“Don’t,” Grandma said soothingly. “You don’t need to say anything. It’s on your face.”
“What’s on my face, sauce? I had lasagna for lunch.” I rubbed my cheek, and my grandmother scowled at me.
“Wise guy. No. I know you were in love with him, and now that he’s home—”
“No,” I cut my grandmother off, more sharply than intended, and rose from my seat. “That was high school. Ages ago. We were kids. He moved to California and forgot about his life here, and that’s that. Now”—I bent and gave her a kiss—“I’m off to get myself dinner and relax. I have a class to teach tomorrow.”
Before either my mother or grandmother could respond, I fled their apartment for my own. I collapsed on my couch, and silence, thick and strong, rose around me like a heartbeat pounding in my ears. I hit the remote to turn on the television and fill the void.
“Damn him,” I muttered to myself. “What the hell did he expect me to say? Let’s forget the past twenty years?” A cold beer sounded perfect, and though I didn’t usually drink on weeknights when I taught my Intro to Psych class the next day, I forgave myself this time and grabbed one from the fridge, along with leftover Chinese food from the night before. As I waited for it to heat in the microwave, I took a nice long pull from the bottle, hoping it would calm the swirling emotions of the earlier confrontation with Ezra.
No such luck. I was drowning in memories. Our tentative, exploring kisses had set me on fire. At the first gentle touch of his soft, wet lips on my dick, I almost exploded. My body throbbed, and I’d savored the taste of him on my tongue when I returned the favor and gave him head. At seventeen he’d been sexy and hot, but at forty Ezra was gorgeous and sophisticated, and part of my anger stemmed from the desire that slammed into me when he came near. I didn’t want to want him. I didn’t want to feel anything. Too many years had passed; too much pain had scored scars across my heart for me to allow him back into my life.
Not bothering to sit at the table, I finished off the Hunan chicken and rice while standing at the kitchen counter, said to hell with it and drank another beer, then took myself to bed, but not before I looked Ezra up online and found his website. Talent agent to movie stars, models, and other rich and famous people. It was obvious he’d fully embraced the Hollywood lifestyle, and it explained why it hadn’t been difficult to forget someone like me. Boring, and even if no longer poor, I was certainly not in Ezra’s league.
I shut my laptop, but his handsome, grinning face was all I saw when I closed my eyes.
* * *
“Come in,” I called out and waited for the door to my office to open. Even though I didn’t have official hours today to see students, they knew I’d never turn them away. I hadn’t slept well the night before, and the cause for my restlessness stepped inside and closed the door behind him. My stomach sank, and the beginning of a headache pulsed behind my eyes.
“Hi.” Ezra looked like a goddamn magazine ad in a sleek, tailored suit, while I wore a shirt fraying at the collar and my sports jacket needed the edge of the pocket sewn.
My smile faded. “What do you want?”
Undeterred by my hostility, Ezra took a chair and rolled it forward to sit by me. “To know why you’re so angry. It’s been over twenty years, and whatever happened shouldn’t matter. Not anymore.”
The small office shrank further, and I imagined I could feel his breath on my cheek. I tried to sidle away, but my chair hit the wall. I was trapped.
“Of course you’d say that. Everything in your life came easily to you, didn’t it?” I used to spend days thinking of what to say to Ezra in my letters, pouring out my heart, my loneliness and isolation, only to have them go unanswered. Weeks, then months passed by. I couldn’t afford long-distance calls to California, and the few times Ezra called me were awkward because my parents were in the same room. When my hopes that we’d keep in touch dwindled, I let my bitterness move me forward.
He flinched. “Not everything, no.” His smooth forehead puckered, and a thick swath of that sun-streaked golden hair fell over his brow. He pushed it away, and that was when I saw the gleam of gold on his finger.
“Are you married?”
His brows drew together. “Married? No, why?”
I pointed to his hand. “Your ring. I thought it was a wedding band.”
A wistful smile tipped his lips. “No. It belonged to a friend.” He gazed down at it and twisted the thin braided gold band around and around. “He died.”
Pain as sharp as a knife jab twisted inside. “I’m sorry. It sounds like you were very close.” A lover, I supposed, and my heart seized with jealousy. I must be fucking crazy to feel like this. I was an adult, not a high-school kid anymore. Yet I still wanted to know about this man who obviously meant so much to him, but Ezra had become tight-lipped and didn’t seem to want to elaborate.
“We were, yeah.”
His lips pressed together, and I waited for him to speak further, but he remained frustratingly silent. My annoyance spiked. “Asking again, what are you doing here? If you want to forget the past, why not make a clean break and wipe me from your memory?”
Like you did when you left.
But I wouldn’t say that out loud. It was stupid for a forty-year-old man to still be hurt about events more than two decades old.
“Roe, come on.” He took my hand in his, and the shock to my system from his touch woke me up as if I’d been sleeping for years. “I-I thought we could be friends. I don’t know many people in the city, and it gets lonely.” Smooth fingers rubbed against mine. Goddamn, it felt so good.
“You? Lonely? A big-time agent in Hollywood? I’m sure you have millions of friends coast to coast. All you need to do is pick up the phone, and you’re set.” I tried to pull my hand from his, but he held firm.
“They don’t know me.”
“And I do, not seeing you all these years?” I couldn’t believe he had the gall to say that crap to me. “You’re being ridiculous.” Yet I couldn’t pull away.
