Page 1 of My First Time Fling

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Jesse

“One hot creamy load, coming right up,” I murmured as I turned to the espresso machine. My friend Brooklyn raised his eyebrows and glanced back at the customer, but the woman had already turned her attention back to her phone.

“You’re in fine form this morning,” Brooklyn said after I handed over the requested double-shot mocha latte with extra whipped cream.

“What? I’m always snarky.” I took advantage of the break in activity to walk around to the front of the glass case of baked goods and shine it up with a rag.

“Yeah, but not usually in front of customers.” Brooklyn folded his arms and gave me a hard glance. “What’s up with you? You’ve been acting weird since you walked in here this morning.”

“Ugh, I don’t know.” I tilted my head back and groaned at the ceiling. “Or, well, actually, I do. It’s just that I can’t do anything about it.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, really.” I walked back around the counter and began cleaning off the espresso machine in preparation for the ten a.m. rush of customers. Working this close to Chatham University’s campus, we were guaranteed to fill up with undergrads desperately seeking caffeine before their ten-fifteen classes started, even during summer session. “Because it’s everything. My house. My relationship—or rather, lack thereof. My future—or again, lack thereof—here in Savannah. My life is just a dumpster fire right now and the only thing I can think to do about it, I’m not sure I want to do.”

“Jesse, your life isnota dumpster fire,” Brooklyn said with a laugh.

“Fine, okay, maybe it’s just like, a trashcan fire in a dingy parking garage. But it’s definitely on fire, you have to give me that.”

“I mean, yeah, you’ve seen better days,” Brooklyn said, smiling. “But come on, what happened to the upbeat Jesse who’s chipper no matter what the hour?”

“He died a slow and painful death at the hands of his loud, undergrad housemates,” I grumbled.

I’d been living in a group house for a little over a month now with five other guys, twenty-one or twenty-two-year-olds who had a truly astonishing capacity to stay up partying night after night and still make it to class or work the next day, not the least bit hungover. If I weren’t so frustrated, I’d be impressed. But theirAnimal Houselifestyle didn’t mesh well with my four a.m. wake-ups to get to the cafe and start baking every other morning, and after a month of living with them, it was really wearing me down.

“Well, at least you have them to blame instead of Tanner,” Brooklyn said. “So that’s a fun change.”

“Oh, no,” I said. “Don’t worry, we’re still blaming him. He’s still the reason I’m in this mess. Him and his ridiculous twenty-two-year-old boy-toy.”

Tanner Carmichael had been my boyfriend for more than a year when I left my home in Miami to follow him up to swampy Savannah after he’d taken a teaching position at Chatham University. It wasn’t tenure-track or anything, but teachingModern Sexuality and the Mediahad still seemed more stable than hosting reality TV shows about drunk college students on spring break. I’d convinced myself that this move meant he was finally ready to settle down, and get serious about our relationship.

Instead, he’d cheated on me—with a college student, of all things. I guess he just couldn’t get enough of them. And when I’d caught him, he’d asked me to move out of the apartment we shared. So it was his fault that at twenty-eight, I was living in a dilapidated group house with a bunch of frat guys. Rent-wise, it was all I could afford.

“And I one hundred percent agree with you that he’s an asshole,” Brooklyn said. “But I also think you’re better off without him. You wouldn’t want to be with someone who treats you the way he did.”

“I know. I just wish…I just wish it didn’t feel quite so much like I failed.”

“You didn’t fail. You just happened to fall for a guy who turned out to be a lying jerk. That’s not your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“So why does he get to be the one who ends up happy with a new man, and I’m the one left alone?”

“Well, first of all, he’s not happy with a new man, he’s happy with a zygote. And second of all, do you really think heishappy? Or is he just a sad stereotype of an aging gay man with a midlife crisis who’s trying to recapture his glory days by sleeping with someone young enough to be his son?”

I wrinkled my nose. “Eww, when you put it like that…”

“Doesn’t sound so enticing, does it?”

“No, not really,” I sighed. “But it still sucks.”

I knew Brooklyn was right. At forty, Tanner was twelve years older than I was, and eighteen years older than Quentin, the fifth-year senior he was currently sleeping with. Growing older was something Tanner had always worried about. It was one of the reasons I’d thought maybe he’d finally want to take our relationship to the next level. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

“Well, that’s why you just have to kick his ass in the marathon. You’ll get your revenge and, since you’ll be all lean and muscle-y from training, you’ll look hot while doing it. Show him what he’s missing.”

“See, the problem with that plan is that it requires me actuallyrunningthe marathon.”

“What do you mean problem? You’re not quitting, are you?” Brooklyn looked at me accusatorily.

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