You First: A Joe Goldberg Prequel (You, #0)(61)

I was wrong. I am a person. You do love me. And God bless Sex and the Motherfucking City. God bless Dick.

“I missed you, Cusack.”

“Me too.”

“Ahem.”

I put you down and uh-oh…It’s Vagina. You mad dog her in a way that proves Dick is a genius. The jealousy trap…It worked. I make introductions. Short and sweet. Vagina, Vail. Vail, Vagina.

“Huh,” you say. “I didn’t realize there were two of you on the floor.”

That sound in your voice, that heat in it, you don’t just like me. You need me. I did make you come. “Yeah,” I say. “Mr. Mooney wants two of us because of shoplifters and stuff.”

“Aw,” Vagina coos. “Am I your little secret, Joey?”

You didn’t just not like that. You fucking hated it and you might haul off and smack her. The look on your face—Carrie Bradshaw would never—and you take a deep breath like an orderly is coming at you with a syringe. “Quite a dress,” you say. “It’s so rare that you see an LBD in the middle of the day.”

Vagina pulls at her spaghetti straps and touches her body all over, and I wonder if you’re going to kill her. “I know, right? Poor Joey, though, it is a bit distracting….”

Your body is trembling, and you don’t blame me, you blame her. I didn’t know a jealousy trap would work, let alone work like this and the bookstore is a boxing ring and it’s the best day of my life. You two spar. A verbal catfight, a duel between two women gunning for me and my Portnoy, and the digs just keep coming. Vagina says your boots are cute and look so, so comfortable and you say that when you worked in retail you never wore stilettos and Vagina says she’s a dancer so she’s used to being elegant in heels and you say it’s a shame that dancing alone doesn’t pay the bills—meow—and she says that you have a little spinach in your teeth and you say you didn’t eat any spinach today and she says it must have been something you ate last night, as if you don’t brush your fucking teeth and I wish I had this on tape, Vail.

You sigh. She sighs.

She picks up the cup of coffee that you brought for me and oh boy, oh shit. That’s an illegal hit. She sips your coffee, and she’s the trampy younger barmaid who had eyes for Aidan and you are the calm, cool, semi-collected Carrie. But then she spits that coffee out and wipes her full glossy lips with the back of her hand. “Ew.”

I hope you don’t kill her, Vail. I don’t want to visit you in prison.

Vagina shudders and hands me the coffee as if sipping from this cup won’t get me killed. “Fair warning, babe…” Suddenly, I am babe. “Your little friend forgot the Equal.”

You huff, and you puff, and you blow her house down. “Joe hates Equal.”

Vagina fixes her eyes on me like you’re some idiot customer. She says it’s adorable that I didn’t mention I was dating anyone and you say that I’m a classic gentleman who didn’t want to make Vagina feel ill at ease. The two of you are going to cut me in half with your talons and your tongues, and I am home. This is home. I feel new pathways forming in my brain. I am loved. Treasured. Hunted. I had faith in Dick and Tom Cruise and I had faith in you, didn’t I, Vail? I wrap an arm around you—I can’t keep you in that jealousy trap forever—and you stroke my arm—you won this round, you did—and the doorbell chimes—it’s a customer—and Vagina leads the way to the front of the shop. I can feel you hating her for the way she feels up her hips to scratch a make-believe itch.

You elbow me. Whore.

I smile at you. Madonna.

The customer’s a browser and he doesn’t want our help, and Vagina grabs the Voice and rolls it up and smacks my ass.

Again, you might kill her. Again, I dread the idea of you in a cage.

Vagina tries to make you jealous. She talks about our day, how she was helping me look at apartments. You are so green, so flustered and is that…Is that smoke steaming out of your nostrils?

She looks at me, not you. “You gotta see this place I found in the Voice.”

I’ve never seen you like this, Vail. Reduced to little noises. High-pitched yelps that reveal how much you missed me, how much you want me. “Whoa,” you say. “The Voice…Old-school.”

Vagina looks at me like it’s us against you. “Aw,” she says. “It’s the only way to find a good place in this city.”

“Huh,” you say. “I actually do better with Craigslist. That’s where I found Joe. Right, babe?”

And just like that, we’re back.





21


I didn’t think it would happen this fast, but that’s life. That’s magic. We’re a thing. An item. Carrie and Big in the sweet spot, after the second breakup when he cooks veal for her. Steve and Miranda and the night of the full moon. Joe and Vail holding hands as they walk down Broadway after yet another delicious date night. We climb the six floors to our abode—I mean, I’ve slept here four nights this week; it is ours—and love happens fast. Habits too. When we climb your stairs, I cup my hands on your bouncy J.Lo peaches. It’s our thing, and you get a kick out of it, to say the least. Last night, you said you wish it was a twelve-floor walk-up, and I kept my mouth shut, but there it fucking is.

Love is wanting a steep, tedious climb to last a little longer.