I’m only confusing her further and I know it, but it’s so hard to say the words.
“Too enthusiastic about . . .” Su-Lin says.
“Breasts!” Now I’m the one burying my head in a pillow. Oh my god, I sound like an idiot. “I’m kind of into breasts.”
There’s a long pause.
“Okaaaay,” Su-Lin says. “This is not exactly a shocking revelation coming from a straight guy.”
“No,” I say, rolling my head to the side so I can see her. I almost turn right into her breasts, which is really unfortunate timing, and I sit up again. “I mean, like,toointo them.”
Su-Lin blinks at me. She looks pretty annoyed, but I’m hoping that’s aimed at Candace. “How can you betoointo a girl’s breasts? Like, did you never want to do anything else?”
“No, not like that,” I say.
She shakes her head at me. “Because what you did with my breasts last night washot. Was it that kind of stuff that she was mad at you for?”
It was, actually. I mean, we were together for six years, so I definitely spent much more time with Candace’s breasts than I have with Su-Lin’s. “You’d probably get sick of it after a while.”
Su-Lin presses her lips together. “What exactly did she say to you about this?”
I really do not want to repeat this, but I’m the one who brought this whole thing up.
“I don’t know,” I say, even though I damn well do. “When I’d do things like that, a lot of times she’d be like, ‘God, Brendan, you’re such a pig,’ stuff like that.”
Su-Lin flinches like this physically stings. “She actually said that to you.”
“Yeah,” I say. And worse. “But I probably deserved it, right? Because I’m—”
“Would you say something like that to me?” she asks.
I pause. “No.”
She nods. “Even if I was too into something, and it made you uncomfortable, would you say that to me?”
I shake my head. “No, of course I wouldn’t.”
“No,” she says. “You’d find a way to talk about it that was respectful and kind, because you’re a decent human being.”
Logically, I can see that she’s right. It’s just such a far reach from how I feel about all of it that I have a hard time believing it.
“So you were okay with it,” I say.
Su-Lin looks at me like I’m an idiot. “Um, yeah. I was way more than okay with it. I was totally into that.”
That, at least, is a relief, though I’m still not a hundred percent convinced she wouldn’t eventually figure out what Candace meant, and no matter how polite she is when she tries to explain it to me, I still know it’s going to be awful when she figures out I’m not what she hoped that I’d be.
“Well,” I say, “I think after the idiot I’ve been about this, you’ve earned a free pass if you ever do anything you’re worried I’ll be upset about.”
She bites her lip. “Really?”
I give her a half-smile. “Yeah.Though I doubt you’ll ever be able to rise to my level of douchery.”
She reaches out and puts her hand on my arm. Her touch is gentle, and my eyes flick briefly closed. I hope she doesn’t notice.
“Welllll,” she says, squinting.
I look down at her. “What?”
