Page 32 of Tell Me Lies: Manlove Edition

“My dude, I run here every Thursday and I have for at least seven years. Usually, I’m about … I don’t know, thirty minutes later?”

He narrows his eyes. “How long?”

“I just said. Seven years.”

“What month did you start? How long do you usually run? Why thirty minutes early today?”

The rapid-fire questions short my brain. “Uh, I think probably May? Sometime in spring. Depends on the weather and I—”

Who the fuck is this guy to make me fall over myself to answer. “Laur, is this an interrogation?”

Laur looks surprised, and then shame softens his face slightly. “Yeah. I guess it was. Sorry.”

He says nothing else, and we jog in silence. I internally panic.

Eventually he says, “That’s my VA group.”

VA group. Is that like an AA group? Like with group counseling? I get the image of Laur beating someone with the sharing stick, and smile.

“What’s that smirk?” Laur notices.

“Nothing! Just … for four years, we’ve been running by each other or just missing—”

“We’ve been just missing. I would have noticed you peacocking around.”

As if I’m the freak missing fingers and shit.

It was a compliment. Because you’re pretty and dye your hair bright blue, when it isn’t fucking March, you run half-naked.

I glance over and down at him. I’m so rarely standing in his presence that I’d forgotten how much shorter he is. He blended neatly with that group, like camouflage to hide his scars.

His eyes are so blue, but also mismatched. His right eye, the one that droops, has a more uniform shade, and doesn’t react to the sunlight.

“Shit, you only have one eye!”

Well done, Jeremy. There’s the maturity and restraint you’re known for.

Laur puts his hands on his cheeks in sarcastic shock. “Oh my God! Really?”

He wasn’t wearing his gloves. I’d never actually seen the damage. His middle finger was missing the first and second knuckle but his pinkie was only missing the very tip, like the fingernail had been sawed off. There was an almost cartoonish squareness to each stump.

“You know, between the blindfold and the kneeling, you don’t give me the chance to look that often.”

His head whips around like he thinks his buddies are nearby to overhear. When I look again his cheeks are a little redder than before. Aw, he’s cute when he blushes.

Before I say something calamitously dumb, I give him a warning. “You know, as long as I’m making a fool of myself—”

“Quit while you’re ahead.”

“My mama didn’t raise no quitter.” I grin at him. “How did it happen?”

I wait for him to answer. It seems like the right time. With the calming sound of the ocean, the rhythmic thud of our sneakers on the boardwalk, the naturally breathy breaks in conversation. He doesn’t have to look at me.

But he remains silent.

Some families with very young children are flying kites, huddled together up ahead near the parking lot.

Laur clears his throat. I wait for him to say something, anything, but I get nothing.

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