Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 3

sex," I said. "It's all good."
    "No. I mean, do you like that? A new man every night. No heart, just fucking."
    "Hey. Fuck you." I shoved a finger in his face. "I didn't see you stick around. Get laid, gone by morning. Sound familiar? I reckon you got a few pieces on the side."
    "No. I don't."
    "You know what I am. You knew from the beginning. I don't settle—"
    "That's not what you are. It's what you do."
    "Fuck you." Genius response, I know. But this hocus-pocus psych splitting hairs—how do you argue with that kind of bullshit? You don't. Someone decides you're lying to yourself, there ain't jackshit you can say to convince otherwise. 'Fuck you' is as good a response as any.
    "It's good between us, don't you think? Better than others."
    "It's good," I spat out. Because it was. "Doesn't make a lick of difference though, how good the dick is. Not in the long run."
    Tomás watched me for a bit. I didn't have anything to add. I grew antsy, what with his eyes on me and all. Just wanted to get back to work. I turned to check my face in the mirror—making sure no spatters of partially digested dinner were stuck to my cheek.
    Tomás said, "I'm drawn to you." He always used such bizarre turns of phrase. All proper and dated. It'd have been charming if I'd wanted that. "I need you for myself. If your heart is elsewhere, I can't stay."
    Which, you know, suited me fine. I'd been trying to back off, after all. But him saying that rubbed me the wrong way. "What, you jack off a bartender in an alley then expect a Madonna? You were plenty happy to have me fuck around with you. "
    He shrugged. "Fair enough. You have your requirements; I have mine. I need a commitment." He laid a warm palm on my sternum. "From here." He ran that hand up my chest, palmed my ear and ran a thumb along my cheekbone. "You are beautiful, Erik." He said it with that strange lilt. Aer-eek . "I wanted you from the moment I saw you."
    Then he left.
    ****
    We got an earful from El Viejo that night. He'd been across the bar, dealing with the DJ—had heard the ruckus but figured it was our standard showing-off act. When he found out, the shit hit the fan.
    Didn't lose our jobs, but on probation, yeah, and El Viejo doesn't say shit he doesn't mean. Never seen him so livid, cursing up a storm, ranting. Said he'd rather fire us and shut down for a week than deal with arrests—or worse, hear we'd been raped and left for dead in the surf.
    Um. Right.
    He gave us escorts home that morning, which sobered both me and Alex right the hell up. Hyperbole, maybe. Or maybe not. Alex especially, is a cute thing; he turns an eye. Maybe the wrong kind of eye.
    I did laundry on Sunday. Straightened up my place and hit the water. Didn't do much the rest of the week—worked days, windsurfed until sundown. Flirted with an elderly gay couple some, but my heart wasn't in it.
    Viv called from Puerto Rico. My sort-of cousin, remember? Hadn't heard from her in ages so we talked a good long while. Her job, her love-life. I told her about Tomás. How he was good-looking and nice and all, but how he moved too damn fast and expected more from me than I had. Viv told me I was an idiot. No, not just an idiot—a stupid idiot. Yeah. That's what she said. Said, "You finally get someone who wants you, and you reject him".
    Stupid idiot.
    But hell, that didn't mean shit. Viv had been calling me an idiot since we'd learned the word. Six? Five? First time was when I colored the Little Mermaid all wrong. I still remember, dark brown for the hair, tan for the skin, and for the tail, what I'd thought was a magnificent blaze of olive and gold. Not Ariel's coloring, apparently, but it'd looked beautiful to me.
    Of course, she'd called me an idiot when I broke up with pretty-boy Yves, too. Then Yves had gone and put his next boyfriend in the hospital with a broken wrist and ribs. So. You know. It's not as if she's always right.
    Stupid idiot.
    Only sometimes.
    Viv. She was always trying to set me up with men. Yves wasn't the first, he wasn't the last. Christ. Better than the rest of my family, though, who still thought if I just met the right girl...
    Mom'd set me up once, with some cousin of a cousin of a husband of an aunt or some shit like that, and I absolutely had to go at least once or I'd be insulting an entire family tree and their pets. "You'll get along well," she'd said, "Rachel's a very masculine girl." Whispering the adjective in that way that embarrassed white women will