"Youwhat?"
I glance over my shoulder at her, then turn back to stare at the glass in front of me as I shake my head. "He wasn't—I didn't know. He was Jamie."
There's so much more to it than that, and I'll get there as soon as I have more of my margarita. I'm licking the salt from my lips when Sophie practically growls behind me.
"I get that you're big into story structure, character development, pacing, and all that good narrative shit English teachers love, but please consider less drinking and more talking. I can get drunk enough for both of us."
In the end, neither of us gets more than tipsy while I take forever to tell Sophie about the night I drove to a dive bar for the chicken wings she loves, and ate nothing until I had tacos by the beach. She's silent when I fall back against the couch and describe a man who had nothing to do with hockey and fame, and maybe even worse, nothing to do with being the father of a teenager. She refills our glasses around the time I tell her I'd noticed the lingering effects of an injury she'd witnessed at my side, but gave up wondering why he was hiding beneath his hat or my hoodie. She swears under her breath and refills them again as I talk about our first kiss, and we both pause for a long drink when I can't speak around the regret that Jamie and I never kissed goodbye. By the time I tell her how he and I left things—his decision to come out before I could've possibly understood what that meant for him, and our decision to meet back at the bar to chase shooting stars—Sophie is wrapped around me.
As close as she is, I've kept a few details about Jamie to myself because I have nothing else of him left. It means I've got little more to say, and I wrap up the story with my reintroduction to Jamie and the awkward goodnight following our acknowledgment that we want things we can't have.
"How did you not tell me about any of this? And how did I miss how different you've been these past couple of weeks?" she asks, her voice low enough to keep from jostling my broken heart.
"I didn't tell you about this because I don'tdothis—I don't let strangers into my car to drive them wherever they want to go and then promise I'd do it again and again. I needed one more night with him first, just to make sure it was real." I scrub my hand over my face and shrug. "And we're always busy at the beginning of the school year. Other than the night a dozen of us celebrated surviving week one, and our reliably sleepy recovery brunch, you and I haven't spent time together outside our respective classrooms."
She nods. "And you keep your personal life off campus."
"And I definitely keep my personal life off campus."
I think that would be true regardless of my actual job. My desire to keep my love life separate from my workplace doesn't feel predicated upon my position as a high school teacher and coach. I'm reserved by nature—and by nurture, too—and giving people less to gossip about suits me just fine. I've had a relationship with the aforementioned Gabe. I've dated in the years since that ended. Being gay means I capture the attention of strangers who are looking for something provocative to say, or people like Vicki Gallagher who always want to talk, but I rarely hold it for long when I don't bring anyone interesting around.
That would've changed someday, but I can't admit it tonight whensomedayhas turned bitter on my tongue. Instead, Sophie lets go of me while I wash the taste away with the last of my third margarita.
"I can't believe you fell in love with Jameson Sinclair."
My glass misses the coaster when I attempt to set it back down, and I'm probably lucky its rough landing doesn't leave it with a crack. Or not one obvious enough to notice before I turn backtoward Sophie.
"I’m not in love with him," I argue. "We spentonenight together. It's more that we both wanted to spend a lot of nights together, and I never expected to lose that chance in such a spectacular way. We didn’t do anythingwrong. We never had the time to."
“So, that’s it? You had one night together, and it’s got you looking like this—” She uses her free hand to gesture wildly up and down my body, as if I could be confused about where she was flinging that particular pronoun. “Are you really going to walk away from a future with Jameson Sinclair?”
“Jamie.”
“Of course.Jamie. Even better,” Sophie says, her hand falling to her lap. “God, this fucking sucks.”
I go back to staring at my empty glass. Two weeks ago, the rocks and sand beneath our feet were hardly stable, but where Jamie and I stand now has become unsteady in a way I’ve just begun to grasp. We’d been on the verge of promises we meant to keep, but circumstances have betrayed them for us. And it’s not just that he’s the parent of a student, which complicates everything enough for me to end this thing and break my own heart. It’s that coming out in front of the sports world had already meant taking a chance that he’d break some ofhis, and doing it to date his teenage daughter’s teacher would all but guarantee it.
Tequila hasn’t made that any less true, even if I can barely swallow now. “It really does. And yeah, I have to walk away.”
She doesn't believe me, but if there's an argument she wants to make, she'll save it for later. "Did Harper realize you two knew each other?"
"Not at all. Jamie knows how to bullshit under pressure, and I'm not sure she slows down often enough for it to matter."
I hide in my hands then, my head heavy and my heart wrung out.Sophie peels herself off the couch to take our glasses back to the kitchen, unsteady on her feet, but in no danger of falling. We both need to be at work in the morning, no matter how much I'd love to call out and avoid one of my brightest students while I recover from whatever I feel for her father. Forcing myself up, I shuffle into the bathroom to pee and brush my teeth and splash my face with cold water that won't change my mood. When I open the door, Sophie's there waiting to do all the same things, and I crawl into bed and leave her to it.
A few minutes later, I'm lying on my side when Sophie tucks herself into the space I've left for her. I find her hand in the dark and hold on, and then I promise myself I won't ask her to stay again tomorrow night.
"Have you heard from him since he and Harper left?"
"Shit, I left my pho—"
"It's on your nightstand. Charging," Sophie says.
Of course it is. I squeeze her hand. "He texted me right when I got home. Said he misses me and he's sorry."
"What did you say?"
"There's nothing Icansay. It's over."