Tell Me It's Real (21 page)

And of course, when he saw Vince, you would have thought he was going to flop his dick out on the table, crawl into Vince’s lap, and rut against him right in front of me.

“Good evening,” he purred at Vince, ignoring me completely. “My name is Santiago, and it will be my pleasure to…
serve
you tonight.” He looked Vince up and down, and I had an urge to call 911 for the eye-rape I was witnessing. It didn’t help that Santiago had an accent that made you want to either stab him or touch his balls. Guess which one I wanted to do?

Vince grinned up at him, though part of me realized he was oblivious to Santiago’s (who
names
their kids like this?) blatant “come fuck me” gaze. The other, more impractical, part of me wanted to punch Santiago in the back of the head and then throw a glass of water in Vince’s face for even considering looking so attractive in public. I was able to choke this part down. Barely.

“Hey, Santiago,” Vince said. “We’re going to need some time to decide.”

“Oh, of course!” Santiago gushed. “If you need any help with the menu”—
or getting your cock sucked
was the clear implication—“please don’t hesitate to flag me down, because I’m here for
you
. I’m sure I could see those arms from a distance, though.” He winked and dragged his fingers along Vince’s bicep. I eyed the tight polo shirt Vince was wearing, his arms straining against the sleeves, his chest hard against the fabric. I could even see the outline of his nipple piercing. I’m sure Santiago could too, because his gaze strayed over Vince’s chest and stopped exactly where the bar was poking through. He didn’t lift his fingers from Vince’s arm.

“Can we get some bread and some butter up in here?” I blurted out, sounding way fatter than I actually was. “I’m
hungry
.”

Santiago looked startled, as if he was only then aware of my presence at the table. When he saw me, a grimace came over his face like he smelled something awful. But then he twisted his lips into what I’m sure he thought was a professional smile, but was absolutely sardonic. “Of course, sir,” he said politely. “I shall get you some bread and butter. Lots and lots and lots of butter.” He turned back to Vince and the smile turned dazzling again. “And you, sir? I can get you
anything
you want while you wait for your”—he glanced back at me—“father’s bread.”

“Father?” I repeated, outraged.

Vince didn’t get the dig. “That’s not my father,” he said to Santiago. “That’s Paul.”

“Oh!” Santiago said, as if that explained everything. “So he’s your accountant or something?”

Vince’s brow furrowed. “He’s not an accountant. We work together.”

Relief spread over Santiago’s face. “Do you?” he asked, his voice again a purr. “Well, that certainly is good news. I’ll be right back with your coworker’s loaf of bread that he really seems to want, and then maybe you and I can get to know each other a bit better.” He winked and walked away, his hips doing enough of a roll to put Helena Handbasket to shame.

“Wow,” Vince said. “He sure seemed interested in you. I wonder if I should be jealous at all.” He looked at me with a pretty smile.

“I don’t think it was me,” I said, trying to keep the bitterness out of my voice. “In case you didn’t notice, he was practically fucking you right in front of me.”

Vince laughed. “What? You’re so full of shit. He was just being nice.”

“He was rubbing all over you!”

Vince shrugged. “I didn’t even notice. I was too busy watching you.”

My eyes bulged. “What… you can’t say shit… like that… so unfair… I don’t even….”

“You’re so cute when you sputter, you know that?” Vince said, reaching over to take my hand on top of the table. I thought about pulling it away, but his hand was warm and it seemed awfully rude to not allow him the comfort of my touch.

Santiago chose this moment to walk back to the table, and I knew the moment he saw our hands joined because he almost tripped and fell right into Vince’s lap. Vince didn’t even look up at him; he sat there, rubbing his thumb over the back of my hand. Santiago scowled at him, then looked at me with a dark smirk. “What happened to your face?” he asked me. “You look like you got punched in the eye.”

I blushed and mumbled something incoherent, looking down at our joined hands.

Vince took that as his cue. “Me and Paul are into some pretty kinky shit,” he told Santiago, whispering loudly. “You should see the bite marks on my ass. Nobody gives it to me like my boyfriend.”

