Hannah waves her hands. “He’s not gay. He just got out of jail.”
The blonde still looks wary, but a smile creeps over the redhead’s face. I let her drag me to the dance floor. I realize I’m drunker than I thought when I more stagger than walk. After the first song, I’m done and excuse myself. When I find Hannah again, she grins at me. “Get any phone numbers?”
I shake my head. “Wasn’t really feeling it.”
She gives me a long, reprising look that I ignore. I down the rest of my scotch and when she sips her drink through a straw, I realize she’s switched to club soda at some point.
“Come on, cowboy,” she says, setting down her glass and grabbing the front of my shirt. She starts dragging me through the throng to the door. “Let’s get you home.”
She guides me to her car and sets me in the passenger seat. I sag against the door and sort of zone out…or maybe pass out, as she drives. The next thing I know, we’re stopping.
“How was your first day of freedom?” she asks as she stands me up from the seat and loops an arm around my back.
I hook an elbow around her neck. “Being out doesn’t suck as much as being in.”
She half carries, half drags me into her apartment and lays me on the couch with a pillow and blanket. She sits on the edge and tucks the blanket around me. “What do you think you’re going to do now?”
I glare up at her. “You’re really going to make me sort my fucking life out this second? When I’m so fucked up I can’t even see straight?”
It comes out slurred, but she seems to understand.
“Sometimes that’s when you see the clearest,” she says, holding my gaze.
There’s only one thing I know I want, and I can’t have it. “I have no fucking clue,” I finally answer.
She bends and kisses me softly on the lips. “Sweet dreams, Philotes. I’ll see you in the morning.”
∞
I wake in a puddle of sweat with eyes that are crusted shut. I have to rub the shit out of them before I can get them open. The sun is beating through the picture window of her family room and cooking me right to the couch. I pull myself up and find Hannah at the kitchen counter in a short bathrobe, mucking with the coffee pot.
“That ready?” I ask.
She turns and looks at me. “Morning, bright-eyes.” She holds up a piece of curved black plastic. “And no. The doohickey that stops the coffee from dripping when you pull the carafe out came off and I can’t get it back on.”
I go over and inspect it for a minute, then snap the pieces back together in the only way it looks like they could go. “That look right?” I ask, handing it back. She slides it into the machine and it clicks in. “Looks like it.”
She presses the start button and as it percolates, even just the smell makes me feel more human. “Thanks for last night. It was good to be in the world again.”
She slips into a seat at her small kitchen table and checks her phone. She texts something and looks up at me, where I’m waiting near the coffee maker. “I think you should file an appeal with the dissertation board.”
“What would be the point? All I wanted my PhD for was so I could teach. I’ll have to disclose my statutory rape conviction on any job application I file. No university is going to hire me.”
“You worked for too long just to give up.”
There are at least two cups worth of coffee in the pot, so I yank it out and fill the two mugs Hannah left on the counter. “It was gone the second I decided to fuck Blaire behind the stacks.” Though I don’t remember ever making that conscious decision. I just remember getting so lost in her nothing else mattered.
I bring her mug over to her and down half of mine in one swallow. It burns my mouth and throat, but I don’t give a shit. It’s the first real coffee I’ve had in two months, and nothing has ever tasted better.
“If you’re not going to pursue teaching, then what are you going to do?”
I drop into the chair across from her. “You really are going to make me sort all this out right now, aren’t you?”
“I just think you need to consider what your options are. You’ve got a bachelor’s degree in English, right? And a master’s in comparative lit? There have to be options.”
“That don’t involve working with anyone under eighteen? Not many. Schools, libraries, they’re all out.”
“My mother is the executive editor for Brandish Publishing. They do mostly trade magazines. Have you thought about writing? Or even editing?”
I know she’s right. I need to start thinking about this. But right now, the toilet of my life has just finished flushing. All the shit has just swirled down the drain and it’s nothing but empty. Maybe when the tank starts to fill again I’ll be able to see potential options.