Naked Read online

  “It’s fine. Of course it’s fine. I’m not some crazy bitch who can’t let you have a minute to yourself!”

  His eyes got cold. “I never said you were. Don’t put words in my mouth.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Why are we fighting again?”

  I sighed. “I don’t know.”

  “Fuck,” Alex said, as though he couldn’t comprehend it.

  “It happens, baby,” I said sadly. “People fight. Even when they love each other.”

  I wasn’t expecting the kiss, and it took my breath away. His kisses always did, but this was different. Not lust. Not passion. A need of a different kind. He gathered me close, and though he was taller and the one holding me, I was the one anchoring him.

  “Do you love me?” he asked into my hair.

  “Yes, Alex. I do.”

  “Why?”

  “I just do. It happened. I don’t know why. But I think it happened the first time you kissed me.”

  He laughed. “That’s bullshit. You don’t fall in love with someone as fast as that.”

  I looked at him. “What if you do?”

  “If you can fall in love that fast, you can fall out of it that fast, too.”

  “Are you afraid of that?”

  He squeezed me a moment longer, then stalked away. “I don’t know. Yes. No.”

  I wanted to know who he’d been in love with, before, and why it had ended. How long it had taken him to get over it. How many times it had happened. But I didn’t ask.

  He turned. “When I met you, you were still in love with Patrick.”

  This was not an accusation, but truth, and it still made me feel a little sick. “Loving someone isn’t the same as being in love with them.”

  “Semantics,” Alex said darkly. “Do you still love him?”

  “I haven’t spoken to Patrick in months, Alex! Are you really worried about that?”

  “No.” And I believed him, if only because so far I’d never been able to find him in a lie.

  “I love you,” I said. “I don’t know how, or why it happened. God knows you weren’t exactly number one on my dudes to take a chance with.” I held up a hand before he could answer. “But I know you’re not Patrick. I know it’s different with us, and I believe you when you say you don’t lie.”

  “I never said I don’t lie. I lie all the fucking time. I just said I wouldn’t lie to you.”

  “So, what makes me different?” I swallowed all the anger and tears and everything that would turn this from an argument into the end of things.

  “I don’t know,” Alex said. “You just are. Because I want you to be, I guess. I just want you to be.”

  “Then that has to be enough, right?”

  We stared at each other, an arm’s length apart. The distance felt much vaster. He moved first, to take my hand. His long, strong fingers squeezed mine.

  “I want this to work.”

  I smiled. “Me, too.”

  “I have to go pack,” he said a few minutes later, after we’d kissed and hugged and generally finished the squishy love stuff. “Want to help?”

  “You don’t need me to help you.”

  “This is true. But you could talk to me while I do it.”

  I stood on my tiptoes to kiss the corner of his mouth. A few days before I’d have said yes, gone with him, made love to him among the piles of his underwear and socks. Now I shook my head and squeezed his ass before giving him a little push.

  “I’ve got stuff to do here. Call me when you’re done.”

  He was too smart not to know what I was doing, but Alex didn’t argue. He did insist on kissing me some more, following me to the door and kissing me even as I tried to go out.

  “What time do you leave tomorrow morning?”

  “Early. I have to be at the airport by six.”

  “I’ll drive you,” I said. “You won’t have to leave your car.”

  “You don’t have to do that. But okay.” He grinned. Sneaked another kiss.

  “It must be love for me to get up at the butt crack of dawn for you. You know that, right?”

  “I know it,” Alex said.

  With Alex gone, I had a whole lot of time I hadn’t noticed I’d been missing. I put it to good use, cleaning my apartment, working on the studio. I worked full shifts at Foto Folks every day and managed to squeeze in a few private portrait sessions, too, as well as snag a couple more advertising jobs. Local businesses that couldn’t pay much, but a little was better than nothing and I’d vowed every cent I made was going back into the business. Live to work, work to live.

  I also caught up on some reading. A few novels, but quite a bit of nonfiction. The Jewish Book of Why. Judaism for Dummies. A few others, nonreligious books about Conservative Judaism’s principles.

  I had to believe there was a middle ground, a place between nothing and…everything.

  I thought I was finding my way toward it, piece by small piece. Nothing all at once, but then did anything ever happen all at once, other than maybe love? And maybe not even that.

  I missed him.

  Not just his mouth and hands, or that pretty, delicious cock. Not just his quirking smile and dry humor. Not even the way he said “fuck” without provocation, making one word mean so many things.

  I missed the way he rapped lightly on the bathroom door before he entered, even though I wouldn’t have cared had he barged in. I missed how he stopped at the store to pick up the kind of ice cream I liked, and remembered to bring in the mail but never, ever opened mine, though I probably wouldn’t have minded that, either. I missed small pieces of him, and the whole.

  He didn’t call but sent me random, sexy text messages. Not every day. But enough.

  “You have it bad.” Sarah made this observation over tuna subs I’d picked up from J & S Pizza down the street.

  “What?”

  “Him.” She pointed at my food. “You’re not eating.”

  I patted my stomach. “Too many cookies, thanks.”

  She laughed. “I’m glad someone will eat them. I’ve baked so many pans of peanut butter blossoms the smell of them alone is enough to make me puke.”

  “You got it bad,” I told her, without knowing who “it” referred to.

  Sarah shrugged. “Maybe. But it doesn’t matter. It’s over. Before it even got anywhere.”

  A pang of guilt flashed through me. I’d been so busy with Alex, Sarah and I hadn’t spent as much time together as we used to. She hadn’t complained or made me feel guilty, so I knew she’d been busy with her own stuff—Sarah wasn’t one to let something like that slide. I felt guiltier for not noticing she wasn’t making me feel guilty.

  “Do I know him?”

  “No. Hell, I barely know him.” Sarah scraped a finger over the top of her sub and tucked it in her mouth. “Pass the chips.”

  I tossed her a single-serving bag I’d picked up along with the subs, and watched her look it over. She shook her head. Tossed it back.

  “Pig,” she said.

  “No.” I grabbed the bag and looked. “What the hell? Who makes chips in lard anymore?”

  “Grandma Utz.” Sarah laughed. “How about the other ones? Salt and vinegar should be okay.”

  I handed her the other bag and studied the one in my hand. “Sorry. I should’ve checked.”

  “Not your responsibility to make sure what I put in my mouth won’t send me to hell.” Sarah tore open the bag and laughed. “If I believed in hell, anyway.”

  I put aside the chips cooked in lard—I didn’t keep kosher but knew enough about it to feel suddenly like I should. “My mother would’ve known. She’d have flipped out, too, if I’d accidentally handed her this bag.”

  Sarah snorted delicately. “Well. Your mother has her own issues, don’t you think? As do we all, my friend. As do we all.”

  She nodded sagely and ate another chip, then swigged from the bottle of cola next to her on the floor. She tipped her head back to stare at the ceiling with