Page 38 of Left on Read

River: don’t be. Please. I’m the stupid one

Haden: don’t call yourself stupid. You’re not.

River: can we do a voice call or maybe video? I’m not good at texting and this is a conversation we need to have without any chance of misunderstanding or context getting lost

Hayden: I don’t really like video but you can call me.

I hit the call option and he picked up on the third ring.

“Hi,” he said softly, hesitantly.

“Hi.” I wiggled a bit deeper into my pillow so my head wasn’t at a weird angle. “I need to explain about my profile.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I do. Please.”

“Okay.”

I pulled in a fortifying breath. I still felt like not only the world’s biggest asshole, but also a giant moron at how oblivious I was.

“I know I told you about using the profile to find tools, but the reason I didn’t put two and two together when we were hanging out was because I forgot we were talking over a dating app.”

“You forgot?”

“I know it sounds crazy, but I was excited to make a new friend, and I tend to be a lot when I meet someone I like, so of course everything I said and did came across as flirty because that’s the context we met in. Ugh.” I scrubbed my hand over my face in frustration. “I’m so not good at explaining things.”

“No, you’re fine. I get it,” he said. “And you can’t blame yourself for reacting the way you did. I mean, if I was hanging out with a woman and she kissed me, I’d be shocked too.”

“Are you gay or…?” I asked carefully. His profile was set to men, but I had bi friends who’d didn’t always put both on their dating profiles.

“Gay. Very gay.” He chuckled.

“So if that woman you were hypothetically chilling with kissed you, you’d not only be shocked, but you also probably wouldn’t kiss her back.”

“No, I wouldn’t.” A pause. “But you did.”

“’Cause I’m obviously not straight.”

“You say that like it’s not a big deal.”

“It isn’t. Not for me. I don’t know. I guess I have a weird view on sex and sexuality.”

“How do you mean?”

I shifted the phone to my other ear and kept my eyes on the moving lights on my ceiling.

“It’s hard to explain, but sex has always been something that’s interested me, but more because of people and not because of the act.”

“I’m not following.”

“Yeah, I’m really bad for that.” I sighed. Why couldn’t my stupid brain let me talk to someone who wasn’t my brother or one of my best friends about important things? Why did I always fumble like this every time I tried to have an honest conversation with people I was interested in?

“When I first learned about kinks, they fascinated me. But not because I wanted to try them, or they turned me on or whatever. It was more I wanted to understand the appeal for other people. Like, I have this buddy who’s into fighting?—”

“Fighting? Like actually fighting or arguing?”

“Both, but in this case, actually fighting. If someone asked me to do that with them, I would. Not because that’s one of my fantasies, but because it’s one of theirs. Maybe I’d find out that it is one of my kinks, but even if it isn’t, I’ll still enjoy it because they did.”

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