Or!
Or maybe this is a big misunderstanding, and they have Sam confused with someone else!
“You and Sam Burgos?” I add, crossing my toes inside my high-tops, willing her to wave that elegant hand of hers again and explain she dated a different Sam.
But she doesn’t. She nods and looks even more uncomfortable. “Yeah, he was my first serious boyfriend. We met while I was studying abroad in London. We lived together for a while and tried to make things work when I came back to New York to finish my master’s but…” She lifts her shoulders with a tight smile. “It was just too hard. When you’re used to being together every night, talking on the phone or doing a video chat just isn’t the same.”
Boob Woman slaps Erica’s knee while I do my best not to throw up on the dingy tile floor in the waiting room. “Which is why you should track him down on social media and slip into those DMs, girlfriend. It’s time for you two to reconnect and enjoy another summer of love.” She arches a wry brow my way. “I mean, someone should be having a summer of love, right? Since the two of us are giving up on love and becoming cat ladies. I’m fostering two. How about you?”
“I’m um…” I trail off, swallowing the bile rising in my throat as a panicked voice in my head insists everything is a lie—everything, from Sam’s virginity to his apparent adoration for me to his promise that I’m actually great at sucking dick, even though Sunday night was my first time, and I only got a few licks in before my dad came busting into the house.
And what about the job offer? Is that suspect, too?
Or am I blowing all of this out of proportion?
Before I can remember how to form coherent sentences or talk myself down from my state of panic, Amy appears at the door leading back into the kennel and vet offices. “Hey there, Jess. Handsome is ready for you. Want to come back and visit a little while before we put him in the carrier for the trip back to your place?”
“Um, actually, I um…” I stand, but my stomach stays on the floor. “I have to go. Something came up. I’m so sorry. I promise I’ll arrange a time to pick him up, soon.” I back toward the door, my heart slamming in my chest. “Or send him home with someone else if they’re a better fit. I’m just…”I’m a mess. An idiot. A dumb virgin naïve enough to think a guy learns how to touch a woman the way Sam touches me without some serious prior experience.
But thankfully, I don’t say any of that aloud.
I just stammer, “I’m s-so sorry,” and flee.
Without a backward glance for BW and Erica, Sam’s gorgeous former lover, I pound up the stairs from the basement-level office to the street above. From there, I dash down the block to the entrance to the subway, grateful for the shadows closing around me as I descend in the sweltering subterranean heat. I’m even grateful for the woman with the eye patch who spits at my feet on my way by her makeshift bed under a “Keep NYC Beautiful: Don’t Litter” sign.
Dodging her phlegm forces me to jump sharply to my left and summons a rush of nausea that has nothing to do with my stupid feelings. And hearing her grumble about the aliens who stole her car and left her with no water bottle reminds me how lucky I am.
I’m not homeless or suffering from mental illness. I have both of my eyes, access to healthy food, and several water bottles I keep on rotation in my bag. I’m also smart, sensible, kind, funny, and a highly capable human being.
The only thing wrong with me is that I dropped my guard with the wrong person.
But even that’s understandable. Sam isn’t a stranger. He’s an old friend, someone I should have been able to trust not to stab me in the back.
Thoughts of getting “stabbed in the back” remind me how much I love feeling him hard against me while we’re spooning, and I almost start crying on the subway platform, right in front of the phlegm spitter and four mean-looking Catholic school girls smacking gum by the subway map.
I can’t believe Sam lied to me.
Why would he do that? What on earth was the endgame? Just for laughs? Or to get revenge on me for being too clueless to realize he had a crush on me in high school?
That’s not Sam, you know it’s not. Talk to him. Give him a chance to explain before you jump to conclusions.
“Fuck off,” I mutter to the inner voice. There is no way to explain away something like this and that naïve side of me has already gotten us in enough trouble.
It’s time for my sharp, savvy, trust-no-one side to come out to play, the side that saved Cam’s girlfriend’s life when I did a deep internet search dive on her creepy ex. If I hadn’t found those police records and his mug shot and filled Cam in on his crimes, Natalie and her daughter might have been kidnapped and imprisoned by a psycho right now.
The fact that I didn’t do the same due diligence on my own love interest as I did Cam’s is proof that love makes you stupid.
“Lust, not love,” I whisper, ignoring the way the Catholic school girls giggle behind inch-long fingernails as I pull my cell from my bag.
Let them think I’m off my rocker. They’ll sit somewhere far away from me on the train, and I won’t have to listen to them smack their gum all the way to the West Fourth Street station.
I curse myself for leaving my laptop at home—I do my best deep diving with a large screen, keyboard, and multiple tabs—but I can make do with my cell and a solid internet connection. Looking up the hours for the library closest to the apartment, I relax a little. By the time I get there, I should have at least a couple hours to search before I’m supposed to meet Sam. It took an all-nighter to get all the goods on Natalie’s ex, but he was a criminal who had lived all over the West Coast, which made locating arrest records a tedious and time-consuming job.
To my knowledge, Sam has only lived in New Jersey and the UK, and I know pertinent facts about him, like his middle name, date of birth, and his mother’s maiden name. That should speed things along a good deal.
Hopefully, by the time I see Sam again, I won’t be as clueless as I was before.
I certainly won’t be as stupidly, embarrassingly in love.