Page 260

“I hate it too.”

Paul looks out at the water, then back at me.

“So here’s the deal.”

“Oh, good. Another deal.”

“In six months, if you want, you can invite me down to see Puerto Vallarta in springtime.”

I blink at him.

“I’ve never seen it in springtime,” he adds.

Six months sounds responsible. It’s also plenty of time for someone to get home, remember his life, and decide the guy he spent a naked month in Mexico with was just a vacation fluke. A momentary lapse in judgment.

“And if we’re still in love in six months?”

The words come out of me before I know what I’m saying.

That’s a lie. I knew exactly what I was saying. And I know exactly why.

Paul goes still. The beach keeps moving around us.

Then he looks at me.

“Don’t turn my studio into a guestroom yet.”

Back at the house, everything looks too beautiful to trust. The pool still flashes broken pieces of sun like nothing has changed. Like Paul didn’t just hand me a six-month sentence and ask me to call it hope.

We shower separately. I do my best to remove sand from all the places it shouldn’t be.

We move around each other carefully for the rest of the afternoon. Plates scraped of cake crumbs and placed neatly in the sink. Towels over chairs. Wet clothes rinsed and hung outside. Ordinary things made weird by the fact that tomorrow has started settling in before we get there.

Paul folds one of the beach towels, then unfolds it and does it again.

“Are you building a nest?”

“Possibly.”

He smiles, but it doesn’t hold.

I hate that I understand why he has to go. Understanding makes arguing feel childish, and I’m trying very hard not to be the boy people keep expecting.

By evening, the house cools. Paul stands by the patio doors, one hand on the frame, looking out at the pool and the trees and the dark sky. Maybe saying goodbye.

I walk up behind him.

“I want you to fuck me tonight,” I say.

His hand tightens on the doorframe.

He turns. “That’s a big step.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“Probably not exactly, but yeah.”