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Clint shifts in the chair. The towel at his waist slips slightly, and he catches it without thinking.

“Can I ask you something?” he says.

My stomach tightens.

Bentley84: Of course.

“You’ve been around a while.”

I feel the floor shift under the sentence.

“Like, a long while,” he says. “You show up. We talk. You remember all the stupid shit I say.”

Despite myself, I almost smile.

Bentley84: That isn’t a question.

His smile flickers, then fades. “You’ve seen a lot of me.”

Bentley84: Yes.

“More than the others.”

Bentley84: I know.

Clint keeps going.

“And I don’t ever see you.”

My breath catches.

He wants to see me back.

I type nothing.

“Bentley.”

The name doesn’t save me this time. I don’t feel the distance.

“I’m not saying you owe me your Social Security number.” He tries for a laugh and misses. “But you don’t even have a profile pic.”

Bentley84: This whole thing works because it’s private.

The softness leaves his face by one degree.

“What thing do you mean?”

He’s still looking at the camera, but his posture is changing. Shoulders up slightly. Chin set. Not angry yet, but ready to be.

I’ve seen that same look under my pergola.

Bentley84: I didn’t mean it in a bad way. I’m just not comfortable being on camera.

“What are you comfortable with?” he asks. “Because I’m sitting here naked in a private show I didn’t even know how to start ten minutes ago, and you still get to be words in a box.”

My hands still.

Words in a box.