Page 49 of Alone With You in the Ether

Another shrug. “It’s just a guess.”

“Well, guesses are accepted currency here,” she said blithely. “Along with theories, vague sensations, and counterfeit bills.”

He tapped his fingers on the paper Starbucks cup. “I think you can be physically involved with someone before you need them,” he said slowly. “And I think you can need them before you love them.”

“And you’re basing that on?”

“Five and a half conversations,” he said.

There was something charming about his certainty.

“You missed one,” she decided to confess. “I can sleep with someone before I want them, actually. And need them before I want them.”

He glanced at her. “Always?”

“Historically, yeah,” she said, “and you know how I feel about history.”

He took a sip of his tea, leaning his head back again.

“What happened to the forgery boyfriend?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Regan said, shrugging. “Not unusual. My relationships have a shelf life of about a year, sometimes two.”

“You prefer being in a relationship?”

She thought about it. “I hadn’t actually considered my preferences before, but yeah, probably. It’s not like I ever look for anyone,” she clarified, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel. “It’s more like they manifest and I fall into it.”

“Is that what happened with Marc?”

“Yeah.”

She had the distinct feeling that anything she said about Marc would be a waste of a conversation.

“Sometimes,” she said, “when I’m with someone else, I get this feeling like I’m asleep.” She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel again, wondering if she could manage to make any sense of that or if she’d only wind up falling into a crevasse of repellant self-pity.

She kept talking anyway. “Sometimes it’s like I’m there, but not really. Not fully. Like part of me is going to wake up a century later and everything will just be totally unidentifiable,” she said with a gloomy laugh. “You know, like Rip Van Winkle or something.”

Aldo was quiet for a moment.

“Time travel,” he said.

She fought a smile, giving him an admonishing shake of her head.

“I’m not trying to solve it, though.”

“So?” he asked neutrally. “That probably means you’ll solve it first.”

“Because I’m a genius?”

“Because you’re a genius,” he confirmed, and then, without any transition, “I want to see your art.”

She opened her mouth, then hesitated.

“That’s a key,” he noted, and she rolled her eyes.

“I just don’t have any,” she said. “I haven’t done anything in ages. Years.”

“Not even a sketch?”

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