She looked baffled by the question. Caught off-guard. Maybe no one had ever really asked her that before. Her eyes narrowed at me a little and she frowned. “Why would it be lonely? I’m neveralone.”
I saidnothing.
“How about you?” she asked. “How’sRay?”
I shrugged. “Same oldRay.”
Ray Brothers was my foster father, for lack of a better term. A simple man, Ray liked simple things. His TV, his couch, and his lite beer. But he was a good man. Took me in at thirteen and took care of me for a few years, on and off—whenever I wasn’t in juvie for getting caught dealing pot. Even after his wife died, he’d taken me in, until he injured his back at work and had to go on disability and the powers that be said he couldn’tanymore.
He’d been the closest thing to an actual father figure in my life. My own father, Todd Becker—a man who’d bounced in and out of jail before bouncing right out of my life—definitely hadn’t been. Ray had even offered me his last name when I turned nineteen. Said I could have it, if I wanted it. Said it could be a new start, a chance to start fresh on a life of my own and leave behind my crappychildhood.
I’d taken him up on the offer. At the time, I really thought it was a freshstart.
Little did I know that the worst times of my life were yet tocome.
“Think he’s waiting on me to visit,” I added. “He doesn’t like that I live so far away thesedays.”
Elle cocked her head at me a little. “Where do you live?” she asked. And it felt so fucking strange, that she didn’t even know the answer tothat.
But why wouldshe?
“L.A., sometimes. New York. Austin.Wherever.”
“You have a place there? ‘Wherever’?”
“Have a lot of places,” I said. “None of my own, if that’s what you mean. I kinda float around. Rolling stone gathers no moss, or some suchshit?”
“And you like that? Floatingaround?”
“Mostly,” Isaid.
“It doesn’t get lonely?” Her steel-gray eyes held achallenge.
“I’m never alone,” I said, repeating her ownwords.
“Uh-huh.” She looked me over, carefully, like she was trying to read me. Or understand me. “You have agirlfriend?”
I shrugged. “There was a girl. Michelle. We had a thing on and off, last couple ofyears.”
“And?”
“And she’s in Boston. And I’mhere.”
“You’re not togetheranymore?”
“We were never really together. Just… goodfriends.”
“Friends.” Elle considered that. “Withbenefits?”
“If you want to call itthat.”
She shook her head as she said, “I don’t know, Seth… Boston seems like a long way to go for a bootycall.”
“Not if you live in Boston,” Isaid.
“Oh.” She went silent, maybe wondering when the hell I’d lived inBoston.
“Before that,” I offered, “there was Lauren. She’s inL.A..”
