20. Ryan

The Boyfriend Experience.

The fucking Boyfriend Experience!?

Do you even know what that is?

Oh, you do? Well, good for you. I had no idea. I thought it was some kind of variation of the missionary position. Thought it wouldn’t be a big deal. Thought, how bad can it be, given all the other shit that’s already gone down between Miller and me.

But it will be. It will be plenty bad, and it will be a big fucking deal, I can promise you that.

In case you’re not familiar with the term, allow me to educate you. The Boyfriend Experience is when a sex worker is paid to provide services commonly associated with being in a romantic relationship. Things like going on dates, holding hands, soft kisses, sweet words, making love as opposed to fucking.

God. The more I read about it, the more I want to scream.

Trust Miller fucking MacAvoy to trick me into something like this.

“We still on for our date tonight?” His smile is resplendent. A thousand watts easily. The beautiful prick thinks I’m going to bail on him. Thinks he has the upper hand. He thinks I don’t have the balls to go through with it.

We’ll see about that.

I’m going to beat him at his own game.

“Sure. Can’t wait.”

There’s a short, stunned pause. “Great. I’ll pick you up from the library at eight.”

“Sounds good.”

I manage to keep at least three-quarters of the sneer out of my voice. If not three-quarters, then definitely half.

Could be better, but it could be worse too.

I’m on high alert all afternoon, and the feeling only escalates as evening draws in. I jump at the slightest sound as I read through my psych notes, looking around accusingly, expecting to see Miller creeping up on me, feeling…I don’t know, feeling something when he doesn’t.

It’s eight o’ seven by the time I walk out of the building. I’m not angry Miller didn’t come up to my section. I’m not, okay. I’m just surprised, that’s all. It’s out of character for him.

The warm breath of an early June night exhales a sultry breath on me as I walk down the stairs. Miller emerges from the shadows, both hands deep in his pockets, pecs bulging, belly slightly concave. He has a dark green beanie pulled low on his forehead. It’s slouchy perfection. His eyes are gunmetal-gray and sparking with life, victory, and abject satisfaction.

I hate it.

He’s wearing khaki pants and one of those short-sleeve button-down shirts made of such fine linen it’s almost transparent. It has flowers or plants or some kind of botanical design embroidered around the hem. Very few people could pull it off. Of course Miller can. It’s unbuttoned, hanging open to show off his abs. The tank he’s wearing underneath it is so tight I can see his nipples from here. He looks like an artist, a painter, or something like that. He looks like someone or something extraordinary. Not a real person, an A-list celebrity playing the role of a fictional hero.

“Hey, baby,” he purrs.

The sound travels up my spine and gets on my nerves. I force down my reaction, plastering it over with a broad faux smile and a “Hey, b-baby” that only sounds mildly uncomfortable.

He looks around, and when he deems the coast clear, he leans in and steals a kiss. It’s one of those kisses that’s so light it makes you lean in for more despite the fact you don’t mean to. One of those kisses that makes your lips tingle and your eyes close by themselves.

My head spins, but I quickly recover.

“Wow,” he says softly. “You look good.”

Emily came shopping with me the other day and strong-armed me into buying this T-shirt. I like the color, a cross between olive- and moss-green, but I’m not really a fan of the rest of it. I told her it was too tight. She said she was surprised I could see it at all, given how far up my ass my head is, and followed that with something about my eyes and this color being a good combination. I think electric was the word she used. Then she shoved the shirt onto the counter while I was paying, so I didn’t really have a lot of choice in the matter.

I was sure I’d never wear it. It’s not my style at all. And if it wasn’t for the utterly ridiculous fake date I find myself on with Miller, I would’ve been right.

Miller takes three steps backward, still facing me. “You ready?”

“Born ready,” I mumble, reminding myself to keep my eyes wide and show Miller my teeth at regular intervals. It’s Boyfriending 101, after all.

He waits for me, turning around and butting his shoulder against mine as we fall into step.

“Where are we going?” I ask, though I’m pretty sure I can guess. Somewhere loud and flashy. Overpriced and expensive. Somewhere that the waitstaff makes you believe nothing you want is the slightest inconvenience despite the fact they’re quietly plotting your downfall. Somewhere Miller will feel at home, and I’ll feel like something that’s escaped from a specimen jar.

“Wait and see.”

He looks happier with himself than I can ever recall him looking, and that fills me with terror. We cross the quad, heading toward the arch. At the last minute, he slips his hand in mine, lacing our fingers tightly, and drags me through a gap in the conifers with him.

The space is secluded. It’s always secluded during the day, but at night, it’s secluded, secluded. It’s dark and quiet. Dead silent. The air is stagnant, and there’s no sound except for a lone cicada singing its repetitive song. A crosshatch of shadows plays tricks on my eyes. It takes them a second to adjust, but when I do, I stand so still that Miller finds it necessary to place a hand on my lower back to nudge me along.

