Page 41 of Newly Tied

“Are you done?”

“Love ’em and leave ’em?”

“I just date a lot,” he groused.

“Yeah, you do. And that’s fine.”

“Listen, I—you know, I really like meeting people and getting to know them.”

“I do know.”

“Now what the hell does that mean?” he asked as we turned the corner to start down the next street, making our way to my apartment.

“Nothin’.”

“It reeked of judgment.”

“Reeked?” I goaded him.

“You know what I⁠—”

“I do,” I said, slipping my arm around his shoulders and easing him close. “You like knowin’ how people think.”

He took a breath, calming with my change of tone and the closeness. “That’s true.”

“And when you meet someone new, you are very interested in them.”

“Why are you making that sound like a bad thing?”

“It’s not. It’s great. You are so interested in the beginnin’, and you ask a million questions, and you listen really well, and I have seen everyone—women you’re datin’, new friends, men and women both—eat up all that attention.”

“Okay,” he said hesitantly, as if waiting for an ambush.

“Don’t get defensive. I’m not attackin’ you.”

“But you could make your point.”

“All I’m sayin’ is, you like to learn everythin’ about the other person, and that’s real nice until you’re done.”

“Until I’m done?”

“Don’t act stupid. You know what you do.”

“Apparently not,” he snapped at me.

“Once you’re done, you go from bein’ around all the time to every other day, and then a couple of times a week, then once a week, then once every two weeks⁠—”

“No.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I do not.”

“Call anybody you know who you think is up right now at one in the mornin’ and see what they say.”

“I have a lot of friends.”

“Yes, you do. Lots of good ones that you see, like you did Malik tonight, pretty regularly. Maybe twice a month.”