Page 47 of Two Marlboros

Steve pointed at the couple with his chin, and I could tell he was referring to Nathan, who was laughing at the other man’s gesture.

“I’ve been after him for six months, but I don’t exist for him. So, I’ve been looking for a way to get noticed, but I’m not having much success.”

“Do you like him a lot?”

Harvey had placed his hand on Nathan’s cheek and was stroking his skin with slow movements of his thumb.

“A lot? Yes, very much. Sometimes he enjoys teasing me and almost makes me think he likes me. I know he just plays, but he’s able to turn me on in less than two seconds. Doesn’t that happen to you?”

His lips curled, the puff with which he blew out the smoke. A rush of heat ran through my whole body, to concentrate in one spot.

“No. Not really.”

Nathan smiled at his every word, and it was one of those smiles that made him lower his eyes, whenever he felt Harvey’s warm gaze on him.

“Oh, but you ... oh, God, sorry. I tell you these things, but you’re his boyfriend. Maybe I shouldn’t, right?”

Nathan always seemed to be above everything and everyone, yet in that moment he was succumbing to Harvey: the man had brushed his wrist and Nathan had gasped, perhaps because he thought it was a gesture of affection, although in my eyes it didn’t feel like it at all.

What Steve had said entered my head without my realizing it, and just as unconsciously, the answer came out.

“No boyfriend. It’s all a set-up.”

“What?”

A moment later I realized what I had done, but, in a way, I didn’t care so much. Nathan found a moment to direct a fleeting glance at me, but I did not return it.

I moved my lips closer to the glass and took a few sips: it was strong stuff.

“I mean he only asked me to come to this party as his boyfriend because she wanted to get rid of a certainShittySteve. Maybe you know him.”

From a distance, Nathan looked at me again. Who knows? Maybe he was worried about what I might say to Steve. He had a point.

What was stranger was that I couldn’t bring myself to feel guilty. I was spilling my guts to Steve and I had barely realized it. I had no time for guilt, and he deserved it anyway.

“Are you kidding?”

I turned to him and gave him a fake smile. “No, it’s all true. So, feel free to talk about him however you like. I don’t care.”

I downed a couple more sips and felt myself stagger, but I was still lucid. Steve stood dumbfounded beside me, his jaw about to drop. I shrugged at him and he pulled a smile, then picked up his jaw and shifted his gaze to Nathan.

“And here I thought I had no more hope!”

He stared at him some more, and I went back to look at him too.

He was so...

The vodka upset my stomach and I couldn’t finish the thought. I never knew what adjective was going to come out of my head as he stood leaning with one shoulder against the wall, those eyes at times innocent, as he lost himself in the swirl of Harvey’s words, which had nothing innocent about them at all.

Steve elbowed me.

“But have you seen his ass? I don’t know what I would do to him, and I even told him so.”

I was taken aback, but he seemed to have gotten over the shock of my revelation.

“Really?”

“After a month of coming home in certain conditions, it comes more than natural to you.”

---