“Why do you even want to know that?”
“Morbid curiosity, I guess.”
I sighed. “I honestly don’t know. I never counted.” I wanted to give her something, so I estimated. “If I had to guess? Maybe fifty.”
“Wow. Ok.”
“Wow?” I mimicked. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I honestly didn’t know what to expect there. I thought maybe it could even be more than that.”
I didn’t really know if I wanted to know the answer, but I asked anyway. “How many men have you slept with?”
“Five,” she answered without hesitation.
I suddenly wanted to kill five men I’d never met.
“That’s not that bad,” I said.
“It is what it is, right?”
“Yeah,” I said, still a little jealous, which was fucked-up.
Gia hesitated before she asked. “Have you ever been in love?”
She was definitely hitting me with all the big questions tonight.
There was only one relationship in my life that ever came close to that. Since we seemed to be opening up tonight, I decided to tell her a story.
“The closest I ever came was with a girl named Beth. She was my best friend growing up. Her father was actually like the closest thing I had to a dad. His name is Pat. He was super cool and I used to go to him for advice about…you know, dude stuff. Shaving and shit. Anyway, they lived only a few doors down from us.”
“What did she look like?”
“She had brown hair, not as dark as yours, though. She was pretty. She actually wore glasses like you sometimes. We were close. But I never looked at her in a sexual way—until we were about seventeen.”
She swallowed. “Then what happened?”
“I wish I knew what the turning point was. I guess it was just teenage hormones doing their thing. I didn’t really think anything like that would ever happen with her. I never wanted to go there. Anyway, one night…it did…we ended up having sex, and it really put a strain on our relationship.”
Gia sighed. “Wow.”
“There was no way I was ready for anything serious. She wanted more after that, and I just couldn’t commit to anything that young. But I really did care about her. And I always regretted hurting her. We were kids. And she was practically family. Things were really never the same after that happened.”
“Where is she today?”
“After we graduated from high school, her father ended up getting a job out in Arizona. When her parents and brother moved out there, she followed them even though she was old enough to stay out here on her own if she really wanted to. I think if I’d begged her to stay, she would have. But like I said, I wasn’t ready for that. So, she moved.”
“Do you ever talk to her anymore?”
“We’ve kept in touch. She’s actually married now with a kid. So, everything worked out the way it was supposed to.”
“I bet she still fantasizes about you.” She smiled.
I pulled her into me. “Oh yeah? What makes you think that?”
“Because I couldn’t imagine having sex with you and having to go back to being just friends.”
“Well, you won’t have to worry about that. I have no interest in only being friends with you ever again. Because my intentions are completely impure when it comes to you, and I don’t anticipate that ever changing.” I laughed.
She ran her fingers through my hair then posed another question, one that threw me for a loop a little. “Do you believe in God?”
My feelings on that were complex. I did my best to offer an explanation of how I saw things when it came to spirituality.
“Yes. I do. Well, at least, I believe there’s something powerful that watches over all of us. But the only thing that’s certain to me is that we weren’t meant to know everything. Anyone who claims to understand exactly how this complex universe works is a fucking liar. Or they’re believing what they want to. We all just have to do our best with what knowledge we have and have a little bit of blind faith. We get signs every day that tell us whether we’re on the right path. People and opportunities are placed before us. You know that feeling you get when something feels truly right in life? Like all the stars finally aligned? That trust you feel that the universe has sent you exactly what you need—even if you didn’t realize you needed it?
“Yes.”
“Well, that to me is God.”
She stayed quiet, soaking in my answer. For some reason, since we were being open, I had the urge to share something with her that I hadn’t shared with anyone other than my mother.
I nudged her up. “Can I show you something?”
“Yeah.”
With our hands locked together, I led her to a spare room inside at the back of my house. It was where I housed my own artwork along with all of my tattoo equipment that I never parted with. I still dabbled in design, mainly word of mouth stuff, friends who wanted new ink.