My Favorite Sin

by Lina Langley

  “Because you wanted to bribe him.”

  “Yes,” I reply. “At least that’s what he said. I was trying to put some money toward his bail.”

  I think he’s trying not to laugh when he answers.

  I shift my weight again. “I know that’s not how it works,” I say. “At least I know that now.”

  “Still,” he says. “You weren’t to know.”

  “I didn’t know. They threw me in the drunk tank with him, and then the officer wanted to know whether I wanted to stay with him or leave.”

  Lawrence nods, saying nothing.

  “I… couldn’t really stay there for any longer,” I say. “I knew I needed to call someone, but Montgomery was upset.”

  “We’re driving farther away from my place. I crane my neck to look at my apartment complex. “Where are we going?”

  “For food,” he says. “My mother always said food made people feel better and she was rarely wrong.”

  I blink. “You’re buying me dinner?”

  “Yes,” he replies. “And then I’ll drop you off at home. Is that okay? I should have asked you first, but I think you could do with a friendly conversation away from what’s causing you pain right now.”

  I nod. “Montgomery isn’t causing me pain,” I say, but I can’t help but notice I’m still nodding.

  “Yes, he is,” he said. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems clear to me that you’re feeling guilty about leaving.”

  “I just… I didn’t want to make things worse for Montgomery. He was already in there, and I don’t know, I didn’t want to be the person who tried to help and then made things even harder for him. Which I suppose is probably a little selfish.”

  “Selfish,” Lawrence echoes.

  “I don’t know,” I say, shrugging my shoulders. “Maybe I should have just stayed there all night long. I think that might have helped him feel less lonely.”

  “But you were already there to help him,” he says. “You did everything that was in your power to do.”

  I shake my head. “No,” I say. “You’re wrong. Because I could have stayed and I would have made things easier for him.”

  He nods as he pulls into an on-street parking spot. He puts the car in park and kills the ignition. He only turns to look at me then. “Would that have made things easier for you?”

  I shrug my shoulders. “Does that make a difference?”

  He nods. “Absolutely,” he says. “It’s okay for you to try and make yourself happy too, Alejandro. It doesn’t make you any less of a good person.”

  I lick my lips. “Maybe,” I say, swallowing. “I… want to tell you something, but I think it’s going to make you judge me hardcore.”

  He grins at me. “And what makes you think I’m not already judging you?”

  My eyes widen, and then, when I see the glimmer in his eyes, I crack a smile. He’s rarely playful and it always takes me by surprise. I shake my head and extend my hands, admitting defeat. The playful jab is right. He has already picked me up from the police station. I’ve already made a fool of myself. “I’m honestly worried about how he’s going to react later on,” I say. “I mean, I’m still going to have to live with him. At least for a few months.”

  He nods. “I understand,” he says. “He was upset when you left?”

  “No… not when I left,” I reply, furrowing my brow. “Well, upset yet, but he wasn’t angry. He was sort of sad, I guess? He was telling me I was the only person he could call.”

  He nods. “You need to have a conversation with him,” he says. “But I’m certain he’ll feel better about it all in the morning. Once his hangover passes.”

  I swallow and rub my temple. I’m getting a headache just thinking about this. “I don’t think I want to be there in the morning,” I say.

  He smiles at me. “That doesn’t surprise me,” he replies. “Come on. Let’s go eat.”

  CONTINUE

  I guess I didn’t realize how hungry I was, because I’m eating a lot while Lawrence is watching me with a little smile on his face. I don’t know if it means anything, but it feels like it might. Any other time, I think it would make me uncomfortable. Right now, there’s something nice about this, almost comforting.

  The food is bad and delicious. Lawrence is eating a chicken salad with some sort of berries, something I think I should be opposed to on principle. He’s eating slowly, deliberately. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him eat before.

  He grabs his water—with lime, no ice—and takes a long sip. He puts it down in front of him and smiles. “Are you feeling any better?”

  I put my fork down on my pancakes and smile back at him. “Yes,” I say. “You were right.”

  He wrinkles his nose. “Yeah, I find that to be quite common.”

  I don’t know whether to laugh until he starts laughing himself. That’s when I crack a smile. “You were joking.”

  “I do that sometimes,” he says.

  I shake my head, and he tilts his. His eyes narrow slightly before he speaks again. “You don’t like it?”

  “Actually,” I say, biting my lower lip. “I like it a lot. You don’t really joke that much, do you?”

  “Not when it’s inappropriate,” he says. He takes another bite off his fork and then he puts it down. I stare at him for a few seconds. “I don’t normally eat after nine o’clock. I can have this for lunch tomorrow.”

  I raise my eyebrows and he smiles.

  “Not that I owe you an explanation, but even running five miles a day can’t combat age,” he says.

  “I think you look great,” I hear myself say.

  He raises his eyebrows, and for a second, I think he’s blushing. But I can’t be sure—I can never be sure with him, because he’s so inscrutable.

  “I—shit, I’m sorry,” I say, more to myself than to him.

  “For paying me a compliment?” he replies, raising his eyebrows. “Yes, you should be.”

  I shake my head, my cheeks so hot they burn. “I mean, for, uh, making things awkward.”

  He wrinkles his nose. “You didn’t,” he says. “You hadn’t. Except maybe for yourself.”

  I lick my lips. I definitely did make things awkward for myself. I take a sip of my water and continue to try and avoid his gaze. I don’t know why I insist on making a fool of myself.

  “It’s okay,” he says. “It’s not a big deal.”