It’s almost pitch black. An unnerving take on Frances Hodgson Burnett’s Secret Garden. Walls of ivy. Ghostly silhouettes of old trees. Most of the lights from the faculty buildings around us are out due to the hour, and my bench stands out like a beacon. In the daytime, it’s school green and almost disappears into its surroundings. Tonight, there’s a profusion of pillar candles in glass hurricane lamps flickering around it.

It looks like a prop in a Broadway show. A chapter in a book about someone nothing like me.

“Miller! What are you thinking? Campus security is going to arrest you. You can’t—you can’t have open flames in a public space like this!”

“Oh, please.” He tilts his head back, grinning at me. “Who do you think I paid to watch all this while I waited for you at the library? You were late, by the way.” He lands a hand on my ass. Light, but crisp enough to put a little skip in my step. Crisp enough to make something warm bloom under my skin and roll heavy clouds over my judgment.

Once we’re sitting on the bench, Miller tucks one leg under his body and twists so he’s facing me. My back is unusually straight as I’m made to hold two crystal flutes that he produces from a picnic basket stashed under the bench. The champagne uncorks with a loud, hollow pop, and Miller effortlessly tames the jet of unruly bubbles, somehow wrangling it so it lands in the glasses without any spills.

I feel more than a little ridiculous as he unpacks strawberries, handmade dark chocolate truffles, and an assortment of crackers and cheese. I have that too close, too hot feeling in a very big way. I can tell my ass is in serious danger of starting to sweat. I’m awkward and fidgety. I feel exactly how I usually feel when someone gives me a compliment. Uncomfortable down to my bones. A horrible internal battle rages. Half of me is sure it’s a joke, and the rest of me is hoping and hoping and hoping like hell that it’s true. I hate it.

A date on my bench, away from judgment and prying eyes, is the last thing I expected, and I admit it’s throwing me a little. It’s messing with my head. I can’t bear it. Especially because Miller’s entire person seems to be immersed so deeply into this boyfriend persona, I’m starting to feel a little vague about things myself.

I’m on the back foot. I need to level the playing field stat. Luckily, I know Miller well enough by now to know there was a chance of something like this happening. I came prepared. I reach into my bag and rummage around until I find what I’m looking for.

“I got something for you.”

“For me?” He says it with a hand clamped to his heart as if he’s never been given anything before. As if he’s not a spoiled rich boy. As if small things have meaning for him.

I hate myself for buying it. I swore I wouldn’t give it to him. When I heard the dull bleep of the scanner at the self-checkout counter, I told myself: it’s for emergencies only.

I took comfort in that.

I thought it would take more than basic competence at uncorking a bottle of bubbles to be classed as an emergency, but I was wrong. I hold the narrow glass bottle tightly for a while before unfurling my hand and showing Miller his gift.

“Everything Bagel Seasoning?” he bellows. “Are you for real? This exists? Holy shit. How did I not know this?”

“Well, when last did you buy your own groceries?” I shoot back, forgetting my role as a doe-eyed boyfriend for a moment but quickly rectifying it with what I hope is a saccharine smile.

“Oh my God.” He laughs, cradling my dumb gift in his hands like it’s frankincense or myrrh dipped in twenty-four-karat gold. “I can’t believe you got this for me.”

His eyes glisten, and I can’t be sure it’s just from the candlelight. He sets his glass and the seasoning down and wraps both arms around my neck, pulling me so close it reminds me of the other day when he had me in a chokehold. I brace myself to ensure I don’t have a similar reaction to the one I had then. He plants kisses all over the side of my face and neck. He doesn’t stop until I’m squirming so much I can’t tell if I’m trying to get away from him or if I’m trying to get closer.

“What are we drinking to?” I ask when I’ve managed to extricate myself from his grip and recenter myself.

“Same thing we always drink to.”

“Oh yeah, and what’s that?”

“You,” he says as if it’s obvious. As if it’s something we’ve done many times before. He clinks our glasses together and fixes me with a gaze that starts out innocent and quickly turns blisteringly hot. His voice drops an octave. “And the fact you’re my guy.”

Not going to lie. The champagne goes straight to my head. One sip and my spatial awareness is fucked. I find myself curling around in my seat, nestling my body against the hardness of Miller’s, only just hating the fact he’s choosing cheese he thinks I’ll like and painstakingly arranging it on a cracker for me.

He asks about the psychology final I took today and actively listens as I talk. It’s the last thing I need. This kind of attention has been known to go to my head faster than champagne.

“Did you get the question you were prepping for about ethics in experimental psychology?” he prompts when I get to the point where I think I’ve spoken as much about this particular subject as I possibly can. It sets me off again. Best I can tell, Miller’s hand on the back of my neck has opened a portal of sorts. A portal to all the crap I don’t usually tell people because of absolute certainty it will bore them to death.

Miller appears to be immune.

