“What’s up with that? She hasn’t said anything.”
A satisfied expression flashed across his face. It was gone in a second, but I caught it—he was happy that she had confided something with him that she hadn’t with me.
“It’s not something she really likes to talk about,” he said. “Can you blame her? The whole thing is sketchy.”
“I suppose you could consider Annie a stalker.”
“That’s different.”
“How so?”
“Well . . . I don’t think you’re in any fear of Annie doing you physical harm. She could try, but there’s no way she could hurt you.”
“You could kick the stalker’s ass. You’d be like Daisy’s knight in shining armor. She’d at least owe you a blow job.”
An image of Daisy down on her knees, that sweet mouth of hers wrapped around my cock, flashed through my mind. I smiled.
Jonathan looked horrified. “For Christ’s sake, Ian, will you stop it?” he snapped. “You’ve got to be so . . . so . . .”
“So what?” I asked.
“So vulgar! I sure as hell wouldn’t be expecting a blow job if I did something for her!”
“Well, something’s wrong with you then. Are you sure you’re not gay?”
Jonathan flushed. He was too easy to get riled up, always had been. “I’m not gay,” he snapped. “If I was, I wouldn’t like her so much.”
“What the fuck is the problem then? Am I missing something? She seems to like you.”
His eyes widened. “Do you think so?”
“Sure.”
“See, that’s the thing. I can’t tell. Sometimes I get these really good vibes from her, and I think that things are going well, and then other times, it seems way more formal, business-like, almost.”
“Well, you are her boss.”
“No I’m not,” he said, almost recoiling in horror at the suggestion. “You’re the boss.”
“You’re her superior then. Whatever you want to call it. Co-worker, if you want everything to be on even ground. So why wouldn’t she treat you in a business-like way?”
“Because that completely goes against her liking me!”
Growing up, I had wondered if Jonathan was gay. Not because he seemed especially interested in other boys, but because he was so fucking in touch with his feelings. It was probably due to the fact his mom, Jenny, (who still called me most Sunday mornings at ten o’clock) was one of those people who never got mad; instead she’d say something along the lines of, “What was going through your mind when you decided to throw that rock through Mr. Porter’s windshield?”
This conversation that we were having now could go on for hours. And if there wasn’t anything more tedious than having to talk about feelings . . . I didn’t know what it was. If this was going to end, I’d have to be the one to do it.
“Just ask her out,” I said. “You don’t even need to make it formal or anything; just ask her if she wants to go get a coffee or a drink or something.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Sure you can. All you need to do is grow a pair of balls and then do it.”
“That’s essentially what happened with Noah.”
“Who?”
“Noah. Her stalker. He asked her if she wanted to get a smoothie with him after they worked out. So I can’t do that. If I did that, she’d probably say no, even if she wanted to go out with me, just because she’d be thinking about Noah.”