Page 104 of Pick-Up
“I’m good,” I squeak, pulling the covers up higher over my chest.I close my eyes for a split second, reminding myself of how much better the last two hours have been than most of my last two years (time with my beautiful children aside).
Ethan shoots me a doubtful look. Why does he read me so well? Is this the problem with sleeping with an editor? Is he always going to see my errors? Proofread me? Correct my flaws? Catch my dangling participles?
“To be clear, in case I freaked you out, I was kidding about your issues,” he is saying. “Except for the running thing. That’s real. You should maybe see a coach.” The fact that I don’t roll my eyes or swat him seems to worry him more. His expression grows serious. “For what it’s worth… this, with us, isn’t something I do a lot.”
Wow. Oddly, because I live like a nineteenth-century nun, it hasn’t even occurred to me to wonder about Ethan’s love life beyond his ex. This momentarily diverts my panic away from the wordus. Suggests an alternate route on my neural pathways—self-destructive curiosity!
“Wait, do you, like, date?”
He shifts, uncomfortable. Pulls the sheet a little higher on his chest too. “I have… a little.”
“You have a little? Soa lot. Tell the truth: Do you actually have a condom in your wallet, after all? ’Cause if you held out on me…”
“I do not.”
“Because you don’t believe in contraception?”
“Because I haven’t been having sex with random strangers.”
“What about less random strangers?”
He shoots me an impatient look.
I let that one go, but I press on—because now I need to know: “Are you, like, on apps?”
“Not yet.”
“Notyet?”
“That isn’t what I meant. That sounded wrong.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “It sure did.”
“I just meant: people—some buddies of mine—have been tryingto convince me to use them, but I haven’t. It doesn’t seem like a good fit for me.”
I nod my head like,Yeah, it better not be. I don’t know why, since two minutes ago I was panicking about the possibility of a future with him. A future in which I get hurt. Or he cramps my style.
I am all over the map. No compass in sight. No idea how to use a compass anyway.
What do I want? Do I even know? And can I even have it?
“What about you?” he asks.
I shake my head. “No apps.”
“Have you been set up by friends?”
“Recently? No setups.”
“Have you dated anyone at all since you broke up with Cliff?”
I toggle my head. “I briefly considered marrying my exterminator after the water bug debacle of summer 2022. But we don’t speak of that.”
“Sasha!”
“Ethan!”
He gives me his bestCut the shitlook. It reminds me of when I was little and my mom came into my room with an empty marshmallow bag and a knowing look. The marshmallow debacle of summer 1985.
