He’s not wrong. “Which are you?”
He grins. “Wouldn’t you rather find out?”
I feel the tension in my chest loosen, just a little. “I already have.”
He shakes his head, then asks, “Are you always like this?”
“Like what?”
He gestures at me, frustrated. “So controlled. Like you know what I’m going to say before I say it.”
I let the silence build again, then answer, “It’s how I survived my childhood.”
He doesn’t say anything to that. He doesn’t have to.
The silence is companionable now, the energy in the room different. I wonder if he feels it too.
I break the spell. “Do you want to ask me anything else?”
He hesitates. Then: “What exactly are you trying to figure out about me?”
The question lands with more force than it should. I pause, long enough that he notices. “I want to know if you’re as genuine as you seem,” I say, “or if it’s just a performance for sympathy.”
He looks at his hands, thinking. “I don’t know how to fake things. It’s not in me.”
I want to believe it. “Do you get lonely?”
He laughs, but it’s not a happy sound. “Doesn’t everyone?”
“No.” The answer is too honest. “Some of us get by just fine without the pomp and circumstance.”
He looks at me, eyes bright and glassy. “Do you?”
I don’t answer.
He leans in, a little. “You’re not as unreadable as you think.”
“Is that so?”
He nods. “I think you want something, but you’re not used to asking for it.”
I stare at him. The urge to break him, or to keep him, or both, is rising in me, fast and sharp.
I say, “Tell me about your sex life.”
He goes still. “What?”
I wait.
He hesitates, then says, “There’s not much to tell.”
I let my eyes drift over him. “You’ve never been with a man.”
It’s not a question, but he answers anyway. “No.”
“Ever wanted to?”
He opens his mouth, then closes it. The flush rises on his cheeks, all the way to his ears.
