“Remember the three divorces? You don’t get married three times without falling ass over tits in love at least three times. I might be straight, Harv, but I know what love’s like. I know it hurts. But it hurts a helluva lot less when you hang onto it than when you let it go.”
“Which you know because of the three divorces,” I said.
“Yeah, which I know because of the three divorces. Because of three really big screwups that hurt someone I loved, that hurtme, and hurt a whole bunch of other people at the same time. Trust me on this. Tell the kid you’re in love with him.”
“He doesn’t wanna hear it,” I said. “He wants someone to settle down with.”
Reggie sighed. “For a smart guy, you’ve got a skull denser than uranium.”
“Is uranium especially dense?” I asked.
“It is, look it up later,” Reggie said. “Tell me somethin’, Harv. You got plans for when you’re done with this? This on-call IT department thing?”
“Wasn’t planning tobedone with this.” I shrugged. “Why, do you?”
“Oh yeah.” Reggie sat back, taking a long drag on his cigarette and exhaling slowly. “I got a spot picked out in Colorado. Beautiful little place nestled right at the foot of the Rockies.”
“For what?”
“To open a strip joint,” Reggie said.
I wasn’t positive he was joking.
“Whaddya think? Build a little A-frame cabin, work with my hands, get back to nature like god intended. Live somewhere the air doesn’t smell like someone pissed on a deep-fried sewer rat,” he added.
“That is the smell, isn’t it?” I asked, sniffing automatically and regretting it before I was done. “LA seemed so exciting last time I was here.”
“It is precisely the smell, my friend. I’ve spent a long time thinking about it,” Reggie agreed. “It was fun last time because you were young, free, single, and I’m guessing drowning in ass.”
“I could be drowning in ass right now,” I said, sipping my beer.
“Could be, but you’re sitting up here on this disgusting rooftop while I blow disgusting clouds of smoke three feet away from you, lookin’ up at stars we can’t even fuckin’ see because of all the goddamn lights. Why do you think that is, Harv?”
I knew why. Iknewwhy, but admitting I was in love with Iggy was one thing.
Admitting the rest, that I was tired, that I didn’t want to do this anymore, that I wanted to go and settle down in Iggy’s cabin with his dog and his weighted blanket and spend my days baking in the back of the coffee shop, that was another. That wasscary.
The thought of having a home was scary. The thought of all that change was scary.
But the thought of not having Iggy, of someone else settling down with him and Theo, of being asked to visit them for the holidays and having to smile my way through it and pretend my heart wasn’t breaking…
That was scarier.
“I’ll tell you, since you’re struggling,” Reggie said. “It’s because you left your heart back in Beaver Cove or whatever,” Reggie said, flicking his cigarette butt into the night.
“That’s littering,” I said. “And it’s Otter Bay.”
Did I really want to drop everything and run back to Iggy?
Yeah.
Yeah, I did.
I wanted to do that more than I’d ever wanted to do anything.
“I’ve paid enough taxes in this city to be owed the sweeping up of one cigarette butt,” Reggie said. “Otter Bay, then. Cute name. Bet you can see the stars out there.”
“Yeah,” I said, remembering Iggy's blanket fort. “Yeah, every star in the universe.”
