He seems unconvinced, but now I’m sure.
“We should RSVP,” I say. “They’re not the bigger people. Fuck that!”
“Fuck that!” he agrees.
“Fuck that!” I half shout.
Mr. Dorner pounds on the wall. Miles presses a pointer finger to my lips. “Fuck that,” he whispers.
“Fuck that,” I whisper back.
He watches my lips move against his finger. I feel another pleasant zing. “We should go to bed,” I say.
And then, because it came out a little too low, I say, “I mean, I should get to bed.”
He lets his hand fall away. “After we RSVP.”
I awake to bright midday light and a walloping headache. Last night returns to me in bits and pieces, in no particular order.
A drunken walk home.
The tattered felt of a pool table.
A rough finger against my lips.
Laughing in the hallway.
And then Mr. Dorner? Was? There? For some reason? At some point?
Before that, or maybe after, Miles and I drank red wine straight from the bottle.
At some point, we were out on the street, walking with our arms around each other, his hand curled against my waist where my shirt had ridden up. My neck and face go hot.
I’m trying to fast-forward through the memories, to be sure I only did anything mildly embarrassing and nothing irrevocably humiliating.
The fast-forward doesn’t help. I remember falling into bed, exhausted, only to realize I couldn’t sleep, because I was also a little bit turned on.
Oh my god, did I cry at some point?
Wait. Did Miles cry? Surely not.
I feel around for my phone and find it tangled in my sheets. I guess I at least had the wherewithal to turn off my alarm. It’s almost noon.
I never sleep this late.
I scroll through my texts, searching for incriminating evidence of my drunkenness. But I didn’t send a single message after work.
There is, however, something else worrying on my home screen.
A new icon.
A dating app.
I have no recollection of downloading it. I don’t really remember anything after the bar.
I clamber out of bed and wait for the pounding in my skull to subside before staggering out into the living room. I feel like I’m made of nuclear waste.
The apartment is quiet, but not clean. A half dozen half-drunk water glasses litter the coffee table, the counter, and the two-person breakfast table. The bottle of coconut rum is empty, and both wine bottles are down to dregs.
I feel like Hercule Poirot, stumbling on a murder mystery without any body or even blood, just the bothersome suspicion that something happened here. Something important.
And then my phone starts ringing in my hand.
I see his name onscreen.
All at once, I remember.
And I really, really wish I didn’t.
5
SUNDAY, MAY 19TH
90 DAYS UNTIL I CAN LEAVE
