“What do you want to study?”
“I keep changing my mind, but as of late I think I’d like to run a daycare someday. So, maybe early childhood education or child psychology.”
“Very cool.”
I made myself more comfortable on the bed. “Okay, so tell me how you ended up in California.”
“It’s complicated, but the gist is that when I turned sixteen, my parents told me I was actually adopted.”
What?
I definitely wasn’t expecting that.
“Jim and Marjorie aren’t your birth parents?”
“No.” He let out a breath. “So, when they dropped that bomb, I went through a tough time after that, came out here when I was eighteen.”
“Did you go to college out there?”
“Nope. I never actually went to college.”
“Gosh, you were always so smart. I’d always pictured you going to an Ivy League school.”
“I’ve had lunch at The Ivy,” he joked. “Does that count?”
“I guess not.” I chuckled. “Why did you choose California?”
“It’s where I was born.”
“You went to find your birth mother?”
“That’s why I came here, but I didn’t pursue it right away. It took me a while to garner the guts.”
“Did you ever find her?”
“Yeah, but it’s too much to get into right now, and I’m not in the right frame of mind. I think that might be a story for another time, okay?
There was going to be another time?
“No problem.”
“Fuck. That was a total buzz kill. Quick, Rana. Tell me something funny.”
Wracking my brain, I said, “I caught my roommate sleeping with a pair of my leggings on his face today.”
“The same guy who wants to kill you?”
“Yes.”
“Apparently, he wants to inhale your pussy, too.”
“He was out cold. It was weird.”
“That’s fucked-up.”
“Was that funny enough for you?”
“You got more?”
“Someone dropped feta down my cleavage when they threw money at me tonight. I didn’t realize it until I got home.”
“Ah, feta sandwich. I’m gonna start calling you cheesy tits.” He was cracking up. “God, Rana, I have not laughed this much in forever. I have fucking tears coming out of my eyes.”
“How’s Malaria, by the way?”
He laughed even harder. “Valeria…”
“Yeah. Whatever.”
“She’s Russian.”
“Is she your fuck buddy?”
“I don’t know what she is.” He paused. “I doubt I’ll ever see her again. There wasn’t really a spark there.”
“Yet, you slept with her anyway.”
“Are you judging me for that?”
A little.
“No.”
“I think you might be.” He sounded somewhat pissed.
“It’s not that I blame you for taking advantage of it, but I guess I just don’t like the idea of a man using a woman for sex and then never calling her again.”
“What makes you think I was the aggressor? If a woman chases after me…begs me for sex…I give in…how is it using her? Not all women are looking for more than one night. Some of the women I encounter out here are worse than guys in their quest for meaningless fun. If I’m upfront about what I want or don’t want from the very beginning, then how am I hurting the person?”
He was making me feel like an idiot. Landon was right. His behavior was probably normal for a single man living in L.A. He just didn’t realize he was talking to someone with a plethora of sexual hang-ups.
“I suppose you’re not hurting them. I’m sorry for jumping to conclusions.”
“You don’t think I want a deeper connection with someone? I just haven’t found it. In the meantime, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with finding sexual partners with mutual expectations so long as you’re safe and not hurting anyone.”
“Okay, you’ve schooled me. Thank you. Let’s move on from this discussion.”
“It sounds like the topic is making you a little uncomfortable. Does it remind you of a bad experience?” He sounded genuinely concerned.
Every sexual experience I’ve ever had.
Perspiring, I said, “I’d really like to change topics. Can we?”
“Yes. I’m dying to know what you look like now. Let’s talk about that. Will you send me a picture?”
Okay, he’d chosen an even worse topic.
“No.”
No way.
Never.
“Please?”
“I’m not ready.”
“Then describe for me what you look like.”
“What do you think I look like?”
“I’ve been picturing you like how you used to look but wearing a belly dancer outfit. It’s confusing. I honestly don’t know what to imagine.”
“So, you see me with short, black hair and a unibrow?”
“You said it, not me. But sort of, yeah.”
Closing my eyes, I said, “I picture you with dark, blond hair, long, kind of like a surfer dude.”
“I do live near the water in Venice Beach, but I’m not a surfer, nor do I look anything like one.”
“Didn’t you used to have sandy brown hair?”
“It’s darker now, like a lot of things about me.”
What does that mean?
I wanted to explore that further but instead just asked, “What’s Venice Beach like?”
“Well, you know I used to love to skateboard.”
“Yeah.”
“That hasn’t changed. I’ve gotten a bit better at it. We have a really cool skate park here, which I love. It’s pretty much where I can be found on my days off. Overall, Venice is nice. It’s sort of a mishmash of artists and working-class people mixed in with rich techies and homeless folks. Let’s see…what else. There’s a boardwalk, and people come for the beach and to see the performers. There’s a famous freak show at the theater here, too, and before you ask, no, I’m not a part of that.”
“I wouldn’t have thought that, although I could probably fit in there pretty well myself.”
We stayed up talking for a while until I could no longer keep my eyes open.
After that evening, I hadn’t heard back from him for a few days.
Then, one night, a text came in from the same phone number I recognized as Landon’s. It was the first time he’d texted me.
I looked down to find he’d sent a photo.
I gasped.
It was a heavily tatted man set against the backdrop of the ocean at sunset. Oh, my. It was him—a selfie.
Fuck. Me. He was beautiful.
I wouldn’t have even known it was Landon were it not for the blue eyes I recognized instantly. The shaggy, caramel hair I remembered from the past was now a darker shade of brown and shorter, cropped closer to his head. His arms and his chest were inked, his body so perfect that if I squinted, it almost resembled carved stone.
I couldn’t stop looking at him. My eyes wanted nothing more than to explore the ridges and valleys of his stunning body.
Was this a cruel joke?
This was not Landon!
But, it was.
With my thumb and middle finger, I kept zooming in and out, examining the details of the ink across his chest and on his arms. There was really nothing sexier than a guy with perfect arms and a full sleeve tattoo.