“Noted.” Rex took a sip of his drink, then dunked a fry in a pool of ketchup on the side of his plate. “Does your line of work make it hard to date? Can I ask that?”
“You can ask me anything. And yeah, I guess it does. I mean, like… I’m not into dating other models, you know.”
“Why not?”
I looked at Rex and smiled. “Ever hear of the phrase don’t shit where you eat? I’ve seen other models pull it off, but mostly it’s just mess and drama, and I’d rather not have my personal life and my work life be so closely enmeshed. But being a model, it can be hard to find people outside of the industry who are okay with what I do. Like they might not care that I do it, but they don’t want to be with someone who does. And that’s fine. That’sfair, because I don’t think I have it in me to be sexually exclusive with anyone.”
“Well, I hope I haven’t set the bar too high for your future dates.”
“I don’t know.” I pretended to ponder. “It’s hard to beat ex-boyfriend drama on the third date.”
“It figures that I haven’t seen him since the breakup and then he shows up when I’m on a date.”
My stupid little heart did a happy dance when Rex didn’t qualify that this was a pretend date. A practice run.
“The universe wanted you to know what bullet you dodged.”
Rex lifted his beer and held it toward me, waiting for me to lift mine and clink our glasses together. “To dodging bullets.”
“To dodging bullets,” I repeated, taking a sip as our gazes lingered, tangled up over the top of our drinks.
By the time our food was finished, Rex and I had managed to drain our drinks, and I wasn’t quite ready for the date to end yet. Could I have driven? Sure. I’d had a sip of some really terrible wine at the other place and then a beer at The Anchor. I was probably under the legal limit. Or I could have suggested an Uber, but I didn’t want to let Rex go yet.
“Take a walk with me?” I asked. “I need some time for this beer to work its way out of my system.”
“I could stand to stretch my legs.”
I hurried off and took care of the bill, and Rex met me by the doors. When we slipped outside, the sun had sunk below the horizon but just barely. So it was still light out, but it was fading fast.
Rex slid his arm around me and steered us away from the busier part of the street. I let him cradle me against his side like he wanted me to be there, and I pretended that he wasn’t pretending at all. That this was real and we were together andgoing for a walk after dinner, like it was something we always did. Or something we wanted to start doing.
I’d always looked at couples who did simple things together like go for walks or share an inside joke with a kind of envy that scraped at my bones. I wanted it so bad. It was easy to forget at times that this was all for pretend. This was all so we could convince his younger brother and a guy Rex used to be with that he was happy and had moved on.
“What about the guy your brother is marrying? Were you two together long?”
“He was a rebound after Bryson and I split.”
“Why don’t you just tell your brother about it? About the fling, I mean? If he didn’t mean anything to you, then it shouldn’t be a big deal, right?”
“Nigel and I are complicated. Our parents were older when he came along, and I helped raise him. And I do normally believe being honest is the best way out of any situation, but I don’t want to risk blowing up his relationship.”
“You don’t want him to hate you.”
Rex nodded.
“What if he doesn’t? What if you tell him and he doesn’t care? Or what if you tell him and it does blow up his relationship, but maybe it was meant to blow up?”
“What if I tell him and he never speaks to me again?” Rex’s voice was strained like he had to hold it tight or risk a flood of emotions coming out.
“Has he cut you off before? Is that part of the reason the two of you are complicated?”
He let out a sigh. “Nigel didn’t always appreciate having my help in his life. I tried to cut back as he got older, but I think part of him resented me for the time I spent with our parents. And with Mom gone now, Nigel is all I have left.”
“I can understand that. My family is not worth the paper the birth certificate was printed on. My real family now is my work family.”
“Another reason you don’t want to give up your work, I assume.”
The way Rex’s comment hit the nail on the head stole my breath. Sometimes he felt too good to be true. A man who had experience being poly, who didn’t mind if his partners had other partners, who understood why my work was important to me and why I couldn’t walk away. If he really were my boyfriend, I’d have to pinch myself.