“So why psychology?” he asks as soon as I finish chewing the hazelnut praline truffle he fed me. That I ate. From his fingers. Voluntarily.

“It’s dumb,” I sigh, actively trying to wake up, to wrench myself out of the illusion Miller is in the process of waterboarding me with.

“Dumber than wanting to buy old houses and give them old-fashioned names like Sally and Beth while I break my back restoring them to their former glory?”

He’s never told me that before, and it’s like a fresh sheet of water forcing air from my lungs.

“I think so.” I’m distantly aware that I can’t tell if I’m playing a role anymore. The candescent lighting has slowed my brain rhythms. Rules and boundaries and pre-agreed limits feel woolly and far away. I can’t tell if this is The Boyfriend me or the real fucking me that’s crept out of the crevice I usually hide him in. I know I should be trembling under the weight of the stupidity I’m about to unleash on Miller, but I’m not. I’m worse. Way worse. I want to hear myself say it. Despite the bone-chilling stupidity of it, I want to hear myself say it.

“School counselor.” The first time I say it, it’s hardly two separate words. It’s a squished-together sound that’s so soft even I can’t make out the distinct letters that give it meaning. Miller’s hand travels up my neck and down again, drawing a circle around the knob of each vertebra. The portal widens. “School counselor,” I say again, releasing the words into the night, giving them flight. “I want to be a school counselor.”

Look, if you’re rolling around laughing, I don’t blame you. I don’t judge you. In fact, I’d probably judge you if you weren’t. I know I’m terrible at people, and I know I’m the last person on Earth who should be trying to help others. Given my recent behavior, it seems clear I’m the one who needs help—and a lot of it—before I can even think of helping others. I know it. I understand it. I wholeheartedly agree with the assessment.

“Why school counselor?” The jarring lack of judgment is a sharp probe to the precise part of my frontal lobe that controls speech. Broca’s area, if I’m not mistaken. It lights up.

“I want to help kids.” All right. Okay. That’s enough. Just leave it at that. “I want to give them a voice. I want to create a space they feel safe.” Right. You’ve said it. You can stop talking now. You can start stopping now. “I want them to know there’s a door that’s always open. At recess. At lunch. I want them to know there’s a place, a seat that’s assigned to them. Where they belong. Where someone is happy to see them.”

Despite my strenuous objections, I keep talking. My voice drones on and on. I don’t stop until I’ve spewed everything out. Puked it all out in a massive word vomit that’s totally out of my power to control. Miller keeps the portal—which, as best I can tell, seems to be located somewhere between my C2 and C3 vertebra—open. He doesn’t let it close until my face falls into his neck and I gulp down hungry mouthfuls of him to center myself.

“I want a house called Annabel.” His voice is different. Dreamy. The smoothness is gone. Something almost scratchy has replaced it. I look into his eyes, and to my endless surprise, I see the same thing I feel mirrored back at me. Dark orbs in the night. Two windows. Nakedness to a soul level. “She”s an old lady with white weatherboard with a wraparound porch.” I hear the smile before I see it. It’s unlike any other smiles I’ve seen or heard from him. It’s sheepish and hesitant, almost hopeful.

“A sprawling double story with an unnecessarily grand entrance. She’s one of those houses that used to be graceful, but now she’s a mule. And just as stubborn as one. She’s one of those houses where every time you touch one thing, another falls down. She’s surrounded by a big garden lost to the wild. It needs to be redone, but there are a few trees and rose bushes that are worth saving. A lemon tree, at least. Maybe a lime tree too.”

“Peach.”

“Huh?” He’s as surprised as I am at my unexpected contribution to the conversation.

“There’s a peach tree too. Worms eat the peaches before they get ripe, but that doesn’t matter because every year in spring, the tree blossoms.”

“Okay,” he says, dipping his tongue into my mouth, giving me a taste of lively acidity, green apples and lemons and, as insane as it sounds, peaches. “No peach tree, no deal.”

He kisses me until I’m so unsteady I veer to the left when he pulls me onto my feet.

“What do you say, baby.” He smiles. “Want to come back to my place?”

I smile back, aware I’m trapped in a crazy dream with Miller, but no longer sure if I can or want to wake up. “Hmm, I’m not sure. Will your roommate be there? I hear he’s kind of a dick.”

He kisses me again. Softly this time, just lips, no tongue.

“He’s not so bad.” We start walking toward our dorm, leaving the candles and picnic supplies for someone else to clean up. I mean to object, but I can’t seem to get around to forming the words because even though Miller’s no longer touching me, it feels like he is. He looks over at me and pauses. “Sorry about the weather. It wasn’t what I wanted.”

“What’s wrong with the weather? It was perf—”

“I ordered a clear night, but we got this instead.” He waves to a mottled night sky, the moon all but hidden by a blanket of clouds. Murky, opaque blotches that swallow the light. “I wanted to show you the stars.”