It felt good to have the accolades of my boss and clients. Also that Alec liked working with me so much. I was lucky as fuck to be his Jr. Rep., anyone would be. So what, we sent a few dick pics? Maybe it was a little messy, but it wasn’t the end of the world. It was silly to care so much about something that meant so little.
I said, “This place is pretty cool. Have you ever been here before?”
“Nope. Never been to this city before the first time with you. You knew that.”
“Oh yeah. True.” I took a sip of my beer. “I fucking love being in a city for the first time. It’s exciting.”
Alec glanced at me up and down with a silly smile. It was the first time I realized how drunk he was.
“I forget how bright-eyed I used to be. Used to love it too. Now it’s all the same.”
“I don’t think it’ll ever get old, man. Backpacking around Europe legit changed my life. My small-town mind didn’t know how to handle it. I came back a different person bent on experiencing as much of the world as possible.”
“Makes sense. Shitty European hostels seem like your natural habitat,” Alec said with a laugh.
I laughed, too. “You know what, I’ll take it.”
“You don’t come off as a small-town boy. You’re too… big.”
“Small towns have tall guys.”
“No numb nuts.” He chuckled. “I mean, the small-town people I’ve known aren’t stupid, or even unsophisticated, but they’re content. They got what they got, and it’s enough. You’ve never come off that way.”
He wasn’t wrong, and I wasn’t offended, but I didn’t like talking about it. “Know a lot of small-town people?”
“I’ve lived in a lot of small towns.”
“Aren’t you from New Jersey, like right across from Manhattan? And you went to college right near the office and never left? Neither of those places are small towns, Alec.”
“No, I was born in New Jersey, and my folks are from there, but we moved a lot when I was a kid. I’ve lived everywhere in between NYC and L.A.” He chuckled. “My teachers used to just assume I was a military kid, even if we weren’t near a base. I stopped correcting them. Easier than explaining what was going on.”
“Pharma sales moves you around that much?”
His face darkened somewhat. “Not typically, no.”
I’d seen that face before. The topic was closed for discussion. I respected it and moved on.
“Wanna get another drink, or head home?” I asked.
“Our flight’s not till tomorrow afternoon. I’m okay with staying if you are?”
“Yeah, man,” I said with a slow smile. “I’ll get the next round.”
“See, that’s the perks of not traveling alone I was talking about.”
I was more wobbly on my legs than I thought. I bought two beers and shots when I got to the bar. Why the fuck not, right? Alec looked surprised when I returned, but downed his shot. Things got fuzzy for a while, but I remember staring at him, letting my mind race and underwear tighten.
“What are you looking at, Blackwood?” His tone was firm, but his face was silly.
It was another question I couldn’t outright answer. Because I was looking at the sexiest motherfucker on the planet. So, I bullshitted.
“What’s the craziest thing you've ever seen in the field?”
“The craziest thing in the field, huh?” He scratched his chin halfway between comedic and genuine, but fully drunken. “Hmm. Not a lot of crazy things happen in financial software sales.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I don’t, actually.”
