You First: A Joe Goldberg Prequel (You, #0)(21)

“I told you what happened.”

“Sure, but I mean it when I say it. I’m a visual person. I read into things. I’m sitting there done up like a wannabe Carrie Bradshaw.”

“You looked beautiful.”

“The point is I make this big, pathetic attempt to look sexy and…”

“And you are sexy.”

Your pupils widen, maybe, and is it really that easy to make a girl happy? “Look,” you say. “I know it was weird, the way I’m like, ‘Yeah, barista, come join our party.’?”

Incorrect. We joined his party. “Yeah, kinda weird.”

“But now is now, right?”

“Now is now.”

“And that’s me…. I got nervous and insecure when you wore that flannel. And when I feel rejected, I can be a little…I mean, you have to know I don’t like that guy like that. That whole me-me-me gym rat with a dream thing is just plain not my jam.”

“Well, it’s not not nice to hear you say that.”

We’re getting there, and you smile. “Good,” you say. “Because all that was…I got nervous. Just like you. Just like everybody in this city, in this world. I mean, that’s everyone. And in this case…I was terrible, and I’m sorry. I suck.”

Not according to Mooney, and I like you like this, scared and caring, picking at the dinner mint stuck on your credit card. I take the card. I run it, and Bob Dylan starts moaning again. The air is shifting. Lightening.

You grin. “Wait,” you say. “Are you…Is this on repeat right now?”

I could tell you the CD player is broken. But there’s no need. Everyone poops, and I’m actually not a loser, baby. I’m the guy standing here with you. “It sure fucking is, Sitcom.”

You run your fingers through your hair. “So, when do you get off?”

GET OFF. Let a woman be a woman and a man be a man.

This is it. Serendipity redux. Fuck everything else. “In about five minutes.”

You lick your lips. “Well, Cynthia’s on a bender.”

“You don’t say.”

“And that means my place is all mine. And…it’s silly, but it’s Sunday, and we’re back tonight, the show, and I kinda like the idea of starting a new season with you.”

I want a new life with you and I am in, but then a call from the back, from the darkness that wants to keep me in my place, the one that doesn’t feel like mine, not anymore now that you’re here again. A voice I can’t ignore.

“Joseph!”





8


The whole time I was in Mooney’s office defending you and your scatological children’s book and promising to deal with Angus, I was only half there. Mostly I was watching the little TV, the security camera footage. The Dylan was still on, faint, and there you were checking your makeup in a little mirror, nervously facing the possibility of a lonesome night without me.

I needed that, Vail. A sneak peek at you in your own torture chamber. And we did it!

I got out of work, as promised, and we’re on the street. Arms linked. Heading north to Serendipity, to frozen hot chocolate…sex. I feel calmer. No more manic Moleskining in my journal like a reporter. We know each other a little better now, and it feels different. Like I was right to be so down because now I am so up.

“And that’s another thing,” you say, still grinding about my bossy boss. “Even the way he says your name. Joseph. Such an asshole, and I’m so glad you got outta there.”

I don’t like it when you call him an asshole, but I like your hot pink bra straps. The ones from the night we didn’t make it to Serendipity. You came here to start over. Same outfit, less makeup. “Best part is, Vail…I’m not Joseph. On my birth certificate, it’s plain old Joe.”

You swing my hand and smile. “My middle name is Colorado because I was conceived—”

“In Vail, Colorado.”

The sense of getting closer as you effusively lament your behavior in India. You’re at your worst with that barista because he reminds you of your parents, who are always going on about some fucking trip. I quote my favorite line about traveling to San Francisco from A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and you hold my hand so hard it might break.

“I might have to read that, Joe.”

“Oh no you will not. And there’s no shame, Vail. Everyone poops.”

You squeeze my hand even harder. “You know, Joe, the way you put out the fire with your boss, how you’re so fast on your feet…” Your voice trails off, and I know where you’re going, where you want us to be, and you’re right. I will be a really good husband, and you will want to pull on my hair while I fuck you.

And then you blurt, “You’d be a really good assistant. You totally have what it takes.”

I know you mean that as a compliment, but that’s what you do. Not me. Gently, Joseph, and I force a fake smile. “Thanks.”

Silence. Tension. Seren-DO-ME-IN-HOT-CHOCOLATE-AND-CALL-IT-A-LIFE.

“So how long have you worked in that bookstore? It’s so depressing. The angry guy, the hours—I don’t know how you do it.”

“A few years.”

“And how did you meet the old man?”