“Ha! Gotcha!” She sighs. “Fine. Don’t tell me why you broke up with her.” She wiggles in her seat, her head turned away from me, tilted down for a nap. “I don’t need to know.” She yawns. “I love you no matter what.”
This is the difference between men and women. Not the ovaries vs. the balls. Not the breasts vs. the pecs. Not even the up-down toilet seat controversy or the Period Errand vs. the Morning Wood.
Oh, no.
She cannot settle in for a nap while my brain burns with the need to know the name of the guy who deflowered her.
“She didn’t like the way I kissed,” I say with a sigh.
Amanda sits up fast, like someone’s pulled her up by her hair. “What? Is she crazy?”
“We were sixteen. She went to a different school. We had three dates. We texted with flip phones. She was shallow and said I kissed like a sloth with an overproductive salivary gland.”
“She said that?”
“Worse. She texted it. There was no Twitter back then. Do you know how determined she must have been to take the time to text all that on a flip phone?”
One corner of Amanda’s mouth curls up. Her nostrils flare as she purses her lips, trying not to laugh.
“Quit shining me on.”
“I’m not!” I stick my tongue out at her and loll it to one side. “See? Wet-tongued sloth.”
“Andrew.”
I pretend to snore, tongue hanging out.
“You are impossible.”
“What’s his name?”
“Who?”
“The first guy you slept with.”
“You really want to know?”
“No. But yes.”
“Fine.” She thinks about it for a few seconds, just long enough to make my brain turn into ribbons of pain.
“And?”
“Charlie.”
“Charlie? You date him for long?” The thought of some gawky teen slobbering all over Amanda awkwardly makes my gut hurt.
“We never really dated. Just hung out a lot.”
“He didn’t take you out? Buy you dinner? Go to the movies?”
“No. He was more of a stay-in kind of guy.”
“Bastard.”
“He did have this kink.”
I freeze and close my eyes.
“What?”
“He liked to pee on shoes with laces.”
I open one eye. “Charlie, huh? Last name wouldn’t happen to be Kulls?”
“How’d you guess?”
I snort.
She laces her fingers through mine. “It’s okay. Just never, ever tell Shannon you dated Jessica.”
“Why would I?”
“It could slip out.”
“That’s not the kind of statement that just slips out.”
She cocks one eyebrow at me. Huh. She has a point.
It just did.
“Telling you is different.”
“Why?”
“Why did I tell you, or why is telling you different?”
“Both.”
“You always say both!”
“I always want to know as much as possible.”
“So do I. Tell me his name, Amanda.”
We’re at a standoff. I crack first. And that’s okay, because relationship negotiations are different from business negotiations. In business, if you crack first, you lose.
In relationships, if you don’t crack first, you lose out on sex.
I hate losing.
“I told you because it felt dishonest not to.”
She just nods.
“And telling you is different from telling Shannon because she doesn’t need to know.”
“And I do?”
“I think so. Otherwise, there’s too much power to the information.”
“Did you love her?”
“Hell, no!”
“She was just a fling?”
“It was high school. She was a schemer then, just like she is now. Our parents were in the same circles.”
“And she’s easy on the eyes.”
“No.” My answer precedes thought. “She’s not. Not anymore.”
“She’s gorgeous, Andrew. Don’t patronize me.”
“I’m not. Swear.”
“But back then?”
“Back then I thought that surface looks were a clue to the inside of people. Before I learned better.” I reach over and stroke her cheek with the back of my hand.
She falters. “Am I supposed to be flattered by that?”
I chuckle. “You’re beautiful inside and out. Jessica is a Barbie doll on the outside, and nothing but molded fakery on the inside.”
“Why did you break up with her?”
“Tell me his name.”
She dips her head and smiles. “Al Barkin. Senior year of high school. Prom night. We were in school band together. Clichéd, I know.”
I can’t breathe for a moment. Amanda’s look says, I showed you mine. Show me yours.
My turn. “I dumped her because she went after Declan.”
“And that,” Amanda says in an arch tone, “is why Shannon can’t know any of this. Wow. Jessica tried to date Declan while she was your girlfriend?”
“Ambition. Why date a Milton guy when he had a Harvard brother?”
Amanda frowns, the skin between her eye crinkling, the expression adorable. “Your junior year. That was Declan’s freshman year?”
I know where she’s going with this.
“Yes.”
“Right after your mother died.”
“About six months later, yes.”
“That sleazy little psycho bitch.”
“Don’t hold back, honey. Tell me how you really feel.”