My throat tightens at the question. He never took it seriously. I didn’t even tell him I was writing it until I finished the first draft, and when I finally did, he called it a fairy tale, like I was writing something with talking animals for children.
“Just regular work,” I say.
“Oh, yeah? What is it this week? Gangbangs? Cream pies?”
“Jesus, will you keep your voice down?”
So this is probably where we should talk about my day job. I write porn. Specifically, I copywrite the blurbs and descriptions you get on subscription sites. “Tommy Jackson rails Holden Cox.” That sort of thing. You might be surprised to learn this is an actual job, but the longer you think about it, you probably won’t be surprised to learn I basically have an endless supply of work. I started a couple years ago when the advertising agency I’d been working for since college closed down. It was only supposed to be temporary, but honestly the pay is pretty good, and with everything that’s happened this year, a career change hasn’t been in the cards. Gavin always treated it like some kind of joke, though. He’d talk about it at parties just to watch me squirm. I should have spotted that red flag, but we’d already been together for a few years by then, and I’d learned to overlook many of his quirks.
“These tables are for paying customers only.”
Vann, however, has never been squeamish about letting Gavin know exactly what he thinks of him, and now he’s looming just outside the coffee shop door, glaring at my ex like he’s dog shit.
Gavin’s smile is bulletproof, however. “I was just on my way inside to order.”
“We’re out,” Vann says.
“Of coffee?”
“For you, we’re out of everything.”
Gavin glances at me, and I shrink in my seat. He smirks. “Still need someone else to be in charge, don’t you?”
“He kicked your ass to the curb all on his own,” Vann says, and I should be proud, but I don’t like that he’s talking about me like I’m not there.
My brain is blank. No snappy comebacks, no pithy retorts. I put my hands on my keyboard like I’m going to type something, but the words don’t come there either.
Gavin knows he’s won, and rather than risking the victory, he takes a step back.
“It was nice to see you,” he says as he bends to scratch Athena’s ears. She stops mouthing Otter’s tail long enough to scowl up at him, but he doesn’t seem to notice. Instead, he gives us all one final wave and makes his way up the street.
“Good riddance,” Vann says, then sets a paper cup down in front of me. “Here you go. One Americano with half the water, oat milk, cinnamon syrup, and two shots of agave.”
What? It’s delicious. Tastes like fall.
“You’re a peach,” I say to him, but I can’t manage the smile that needs to accompany the words.
“My offer to start a shadow campaign to get him fired and run out of town still stands,” Vann says.
“You’re not going to get him fired.” When I lost my job, Gavin supported us both for months before I found new work.
“Well, at least let me key his car if he’s going to keep being a dick to you in public.”
I sip my coffee and avert my gaze. Vann was never Gavin’s biggest fan, not even when we first got together. He never went so far as to tell me he didn’t think we were good as a couple, but his relationship with Gavin was always frosty, and after this summer, he hasn’t held back.
I wait for the onslaught of questions about what I ever saw in Gavin, but instead Vann says, “How’d it go yesterday?”
“How’d what go?”
“With the dog trainer.”
“Oh.” I glance down at Athena, who is currently trying to relieve Otter of one of his feet. Truthfully, this is the fourth Otter we’ve had because she keeps ripping them apart, but she loves this animal more than anything else I’ve bought for her. “Good.”
“Of course it did.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
