“I’m thinking of moving anyway. I work too much to care about how this place feels. As far as I’m concerned this is just where I sleep, shower, and occasionally eat.”
Jessie smiles and sways her shoulders a little.
“And fuck, right?”
She takes a step forward and I step back.
“Right,” I say, as Jessie detects my reticence, the playfulness disappearing in an instant. “But not to have a relationship.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she says, wary and defensive now.
I take a few deep breaths and let the tension leave my face enough that I can look at Jessie in the eyes.
“I saw Kyle today. He can tell something is going on with you.”
Jessie shakes her head like I’ve misunderstood something.
“It’s Kyle. Something is always ‘going on’ when you’re as paranoid as he is.”
“He’s suspicious,” I insist. “And anyway, I can’t even look him in the eye anymore. This feels too wrong. Maybe we should just…take a break from each other. Until we’re just friends again.”
Jessie’s lips stiffen as she directs a tough, almost possessive glare at me.
“And what if I don’t want to be ‘just friends’ again?”
“Then we’ll be strangers. But we can’t be…whatever we are right now. Not anymore.”
She snorts derisively before folding her arms and walking away a few steps, as if unable to face me. I watch her in a silence so complete I can almost hear her breathing five feet away. My stomach twists, but I convince myself it’s the feeling of indignation, and a little anger. What was she expecting to happen? She knew going in that this wasn’t serious.
Eventually she turns her head and looks at me over her shoulder to say, “Are you really that scared of Kyle?”
“I’m not scared of Kyle.”
“Yes you are,” Jessie says, stepping up to me again, “you’re scared he’s going to beat you up. That’s really what it is, isn’t it?”
“No, Jessie—”
“Of course it is.”
“But it’s not. If Kyle wanted to beat me up I’d let him, ‘cause I deserve it,” I snarl, before looking away in order to calm myself a little. “I am scared, though, in a sense. Not of that. But of losing him – both of you – as friends. That’s more important than anything we’ve been playing at the past few weeks.”
Jessie smiles condescendingly, as if I’ve let her down, as if I’m half the man she thought I was.
“Look,” I say, pushing forward, unable to resist the urge to prove I’m more man than she’ll ever have, “I really need to take a shower and get to bed. I’ve got work in the morning. Please, Jessie, just go. We’re done.”
I take a step towards the bedroom.
“Wait,” she says, the fire in her eyes replaced by soft wetness now, “just…wait.”
“What? There’s nothing more to say, Jessie.”
“There is. I want to know something.”
I look at her and try to keep it together.
“Okay.”
“Forget Kyle,” she says, her voice trembling. “Imagine he didn’t matter. That it was just you and me. What then? What would happen between us?”
I let out a deep breath, put a hand in my hair, and rub my scalp. For what feels like hours I think about it, trying to untangle the knot of my thoughts. It’s a question I never even asked myself, let alone had to answer for someone else, and now that I am, it feels like very dangerous territory.
“We’d probably fuck a few times and then get bored of each other,” I say, finally.
Jessie’s smile is dark, conflicted, and tinged with a taut anger. “You don’t really think that.”
“It’s the truth.”
“The fuck it is.” Her tone is low and cold now, dangerous, somehow more alarming than her hot anger and raised voice ever was.
“What the hell do you think would happen, Jessie?” I shout, exploding with frustration. “Do you think if it wasn’t for Kyle I’d be down on my knees right now proposing? Jesus Christ! You act like you don’t know me!”
“Oh I fucking know you, Nate,” Jessie responds, rising to my anger and stepping closer to stand defiantly in front of me. “Better than you know yourself, I think. You’re all about one-night stands,” she continues, voice heavy with sarcasm, “all about fucking random girls and having fun and never committing to anything. It’s all so fucking easy for you, isn’t it, Mr. Big Dick Alpha Male. No strings attached, no second dates, no fucking problem, right?”