Seconds pass. Our breaths gust between us.
What the ever-loving fuck.
There’s post-nut clarity, and then there’s post-nut enlightenment, and I am tragically experiencing the latter. My mind reels with updated information like a phone turned on after a flight: yes, Juliandid in fact drive me home. No, he did not make the first move; that was me, leaning over the center console after spending the entire fifteen-minute ride staring at his mouth. As for how we got to the back seat—well, clumsily, and yes, I will feel that in the morning.
“Hey,” Julian says, looking up at me through half-lidded eyes. He pulls me to him by the nape of my neck, kisses me slow, and the combination of shame and panic churning in my stomach abates somewhat. “You’re freaking out. Don’t.”
I bow my head against his and squeeze my eyes shut.
“How can I not freak out?” I manage. Then, because I’m clearly still woozy, I confess, “I can’t think straight around you.”
“Sean, I am about to have an exceedingly uncomfortable drive home because I couldn’t keep my hands off you,” Julian deadpans. “Believe me, you’re not alone.”
Logically, I know his words should be comforting, but they aren’t. Because what I’m trying to tell him is that I’ve been floating in and out of consciousness, and this time I haven’t drunk a lick of alcohol to explain it.
What if he drugged you?
The question spears me, and I consider all the possibilities: the glasses of water already laid out on the table before my arrival, the brief seconds when I’d turned away to smile up at Devram during which Julian could have theoretically reached across the table and sprinkled something onto my food. Even as I’m thinking it, I know it must be ludicrous. What drug clears out of your system immediately post-orgasm?
“I…” I start. Julian’s sweater is still riding high, and I swallow at the sight of his shadowed, toned torso. Then, gingerly, I clamber off him. “Good night.”
Before I can open the door to let myself out, an arm loops aroundand encircles me. I land gracelessly, half on his thigh, half on the seat, and Julian turns my face to his by my chin.
“When do I see you next?” he says.
It’s dark out, but his eyes seem to have found a source of light. They glint and glisten as he waits for my response.
My pulse hastens. It’s not lust I feel under his scrutiny now, but trepidation. Like I’ve just heard my name whispered in an empty room.
“I don’t know,” I say softly.
“It doesn’t have to get physical next time,” Julian whispers back. “We have another exhibition to catch, remember? We can behave.”
For the first time in a long time, I don’t know exactly what I’m feeling. I can’t isolate why I’m hesitant to respond with anything other than a resounding yes. It doesn’t make sense, this disquiet, the way I both want to drag Julian close and run away screaming. I squeeze my eyes shut, interrogating myself. Is it fear that I might choose wrong again? That his insistence that he wants me to bespecialto him is just a ploy to draw me in, and that I will allow myself to be pursued only to be discarded or mistreated once he’s caught me in his grasp? Or is it my own anxiety about the realities of modern dating, the fact that while my pool of eligible bachelors is the size of a puddle, my hot, wealthy, charismatic counterpart’s is composed of every person with a pulse and an attraction to men? I imagine the next several months “dating” Julian, my enjoyment of our connection tempered by the awareness that at any given moment, a hot new bombshell could burst into his life: someone younger than me, easier to love, and willing to idolize and prioritize him in ways I never can.
My jaw clenches at the thought. As confused as I am right now, I am now certain of one thing: if we decide to do this, I do not intend to share.
“You have to be with just me,” I say abruptly. “I mean it. I’m too grown for will-they-won’t-they. If you’re taking me out, if we’re doingthis,” I point at him, then me, “then I do not consent to being on a roster.”
Julian’s chuckle rumbles through me, and I shiver at the feel of it.
“Who else could compare,” he says. Then he seals the deal with another kiss, and it takes me another thirty minutes to make it upstairs.
Eight
When I walk into the control room of the cath lab that Monday, Pamela’s jaw drops.
“Excuse me for saying this,” she says. “Butdamn, Sullivan. You lookgood.”
“Umm, thanks,” I say, making my way to my computer to pull up my cases for the day. Pamela continues to ogle as I scroll through the cath films for my first patient, a gentleman who has traveled from southern Illinois to have a particularly crunchy blockage in his left circumflex artery addressed. It’s a case I’ll need a Palette representative for, and what do you know, Leila is on today.
“Did you get a facial?” Pamela continues, ever curious. “Score the world’s best concealer match?”
“No?” I say, a little self-consciously.
“Well, you’re glowing,” she says. Then wickedly, “Did you get laid?”
My ears burn, but I’ve gotten too good at controlling my face over the years to let my embarrassment slip.