I glance up at the gleaming building, trying to see which unit is hers.
“They’re not done,” he says, reading my mind. He breathes into his fists and scowls.
“Here,” he says, nodding across the street. It’s a delivery entrance with a glorious recess and nice thick walls to block the wind. There are even stairs on a stoop.
Without hesitation we run-waddle and sit side by side, huddling close. “We had an open relationship because she wanted one,” he says. “It wasn’t working. So we broke up.”
I’m doubled over with my hands shoved in my pockets, and my breath warms my knees. “I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“No, I’m not.”
“We were together for two years,” he says. “Living together for six months. She didn’t tell me she applied to the Peace Corps. Meanwhile, I thought we only had to navigate grad school.”
It takes me everything not to ask where she applied.
“Instead she told me she was going to Peru for two years.”
“Jesus.”
“She slept with some rando a few months ago, but we talked about it like adults. We said we’d try an open relationship, and that’s when I met you.”
I tilt my head to look at him. He’s hunched over too, with his head turned toward me, temple to knees. It’s strangely intimate. Like we’re in a blanket fort.
“But then why break up?”
He sighs as he grinds the sockets of his eyes into his kneecaps. “Because I’m not built for this. I tried it. I did all that Tinder shit. Raya. Bumble. Whatever the fuck, Hinge. I thought maybe it was a good idea. I’ve had a girlfriend from the time I was fifteen. It’s like in high school, Asian dudes were one thing, but a decade later it’s like suddenly we’re all hot. It was ridiculous. I felt like such a trope, like one of those tech bros who gets all cut up and gets Lasik and acts like a totally different person. At first it was a laugh. I liked meeting all these people that I’d otherwise never know. Especially in New York. But having sex with strangers is fucking weird. I think I hate it.”
Recognition knocks at my heart.
“I felt so fucking emo.” His shoulders shake a little as he chuckles. “Like, I was getting offended that no one seemed to want to be friends with me.”
I can’t stop a tiny, sympathetic whine from escaping. I clear my throat. Fuck, he’s cute.
“It all started to blend together. The drinking, partying, random hook-ups. The shit freaked me out. When you’re fucked up, you’re not always as careful as you need to be. I started to get tested for STDs, like, every other day because I’m a total fucking hypochondriac and the anxiety was making me nuts.”
“Are you okay now?” Reluctant compassion wells squishily in my chest.
He nods. “When I saw you in the bar, man, it made me happy. I wanted someone to talk to, to just spend time with. You seemed a little messy, but the last thing I expected was that we’d hook up. Look, I’ve met girls like you. Shit, I’ve been curved by girls like you. And honestly, and I don’t know if this is fucked up, but you ask me to meet you at a hipster dive bar, high-key looking like the type of Asian fashion chick who drinks bubble tea but only dates white photographers who speak conversational Japanese, so I had zero expectations.”
I sit up. “What the fuck?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know, Jayne. But, that’s the vibe. Like, how many Asian guys have you dated?”
Malcolm Ito.
“I haven’t even…” I’m embarrassed to continue, but I hate that he’s turned it around like this. “I haven’t even had a real boyfriend.”
“But you’ve hooked up with guys?”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“Well…” I scoff. I glance across the street. I stare at the pavement, disappearing into myself. I wonder if he’s going to ask if I’m obsessed with white-people things.
“Shit,” he says after a while. He rubs his palms on his denim-clad legs, sighs, and then turns to me. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” I wonder if I go sufficiently dead inside whether I’ll feel the cold.
“I sound psychotic,” he says.
I can’t bring myself to meet his gaze. “What do you want, Patrick?” Jesus, men are exhausting. “You’re the one with a girlfriend.”
“I know.”
“And you’re cross-examining me about my choices.”
“I’m just trying to figure you out,” he says. “And it’s going very poorly. God, I sound like some asshole ajusshi.”
“Yeah, you’re not coming off great right now.”
“Fuck.”
Finally, I turn to him. “I wish you’d have just told me about her.”
“Same,” he says. “Hard same. But again…” He smiles ruefully. “Deadass I couldn’t tell if you’d care. Your whole thing about being fun and effervescent convinced me, until you effervesced all over the place and shit got dark so fast.”
I laugh despite myself. He’s not wrong. I finally see how wounded he appears. How bloodshot his eyes are. It’s clear to me now how much he looks like someone going through a breakup.
“Man.” I let out a sigh. “You’re kind of a fuckboy.”
He grins. “Fair.”
We sit for a while. I nudge his shoulder with mine. “Yeah, well.” I sigh, my breath misting the air in front of me. “I started hooking up with this grifter who moved into my apartment, and he fucked a whole bunch of other people right in my bedroom while I slept on the couch. So…”
I feel him shift beside me. “Jesus. Guess you’d know a fuckboy when you see one,” he says.
“I’m like a truffle pig for fuckboys.”
He throws his head back and laughs. “You know what?” he says, getting to his feet, shaking his hair, and blowing air out through pursed lips. I look up at him.
He crouches in front of me and whispers close to my face, “I like you a lot, but it’s freezing.”
“This is dumb, right?”
“Want to come over?”
I nod, teeth chattering.
chapter 43
When our car arrives, Patrick wraps his arm around me in the back seat. I’m exhausted. I wonder if it’s hyperthermia setting in. He reaches for my hand as we climb his stairs.
“I feel like, from a medical standpoint,” he says, opening the door, “we need to swaddle ourselves in as many blankets as possible.”
He hands me the fuzzy slippers I wore last time. I nod in gratitude. I’m so cold that the pressure from my skull defrosting is a vice grip around my sinuses.
“But I think I need a shower.” He takes his jacket off and hangs it up. “I just washed my sheets.”
“Yeah, me too,” I croak, reluctantly removing my coat. “It’s like people who wear their shoes indoors. Or sit on beds in jeans. Gross.”
Patrick yawns, leaning against his kitchen counter.
I nod, helplessly yawning back.
“You go first.” He washes his hands and fills up his teakettle.
I realize I’m crowding him, huddling close for warmth. “No, you go ahead.”