I don’t know who was more shocked at Vince’s pronouncement, me or Santiago. While Santiago was probably more focused on the kinky-sex aspect of it, all I could hear in my head was the word
boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend
over and over again. I tightened my grip on Vince’s hand and I’m pretty sure I almost broke three of his fingers by the slight wince he gave.

“
Boyfriend
?” Santiago asked in a low voice, sounding incredulous.

“
Boyfriend
?” I asked, high-pitched and slightly hysterical.

Vince shrugged and smiled at me.

I didn’t even notice Santiago leaving because I was staring at Vince like he’d made the most insane statement in the history of the English language, which, to be fair, he pretty much had. Granted, I did maybe spend a second or two at the thought of putting bite marks on his ass (I mean, come on; who wouldn’t?) but I couldn’t seem to wrap my mind around the word
boyfriend.
As sad as it might seem, I couldn’t think of a time when anyone had actually called me that before, nor did I think there was anyone
I
had thought of that way. The last guy I’d dated (the psychic psycho, for those keeping track) turned out to be batshit crazy. I didn’t do the
boyfriend
thing. I was fucking Paul Auster. It didn’t happen to me.

But Vince continued to smile at me and he continued to hold my hand. He looked like he was going to say something further, but he stopped himself. He was obviously waiting for me to say something,
anything
, but since it
was
me, I let the silence drag on, making things even more awkward than they were before. Finally, I said the only thing I could think of.

“You’re really not Freddie Prinze Junioring me?” I asked faintly.

“Only if you want me to,” he said with a wink. I still didn’t think he understood the concept of being Freddie Prinze Juniored. He made it into something dirty and that was not helping the situation in the slightest.

“You’re the weirdest person I know,” I told him. “And Santiago is probably going to put pubes in my food.”

Vince rocked his head back and laughed. “I’ll make sure your food is pube free.”

My eyes burned a bit. No one had ever said that to me about pubes before. Part of me still wanted to believe he was pulling my leg, that this was all going to end badly. But that little hopeful part that had grown out of nowhere, that little light flickering way down in the dark, got brighter, and I latched onto it, hopeful for something I couldn’t quite name.

And then Vince had to go and ruin it by asking seven words that I should never be asked, given my history of being incapable of holding any kind of intelligent conversation with a hot guy, even if he’d just essentially proclaimed he was my boyfriend. I wanted to stay in the afterglow of the moment, staring deeply into each other’s eyes as if to communicate with each other’s souls without speaking or some such bullshit. I couldn’t make a jackass of myself if I didn’t speak (well, that’s not
entirely
true, since I’d proven earlier that I was perfectly capable of being a jackass by simply trying to walk down a hallway).

But Vince must have realized that we couldn’t spend the rest of our lives just staring at each other, so he made it all that much worse. “So, Paul,” he said as he leaned forward, “tell me more about yourself.”

“Excuse me?” I squeaked.

“Well, I know a few things about you. But since you’re my boyfriend now, I obviously need to know more. I don’t know if I can get by on just knowing you like black dildos and action movies.”

“Keep your fucking voice down,” I hissed at him, looking around to see if Santiago was listening in, trying to eavesdrop for the intel he could use to tear me away from Vince like some Victorian heroine. I saw the top of his perfectly manufactured head through the window near the kitchen, and I wondered if he was pulling out his pubes one by one in preparation for when we ordered. “I told you that dildo wasn’t mine! I’m holding it… for a friend.”

“You’re watching a dildo for a friend?” he asked in disbelief.

“Yes! My friend….”
Think of a name, think of a name!
I looked down at the table. “My friend… Salt. Cup. Straw. Table. My friend Saltcup Strawtable. He’s Indonesian.” I was building a relationship on lies, all
lies
.

Vince waited with a smirk on his face.

“Fine,” I growled at him. “It’s mine, okay? I tried to use it once, but it was too big, so I put it in the box under my bed and left it there. It felt like it was going to tear me in half.”

“We’ll just have to try it out again,” he said, his voice going all husky.

Synapses fired. Fireworks across the sky. Angels sang. Jesus clapped politely.

“Sure,” I managed to say.

“What about the other ones in there? Blackie wasn’t the only dick in the box.”

