’s a sad way to live.”
I pulled away from Cort to huddle in the opposite corner of the car. “I should never have let myself get close to you.”
“Why? You’re a grown man. You can do whatever you want now. You don’t gotta be afraid of anyone or anything.”
“No? Not so sure about that. I wake up scared to death every day.”
And that fear, that self-loathing, was the reason why we were on our way to dump me into rehab, where I’d get to talk about my mommy and daddy issues. How this poor little rich boy never felt loved or wanted. But hurting Cort would be like kicking a puppy, and even I didn’t believe in being outright cruel to someone who obviously was trying to help me.
“I get that. It ain’t as though it’s been a bed of roses for me neither.”
Surprised, I sneaked a look over at him in his corner of the car. He stared straight ahead, his strong jaw tense.
“No?”
I’d always imagined Cort left home with a kiss on his cheek from his sweet Texan mama, carrying with him all the happy memories of a perfect childhood. His daddy would’ve sat him down and told him all about the big bad city and how he could come home anytime he wanted.
“No.”
I thought he’d expound, but he remained uncharacteristically silent and moody, staring out the window. We sped up the Saw Mill River Parkway and exited at White Plains, driving along a four-lane road until we pulled into the parking lot of a low-level building. The engine stopped.
“This is it,” the driver called back to us.
