You First: A Joe Goldberg Prequel (You, #0)(62)

We’re like a little fucked-up family. I love it when Cynthia comes in smelling like a Long Island iced tea and groans. Just what I need…the happiest couple on planet effing Earth. You love it too, the way you kiss the back of my neck and remind me to lock the bathroom door because of her. Last night, she was drunk, whining. I love you guys, but do you always have to be so effing happy? Why don’t you have a big brother for me? You whispered in my ear: There could never be another you. They broke the mold with you, babe. And you’re breaking it again, making me into the man I am meant to fucking be. You possess me. You hate the idea of any other woman seeing me. You Carrie me to Big new places with your smile, with your Gollumy little scowl when my phone rings, when I slip out of the room to take a call.

It’s equal parts you want me and you want everyone else to stay the fuck away.

I come back and you run your fingers through my hair. So much is so good. You know what to do with your eyes now. You are free to stare at me, to take me in.

“So who was that?” you ask.

I hold your eyes. You are mine. “That was Virginia.”

You make like a cat and hiss, and it’s fun having a girlfriend! That’s what you are. I mean, I assume that’s what you are. Do I have to ask you to go steady? Do people do that? No. I don’t need to do that. I kiss the side of your thumb, one of your many oddly erogenous zones. “Relax, Vail. She was just calling in sick.”

“What did we say about that word, Joe….”

I like the way you help me about stuff like that. Girls don’t like to be told to relax, but I only do it to get a rise out of you…which gets a rise out of me. And it’s not just the sex. It’s this too. You fit in my arms. We go together, like lovers in a movie poster, all wrapped up for consumption. I’ve never had that with anyone, and you haven’t either.

I wasn’t “eavesdropping.” It’s a small apartment and Cynthia is loud.

You snap a picture of me with one of your disposable cameras—you’re obsessed—and I tell you I’m gonna take that fucking camera and it’s on. I chase you around your tiny little apartment and you squeal and gurgle and Cynthia says she’s going to jump out the window if we don’t stop being so cute (ha!) and you lead me back to your just Big enough bed.

I pin you down. You are breathless. We don’t need that stupid camera, not now.

After the second fuck of the morning, we hop in the shower—we shower together—and you get down on your knees—you really can’t get enough of me. Then I cook a mini-breakfast for you and Cynthia—I am better than Big; I am me—and your bare feet feel good on my lap, like a pet I never had.

Cynthia pushes her eggs into the ketchup. “So do you have any friends, Joe?”

I don’t like that and I don’t like her. “My best friend Jeremy just moved to San Francisco.”

You choke a little and pet my arm and now I am the pet. “Babe, she just means anyone you could fix her up with.”

I’m not gonna go exposing Cynthia to Dick and Schlitz. Our life is good the way it is, with boundaries like those TV dinner plates where the mashed potatoes don’t touch the meat.

“All right,” you say. You wiggle your toes. I squeeze all eleven of them. God, it’s so easy with you. “Shall we?”

“We shall!”

Off we go, leaving Cynthia and your cabinets full of SnackWell’s. We get dressed for the day—I’m done with white button-downs, you like me in sweaters—and I help you into your cape and you smile at me for no reason.

“You know she didn’t mean anything by that, right? I mean, she’s just lonely.”

Amazing that you think I care about your roommate, who, as you say, is not even your true friend. And I smile. Because that’s all I do now…smile. “Oh, man,” you say. “This nonstop happy thing, right? I’m so fucking cheesy that I might…”

“Might what?”

You smack my ass and wink. “Maybe later.”

You lead the way down the stairs as I lay my hands on your shoulders and you call it the magic touch. I know it’s true because you know everything about everything. You knew to trust Craig and his list—we are sending that man a fruit basket—and he hasn’t come through for us just yet, but we will find a new home for me…a home that we both know just might be for us.

On the street, we linger, and we kiss like those couples I used to want to kill.

“I’ll miss you,” you say.

“Me too.”

We are gooey as fucking teenagers, me, the kid I never got to be when I was young, and you, the girl you didn’t think you could be until me. “I can’t do it, Joe.”

Same thing every day. You won’t leave me, and I can’t bear to leave you. “I know.”

You shiver and glisten and there’s no such thing as moving too fast, not when it’s like this, when it’s right. You breathe in my scent. “Okay,” you say. “You first.”

As the man, it’s on me to walk away, to let you stand there and watch me and worry about all the Vaginas in the city that might pull me away. But that’s where I come in. I look back to show you that I care. You bite your little lips that feel so good on my Portnoy, and that’s all you need. A look. A wave. A promise.