I smile thinking of Levi stretched out next to me on the floor of his locked room. He was definitely full of surprises today. “He’s smart and charming and so unexpectedly sexy.”
“Was it a one-and-done event or will you see him again?” he asks.
I bite my bottom lip as I grin stupidly.
“Very subtle,” Aaron says with a sarcastic shake of his head. “You know,” he tells me, “you never talked about that other one this way. Never lit up like this when I asked you about him. He was the relationship equivalent of a lobotomy.”
I swallow. Aaron’s right, but it still throws me off guard how clearly he sees me, even with as little as I give him.
“Anyway, it’s good to see you returning to the land of the living,” he goes on. “There’s nothing like a long overdue orgasm to knock someone out of a rut.”
A rut. The word stings. I never thought too much about how other people saw me. I was too focused on keeping them from noticing at all. But hearing Aaron speak so candidly is like viewing myself from the outside. What a small, sad front I must have presented. I finish my vodka and set the empty glass on Aaron’s rattan coffee table.
“I thought Roger was safe,” I tell Aaron now that I’m full of liquid courage. “But I think he was just another asshole after all.”
Aaron looks sympathetic. “It’s the quiet ones you gotta watch out for.”
I meet his eye. “I was flattered at first. He so readily pushed himself into my life, and I mistook that for caring. But looking back, it was never really me that he saw himself with. And once he got a look at who I really was, he couldn’t leave soon enough.”
Aaron lays a hand over mine. “My mom has a saying—When they see themselves out, that’s just God doing you a favor.”
I can’t help laughing. I’ll always grieve what might have been between my child and me. But when it comes to Roger—from his flat, lodestone stare to his monogrammed socks—there’s nothing to mourn.
“I’ll bring you a pillow from my room. There’s a blanket just across the arm there,” he says, pointing to the end of the couch. “Tomorrow night, real drinks. There’s a tiki bar near Madrona Park I’ve been dying to visit!”
“Oh, I can’t impose on you again.” I don’t know how long it’ll take to get the condo in order, but I can’t ask Aaron to take me in indefinitely. Though I’m not sure how I’ll pay for a hotel. Idostill have the charge card I stole from Calvin, but I’m already regretting my impulse purchases of the painting and food. My larceny buzz has turned into a hangover.
“Nonsense,” Aaron insists. “You promised me, and I’m not letting you wriggle out of it. We’re getting cocktails with exotic names and umbrellas, or I’ll go to Calvin and tell him you’ve been sexting on the job.”
“You wouldn’t!”
“Try me,” he says with a dark chuckle.
“Okay,” I agree. “One more night.”
“It’s decided then,” Aaron says, rising. He goes into his room and comes back with a spare pillow.
As I take it from him, I ask. “Can I invite someone to come with us tomorrow night? He’s a friend.”
Arla’s special request hangs in the air around me, daunting. If Brennan has drinks with us, I can tell her I’ve done what she asked. And with Aaron there, he’s less likely to drag me away for another night with the Fathom. I need a chance to clear my head.
“Sure,” Aaron concedes. “As long as he’s hot.”
AARON’S TIKI BARdoes not disappoint. Tiny straw-and-bamboo huts cover dark booths glowing with colorful candles, and a long bar down one wall is painted in a wave pattern lit with blue lights. Nets drape from the ceiling clustered with faux crustaceans and enormous shells, a bubble machine burps happily in the corner, and a warbling vibrato sings over the twang of a ukulele. Aaron fits right in wearing a purple shirt with tiny red flowers. I order something called a walk the plank and feel ridiculous when it arrives in a fishbowl with spears of harpooned fruit sticking out. Aaron laughs at my discomfort, completely at ease with his clamshell-shaped blue martini.
“So, this friend of yours… Is he single?” he asks from across the table inside our private little hut.
“I don’t know. I think so,” I answer with a shrug. Truth is, I have no idea. I barely know him, but I can’t tell Aaron that. I wasn’t even sure Brennan would agree to come, but I was relieved when he messaged back with a thumbs-up emoji.
“Give me five minutes with him and I can tell you,” he says. “I’m not ashamed to admit I’m a little bit psychic about these things.”
I wonder if he’s really joking, considering how well he’s been able to peg me, but I just laugh. A second later, his face lights up and I hear a familiar, “Juuuuude!” from the direction of the front door.
Brennan, still dressed in black, stalks toward our hut with a giant smile and squeezes into the booth beside me. I look down at the gray slacks and green sweater I’m wearing and wonder whyBrennan chose to stay in uniform even though this isn’t a Fathom meeting. I get the sense they all take the group more seriously than I do. It’s not that I don’t believe Arla. It’s not even that I don’t like her. Maybe I’m naturally more reserved and Solidago is to blame. I just know that as much as it feels like some long-dormant part of me has awoken, and as much as I recognize Arla’s role in that, I don’t trust her. Not completely. Not like the others do.
“Ooooh,” Brennan exclaims, eyeballing my cocktail. “How very Little Mermaid of you.”
I pull a face. “Aaron talked me into it.”
