Page 15 of Two Marlboros

He burst out laughing, then pulled away as I felt that smell take root inside my nostrils, making it obnoxious for me to even breathe. Nathan inhaled the cigarette once more, but he did so in a hurry, without the elegance that had marked the previous puffs. He threw it on the ground and stepped on it quickly.

“Throw it in the bin,” I urged him.

He brought his wrists close to each other and gave a couple of taps. “What are you going to do if I don’t, arrest me?”

He laughed again. He had returned the same boy as just before, only with one less cigarette.

“Whatever, I’m in a rush. Oh, this is yours,” he said, and immediately pulled out of his pants pocket the business card I had given him the day before. “I know where to find you now, in case I need you.”

He hurriedly handed it to me, sketched a smile and ran off. That exit seemed a little too quick and fleeting, and I understood why only when I turned the note over.

He had left me his number.

As I reentered my office, I found Ashton sitting in the chair in front of my desk. Likely, he had been anxiously awaiting my return, thirsty as he was for some news about the meeting that had just taken place. I laid the note on the table and took my seat, ignoring him.

“Well? How did it go?”

“Fine, I’d say. I didn’t kill anyone.”

I still had the smell of smoke in my nose. I moistened my lips, to find that it was not only the smell that was unpleasant, but the taste as well. I was smeared from head to toe with that unbearable stench, yet the memory of those lips wrapping around the filter still tingled my lower abdomen.

Ashton grabbed the business card and turned it over almost without thinking. He looked up at me and showed me the figures scribbled on the back.

“He gave you his number?”

“Apparently.”

The smell of smoke began to disappear from my nostrils, or maybe I was now addicted to that scent. With it, the almost erotic memory of those lips on the cigarette also seemed to dissipate.

“Why don’t you go somewhere together?”

“Are you crazy? No way.”

I had to admit, though, that if he had proposed it fifteen minutes earlier, I would not have even considered it, but the idea of the cigarettes he would smoke made me waver for a moment.

I tried, however, to look at reality as objectively as possible and saw only a twenty-one-years-old young boy, who did not even look like his age. I had been entranced by his vice, I could not deny it, but otherwise he remained devoid of any interest. I thought maybe I had deluded myself, because everyone expected something from me, a step forward that I didn’t want to take yet, that I didn’t want to take at all. I had never smoked to not conform myself to others, and instead, at that moment, I had almost convinced myself that moving on was a good idea, not for me, but for those around me. It was too soon to replace Oliver, to betray him, especially for a cigarette. I felt guilty for even thinking such a thing.

Ashton pulled two tickets out of his pants pocket and handed them to me.

“You could go see the Wit Matrix concert, that band I told you about.”

“Wait, didn’t you tell me you wanted to take your girlfriend there?”

“What can I tell you? She got sick. So now I have two tickets left over, and since she was more interested than I was, I thought-”

“Not in a million years.”

I hoped and prayed for Ashton to step down. He wanted at all costs to set me up with Nathan, it was clear, and he didn’t want to know about a rejection. Finally, though, he seemed to give in.

“Then you and I will go, shall we?”

I looked up ready to say a sharp ‘no,’ but he looked at me imploringly.

“Come on, don’t make a fuss. Or don’t you want to go out with me either? Look, I’m not making eyes at you, huh.”

I sighed looking for the excuse to tell him no, when, inwardly, I thought it wouldn’t be so bad. It would distract me a little and only do me good. I agreed.

“When is it?”

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