“Okay,butcanIjust say one more thing?”
Two pairs of eyes travel slowly to each other and then back toward me. A blue pair and a brown pair. I’m hanging out at Georgie’s apartment, and she and Tank are indulging me. I know it. I’ve been here for a while. Tank and I are sprawled out on Georgie’s sofa, and she’s sitting on an armchair to my left, giving slightly disappointed therapist vibes. I know I’ve covered the topic in an enormous amount of detail already, so I don’t blame her.
Georgie sighs softly and makes a lofty come-hither movement, magnanimously granting me permission to continue.
“He’s so nice,” I say dreamily.
Georgie’s eyes flick upward. “He’s so nice? Seriously, Con?
“You already said that, bud,” says Tank at almost the same time.
They blink at me, wearing almost identical expressions. Supportive listening faces, laced with a trace of concern. “Iknow, but I don’t think I saidhownice. I think last time I just said he was nice. You know, notsonice. And he is. He’s so nice.”
It’s not my best work, and I don’t think it particularly reassures either of them.
They glance at each other again. Tank attempts to arrange his mouth in a straight line to keep it from forming a bewildered circle. This kind of thing is out of his wheelhouse. I know it, and he knows it. Unsure how best to handle me, he gives a slight shrug that’s meant to defer to Georgie and let her deal with the situation.
“Are you sure you know him well enough to be letting him under your skin like this?” she asks mildly. “You’ve known him what, a month?”
It’s true. There are things I don’t know about Lennon. Lots of things. He’s a closed book in lots of ways. Cagey at times, but at others, he’s disarmingly honest and vulnerable. And it’s not like I don’t know anything about him. I know things. I know lots of things about him. More than I do about some people I’ve known for years.
I know he’s been going through something big, and he’s carrying a lot of pain. He’s doing his best to hide it, but I feel it radiating off him when I’m close to him. I know there’s an issue with his family and that something major went down with his friend Havi. It hurt him in ways he doesn’t want or know how to talk about.
I know he doesn’t find it easy to open up to people and his defenses are sky-high.
I know he says he hates old movies but actually loves them, and I know he tries to act prickly when really, he’s soft inside.
I know he looks at me when he thinks I’m not paying attention, and when I smile at him, he smiles back in a way I think might not be entirely voluntary.
I know that watching the sunrise makes his breathing slow and causes him to make a soft helpless sound in the back of his throat.
I don’t say any of that. I could. It’s not that I don’t trust Georgie or Tank. I do, with my life, it’s just that things between Lennon and me feel private. New in a fragile way. New and fragile in a way that makes me want to protect it.
“I know how I feel when I’m with him,” I say instead. Georgie presses her lips tightly together, and Tank’s expression changes from bewildered to deeply bewildered. It gives me the impression I need to expand on my statement. “When I met him, he was standing on my threshold. All cagey, and twisty, and complicated as fuck. I put my hand out to shake his, and everything was fine. Normal, and not out of the ordinary, but I swear…when we touched, my heart skipped a beat.”
Tank sits bolt upright. “Your heart did what?” he demands. “When was this? Why didn’t you call me? How many times do I have to tell you that ifanythinghappens, you call me? Have you been to see Wegner about this?” Dr. Wegner is my cardiologist. I saw him so often when I was sick that he’s like family to me at this point. He’ll laugh me out of his office if I go see him because a hot guy is doing things to my heart. “Did you get this checked out?” He looks at Georgie and says, “Where’s the thing, G?”
“What thing?” I ask. Georgie seems to know what he’s talking about because she disappears into her room without a word and returns with a blood pressure cuff. “What the…?”
Tank makes short work of seizing my arm and strapping the cuff on as Georgie reads the instructions from the manual and issues a barrage of advice on how to subdue me.
I let him do it because I can’t think of a way to dissuade him.
“If my BP is elevated, it’s only because I’ve been dealing with the two of you all afternoon,” I say.
“One twenty over seventy,” says Tank, reading from the screen on the gauge.
“That’s fine,” I tell him. “Nothing to worry about.”
Reluctant to take my word for it, Georgie googles optimal blood pressure for men my age and only relaxes when she finds that I’m right. My blood pressure is perfect.
I’ve known my friends long enough to accept this side of them, so I decide to move on without giving them the usualI’m finelecture. “So, as I was saying, my heart skipped a beat when I met Lennon. I had a physical reaction to him that was different from anything I’ve felt before. My hand was burning hot, and my arm was paralyzed. I could feel all four chambers of my heart, like they were distinct, separate things, with blood going haywire in them. It was…I don’t know how to explain it…I didn’t know him from Adam, but I felt this connection, this familiarity, that’s hard to describe.”
Tank shoots me a sympathetic smile. “Lennon’s hot, bud. Are you sure it was your heart talking, not your dick? Don’t forget, over the last couple of years, you’ve gone from being a player to a man in a pretty epic dry spell.”
“I wasn’t a player. I was a person who had a lot of meaningful sex. There’s a difference—and this isn’t a dry spell,” I correct, clicking my tongue at him. “It’s congenital heart failure and rethinking the complexities of life.”
“I know all that, Con, but I’m not sure your dick is that deep.”
