Page 47 of His Hungry Wolf

Pushing that out of my mind as we drove to the airport, I managed not to say anything crazy until we were on the plane. With the doors locked and our trip inevitable, my insecurities got the better of me.

“I just want to point out that we aren’t going to Miami,” I told him as our plane approached the runway.

“I know,” he replied casually.

As we approached our destination, I said,

“Our team is based in the Panhandle. There’s not going to be anything fancy around.”

Claude looked at me amused.

“You just saw where I’m from. I think I’m okay with ‘nothing fancy.’”

“Pensacola’s a little different than your town?”

“How so?”

I considered how unfriendly the city was to gay people. It didn’t make the place much fun for me to live in. But would that affect Claude?

Yeah, he had kissed me. But what did that mean? It wasn’t like he was into me, right? And even if, by some miracle, he was into me, I couldn’t let my mind go there. I couldn’t handle being wrong about that too.

“It’s Florida. You’ve heard of the Florida Man, right?”

Claude swept his hand in front of him like a newspaper headline.

“You mean like, ‘Florida man robs gas station with alligator’?”

“Right.”

“Or, ‘Florida man throws alligator through Wendy’s drive-thru window’?”

“Yeah.”

“Or, ‘Florida man gets eaten alive while attempting to rob a gas station at a Wendy’s drive-thru with an alligator’?”

“You’re familiar with it,” I confirmed. “Now imagine those people wearing their shirt while they do those things, and that’s Pensacola.”

“Got it. And I assume they’re also not a fan of black people.”

“Oh, that part’s a given,” I said, attempting to be funny.

“Got it,” Claude said, not finding it as humorous as I had hoped.

“Honestly, I don’t know how they treat black people there. It’s probably as bad as anywhere else. There are good and bad people everywhere, right?”

“Yeah. That’s what I figured,” Claude said, withdrawing a little.

I looked out the plane’s window trying to recover from being an insensitive prick.

“How bad was it being black in Oregon?” I asked, turning back to him.

Claude thought about it.

“It could have been worse. It helps that we were in a university town. But I try not to look for the things I don’t want to see.”

“So, things were cool there?”

“I mean, I did get a few people asking to touch my hair.”

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