I paused, deliberating my response. “I mean, I just don’t see why you’re being an ass.”
He shook his head. “No, you know who’s an ass? Estéban.”
“Who the hell is Estéban?!”
“The guy you were flirting with.”
The light changed green. Jay marched across the street, turning sharply at the corner, arms and legs bouncing as he descended thesteep slope toward the car. Wildfire smoke blackened the sky as we left downtown. Squat houses, palm trees blurred past. He turned the radio up so we couldn’t speak. NPR was saying it was the worst flu season in fifteen years. Suddenly I felt like I was coming down with something. I pressed my face against the cold glass to feel anything other than what I felt.
In bed, I pulled the covers over my head while Jay made a lot of noise in the kitchen: faucet running at full force, silverware jerking in drawers.
Later, the mattress shook with him climbing in beside me. He opened the political thriller I’d bought him. Each time the page turned, it sounded like a crisp wind.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“I just don’t understand what that was about.”
He let his book fall into his lap. “Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one who cares in this relationship.”
“What? Why?”
“You didn’t even care that I was talking to that girl.”
It took me a moment to grab hold of the threads unraveling in my mind. “Were you trying to hurt me?”
“No, I just… I don’t know. No. I wasn’t.”
“Just because I don’t express jealousy the way other people do doesn’t mean I don’t care. Do you want me to go through your phone?”
He laughed humorlessly. “That’s not fair.”
“Then what?”
He stared at the cover of his book without seeming to see it. “You know I only agreed to this because I love you.”
An invisible hand shoved me against the headboard. “Where is this coming from?”
“I don’t know. Some of the guys…”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“That, that, boys club bullshit! I don’t know.”
He turned his body toward me. “You know how much crap I’ve gotten?”
“You think more than me?”
“I don’t want this as bad as you do, though,” he cried.
His phone rang, the sound expanding to swallow the whole silent room. I could tell by the way he looked at it that it was the girl from the gallery. He didn’t answer.
“When Tristan asked us how things were going at the bar, you didn’t even let me speak. You were just like ‘great!!’ You didn’t even wait to see what I said.”
I strained to remember this. “I’m sorry. I do care.”
“It’s fine, whatever.”