“No comment.”

He smirked. “So what else?” he asked. “I want to know everything.” He leaned forward again.

And there it was, folks. One of those defining moments. This was the beginning, the start of something that I thought could quite possibly be amazing if it turned out to be real. I’d been alive for
thirty years
. There was
thirty years
of history that he could get to know. I glanced into the café again and saw Santiago scowling at me, and I knew I needed to make it something badass. Sexy. Dangerous. I could have told him about the time Sandy and I had gone to Hawaii and went snorkeling and that I’d thought I was going to get eaten by a shark (conveniently leaving out the fact that the “shark” turned out to be a rock). Or I could’ve told him something heartfelt. Sweet. Kind. I could’ve told him about how I sometimes volunteered at Wingspan, which helps GLBTQ youth in Tucson who are going through a tough time with their family or friends or school. I could’ve told him about how I dreamed of quitting my job and one day traveling across Europe. Or that I wanted to learn to speak Italian. Or that I was still kind of scared of the dark some of the time. Or any other number of things that had happened in the past thirty years that made me who I was.

But no.

Of course not.

My subconscious hijacked my mouth and made me say the one thing I didn’t want to say at all. My deepest shame. My darkest moment.

“Last year I fell into the hippopotamus exhibit at the zoo.”
Oh sweat balls!

He twitched his lips as he stared at me. “I’m sorry. You did
what
?”

“What’s good to eat here?” I grabbed the menu and put it in front of my face.

“Paul,” he said, sounding like he was choking.

“Yes, Vince?” I muttered.

“Did you say that you fell into the hippopotamus exhibit at the zoo?”

“No. I said I once had a problem with my hypothalamus gland and it caused me to get the flu. You really need to get your hearing checked. I’m thinking of having a salad.”

“Are you guys ready to order?” Santiago asked as he appeared at the table, sounding extremely put out.

“I think,” Vince said as he gasped, “that we’re going to need more time.”

“Why is your face all red?” Santiago asked. “Did the accountant say something stupid? I’ve heard that accountants can be really boring lays.” He turned to me. “Are you a really boring lay?”

“Be gone, you he-bitch!” I growled at him.

Santiago rolled his eyes at me and scowled before walking away.

I hazarded a glance at Vince. He was on his phone, looking like he was going to explode.

“What are you doing?” I asked suspiciously. “You better not be texting anyone right now!”

“I’m not,” he said, tears streaming down his face as he laughed. “I’m looking you up online. There has to be a news story about this.”

I made a grab for his phone. “Don’t you dare!”

“There’s a YouTube
video?” he said, pulling the phone away, just out of my reach. “With a
million
hits? Oh my God, you’re famous!” He squinted. “Wait. The user who uploaded it was DancingQueenSandy? No. Fucking. Way.” I made a play for his phone again and he looked up and glared at me. “You stay on your side of the table,” he told me. “This might be the most important thing to have ever happened anywhere.”

“That’s bullshit! What about
Jesus
being born? Or the advent of nuclear physics? Or gay-for-pay porn stars?”

He shook his head. “None of those even compare to this.”

“Remember how I said I didn’t use that black dildo?” I said desperately. “I lied. I use it all the time. As a matter of fact, I used it right before you came over. I laid on my back and shoved that whole fucking thing up my ass as I moaned your name and pretended it was you. How about we get out of here and I show you how I do it?”

He licked his lips as he glanced up at me. “Yeah. That’s… that’s quite a thought. But we both know this is going to happen, so it might as well happen now.” He raised his finger and started to lower it to the touch screen on his phone.

“You play that video,” I warned him, “and I swear to God I’m going to break up with you. You told me I was your boyfriend seven minutes and twenty-six seconds ago. It’ll be the quickest relationship of your life.”

“Gonna press it,” he said, lowering his finger even further, grinning at me.

“I’ll suck your cock right now under the table if you don’t!” I shouted.

That got his attention, and he jerked his hand away from the phone. Unfortunately, it hit his glass filled with water and knocked it all over me. Water splashed up into my face, and only then did I realize it was filled with at least nine billion lemons. “My eyes!” I screeched. “I’m
blind
!”