Page 69 of The Liar's Reckoning

I don’t remember standing up, but I’m in my closet, pullingout clothes. Lots of them. Layers. A Lyft is waiting for me when I get downstairs, and it’s a quick ride downtown at this hour. Silas, as promised, is sitting on the stoop of the apartment building. He’s in an expensive wool overcoat. Leather gloves cover his hands, and a black beanie is pulled down over his eyebrows. He stands when he sees me get out of the car, and I blink in surprise when I see the tuxedo beneath his coat.

I hustle us both inside even though it’s still dark and relatively quiet on the street. “Nice tux,” I mutter.

Our eyes clash, and it’s like he’s daring me to ask for more information.

I plan to. But not in the lobby. His jaw is so tense, I’m not sure he can loosen it enough to talk.

Once we’re in my apartment, he shrugs off the overcoat. I take it from him, planning to hang it up somewhere, but I wait while he removes his jacket, cummerbund, and loosens his tie, finally sliding it off too. Part of me thinks he’s gonna keep going, strip naked and make me an offer I won’t be strong or smart enough to refuse, but he stops after he rids himself of his shoes and untucks his shirt. “Thank you,” he says. “For coming.”

“Any particular reason you thought of me?”

He walks toward the couch. “I’m always thinking of you. Whether I want to be or not.”

“Maybe I should be more specific…” I follow him and watch him sit in a sprawl on the couch.

He looks up at me expectantly. “You can sit with me. I won’t try anything.”

I scowl.

He raises his brows. “Did you want me to? I figured you were settling into your baby making days since I haven’t heard from you.”

“I—yeah—no—Silas, what are you doing here?”

“I had a terrible fucking night, and I didn’t wanna go home yet.”

“Why not?”

“My apartment sucks, and I’m restless, and I don’t fucking know, I just—didn’t want to be there.”

Suddenly, he bends forward, elbows on his knees, face in his hands and he lets out a harsh, jagged breath. Again, I move without remembering moving. I’m on the couch beside him. My hand is on his back. I rub up and down with a firm, hopefully reassuring, pressure.

“Sex doesn’t mean anything to me, you know? It can’t. If it did, I couldn’t…”

“Yeah,” I say. “I get it.”

“I’m not saying I don’t want it or I don’t need it, I’m just saying it’d be like having a meaningful relationship with protein, which I don’t. It’s not easy to rattle me.”

“What happened?” I don’t know why I’m asking. I don’t really want to know.

“They filmed me.”

“What?”They?

“It ended up being this couple, and I think they were using me for content or something. It was just…”

“Did they hurt you?”

“No…nothing like that. It was just so fucking degrading. I felt like a whore. I mean—if I wanted to be online, I’d make an account, you know? This is the most private thing in my life, and I…”

He trails off and breathes heavily into his hands again. “It was so much money. And Iama whore. I know that’s what you’re thinking.”

“It’s…not.” Of all the eleven thousand thoughts running through my head, that isn’t one of them.

“I couldn’t even stay hard.” He says that like his inability to maintain an erection was the real humiliation of the night. Not that he was catfished or filmed with dubious consent.

I run my hand up his back and position myself so I’m bent over with him. “Hey.”

He looks at me, and there’s a plea in his eyes. I don’t know what it’s for, but I do the first thing it makes me think of. I hug him.

---