I scowled at the sky.
“It’s cool,” I told the stars. “I’ll find someone else. And it’ll be awesome and I’ll be all, like, Ryan who? I’ve got a new cornerstone. His name is Juan Carlos and he’s an exotic accountant. Or something. Mental note. Think of better exotic jobs in the future. Like… actuaries. Dammit. Why can’t I think of something exotic off the top of my head? Exotic. Exotic. Go! Juan Carlos is going to be an exotic mortician!” I groaned. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“Who’re you talking to?”
I squawked like an indifferently tall man.
Ryan laughed quietly to himself.
“Dude,” I sighed. “Seriously. The stalking.”
He stopped laughing. “I wasn’t. Not this time.”
I looked back up toward the stars and cursed them in my head. “So you admit to the other times.”
“Mostly.”
“You can’t mostly stalk someone. You’re either all in or not.”
“Ah. Well.”
“Stalker,” I muttered.
“Not this time,” he said. “I didn’t know you were out here.”
I snorted. “Yeah. Okay.”
“I didn’t. I just needed….”
“Needed….”
He sighed. “I needed to get away. For a little bit.”
“Okay.”
“You don’t want to hear this.”
“You’re right. I don’t.”
The silence that followed was awkward. Him standing above me while I refused to look at him was awkward. Everything about this was awkward.
Of course, I couldn’t keep that to myself. “You’re awkward. This is awkward.”
“I know.”
“It’s like you’re my ex that I’ve seen for the first time since we had our really bad breakup.”
“Is that what it’s like?”
“Sure,” I said. “But it sucks because it’s like we’re exes without having any of the benefits of not having been something before we were exes.”
“Benefits?”
“You know,” I said. “Butt sex.”
He choked.
“Or other things,” I said quickly. “Because it’s not all about butt sex.”