“I left Waterman and Haverty,” she said. “I’m working for a guy from New York named Cory Callahan. He’s real big on sustainable design and innovation. I’ve been learning a lot from him.”
The name dug into my brain, but I couldn’t place it. The concepts, though, were familiar.
“My brother’s boyfriend is an architect too. He’s super into that. He just had an article in theLA Design Digestearlier this year.”
Asha’s eyes brightened. “What’s his name? Maybe I know him.”
In any other industry, it would have been a far-fetched suggestion, but in design, the ranks were tight.
“Silas Ayres.”
Before I’d even finished saying his name, her eyes went wide and she clapped her hands together.
“I work with him!” she shouted, covering her mouth with her hands. “He’s so sweet. Did you know he went to school with us?”
“I knew.”
“I didn’t picture Hunter with a guy like him,” she rambled on, head cocked to the side. “Or is he with Finn?”
“While I appreciate the graciousness you’re showing here, he’s dating Marshall.”
Asha waggled her eyebrows at me. “So Silas likes older men, very good to know.”
I rolled my eyes, grateful my soup arrived before I had to address the age gap between my oldest brother and his boyfriend. I’d never really taken issue with Marshall dating someone my age, mostly because I didn’t think of myself as a child, and I didn’t think of Marshall as being old enough to be worthy of any age-related scorn.
“What about you?” I asked her. “Are you dating anyone?”
She laughed. “No one worth mentioning.”
“I still want to hear about it,” I told her, lifting my spoon to my mouth. I wanted to hear about Asha’s relationships because I didn’t want her to ask about mine. I didn’t want to think about mine. There was still too much to unpack for me, about the way my interest in women was sometimes more than my interest in men. The way I hadn’t even been able to fully experience being with a man to know if I liked it or not.
I did enjoy being on top, and I knew it would be very much okay if that was something I did exclusively. I also knew it would be okay if I wanted to be in relationships that didn’t involve sex at all. There was no wrong way to have sex, as long as everyone involved wanted it. The wrongness only existed in my brain because my own sexuality wasn’t something I could categorize yet.
Maybe that was the whole problem. The root of the unrest.
Thankfully, Asha took the bait, launching into a conversation about the three people she’d been dating for the last six months.One woman and two men, dating them separately but not really wanting to break things off with any of them.
“Why can’t I get serious with all of them?” she asked me earnestly.
I traded my spoon for chopsticks, plucking some chicken out of the bowl so I didn’t fill up on the rich broth.
“I don’t know,” I said after I swallowed. “Why can’t you?”
The corner of her eye twitched.
“Do they all know about each other?” I asked.
“Yes.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Are you proposing polyamory?”
I shrugged. That hadn’t been where my mind went, but if that’s where hers went, there was obviously something there she was interested in.
“I think that’s a conversation for you and your partners to have.”
Asha made a thoughtful sound, nodding like she agreed with me.
“It’s not for everyone,” I went on, but I knew she already knew that. “But if you want something, who says you shouldn’t have it?”
“That’s surprisingly hedonistic of you,” she said.