  I nod, but I disagree. It definitely feels like a big deal to me. Maybe he just doesn’t get why it’s such a big deal, but I can’t escape it. I can’t escape feeling like I’ve disappointed him, like me calling him to get me out of the drunk tank was the death knell on what felt like an important relationship. I straighten up and clear my throat. “Thank you,” I say. “Again.”

  He regards me for what seems like a very long time. “You know,” he says. “You don’t have to thank people for being decent.”

  I shake my head. “You weren’t being decent,” I say. “You went out of your way to help me out, which wasn’t necessary.”

  He raises his eyebrows, which are perfectly arched. “I disagree,” he says. “You called me for a reason. It was certainly necessary that I come get you.”

  I smile at him. He always makes me feel like everything is going to be okay, no matter what has just happened. I take a deep breath. I know that after this meal, he’s going to drive me home and then I will only see him again a couple of times before I go.

  If I go.

  Just thinking about this is making me feel nauseous again. He furrows his brow. “Are you okay?”

  I shrug my shoulders. “Yeah, I guess,” I say. “I’m just still uncertain over what I’m supposed to do with my future.”

  He flashes me a smile, his eyes sparkling. They have little grey specks in them. I’ve never been able to see them before, because the light in his office isn’t good enough, but his eyes are gorgeous. He is gorgeous. I can see why Cyrus calls him Dr. Hottie. There’s a big part of me that just wants to sit here an
d continue looking at him until the sun comes up, but I don’t want to take up any more of his time than I already have. I already feel like I’ve been acting so gross and entitled.

  “I’m going to tell you a secret,” he says.

  I cock my head, waiting for him to reveal something incredible to me. “Okay,” I say, my mouth dry.

  “Everyone is uncertain about the future,” he says. “And you don’t have to make a decision on anything yet.”

  I sigh, my shoulders slumping forward. “You keep saying that, but I don’t know if it’s true,” I say. “I mean, not making a choice is technically a choice, right?”

  He watches me, his eyes wide. He takes another sip from his drink. “There is something I’d like to show you,” he says. “But it would require us to go back to my place. I hope that’s not too weird for you.”

  I shake my head. “No,” I say.

  He nods. “Okay, I understand—”

  “No,” I say. “I mean, that’s okay. I meant that it wasn’t weird for me.”

  He smiles. “Okay,” he says. “If you’re sure.”

  I nod, smiling back at him. I can feel my heart jumping in my chest. “Yes,” I reply. “I’m definitely sure.”

  CONTINUE

  He lives over the bridge. I’ve never asked him where he lives before because it seemed completely irrelevant, but most people who work on the island live on the island, so it surprises me. I don’t say anything about it, not even as he turns left and goes into a small forested area. The area feels remote, even though we can still hear cars on the road nearby.

  He pulls into another small road off the side. There are no street lights here, and if I was with anyone else, I would think this was creepy. But it’s not, because I’m with Lawrence, and there’s something calming about his presence.

  The headlights show Lawrence’s house. It’s large and beautiful, all dark green outside. It looks like something from a movie set. He turns to me and smiles. “You like it?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Wait until you see the inside,” he replies. He kills the ignition. “Wait where you are. This place gets dark at night, and you have to know how to get to the house, otherwise, you get lost. Or you run into animals.”

  “There are wild animals here?”

  He nods. “You know,” he says. “The standard. Snakes, mostly.”

  “Snakes?” I say, looking down at the overgrown grass. I don’t want any part of that.

  “Don’t worry,” he says. He leans toward the passenger door. I think he’s going to touch me, but instead, he opens the glove compartment. He retrieves a huge flashlight and smiles at me. “I always keep this on me. It’s big enough to fight them off, y’know, if I needed to.”

  “Could you fight a snake off with a flashlight?”

  He nods. “Sure,” he says. “I’ve never had to before, but…”

  “But you might give me a show today?”

  “You know it,” he says. “Wait here.”

  He walks out of the car then waits next to the passenger door. There’s a part of me that wishes he would extend his hand and help me out here, but mostly, I’m just glad he’s there, with his flashlight pointing toward the house. It’s only a few feet away, but there might as well be an obstacle course between us and the door. He starts walking slowly and I follow behind him, so close I can smell his cologne. I didn’t even realize he was wearing it before, but it’s woody and clean, and I want to get close to him and smell his clothes.

  Not that I would. I’m not weird.

  That weird.

  It doesn’t take long for us to get into his house. The outside of the house might have looked like something from a movie, but the inside looks like something from a fairytale. Half the walls aren’t even walls, they’re windows. Even the ceiling looks like it’s made of glass.

  Next to the wall, everything is wood-paneled, and there are bookshelves full of books. They’re everywhere. I have no idea how Lawrence has managed to read so many books in his life.

  “You can sit anywhere,” Lawrence says.

  I never even thought about siting. “I… wow,” I say.

  Lawrence smiles. “You like it?”

  “Yes,” I say, looking around. “This is very you.”

  That makes him laugh, but there’s something quiet about the way he’s laughing, subdued. “Yes,” he says. “I suppose it is. Considering I live alone, that’s hardly a surprise. You can have a look at the books while I get what I came here for. How does that sound?”

  “Good,” I reply. I definitely don’t want to sit down when there is so much to discover here. I think I practically run toward one of the bookshelves. All the books are pristine and very old. I take one out, trace my fingers over the golden spine, and then open it. It smells like it’s old. The print edition page says that it’s from 1913, and I’m too scared to flip the flimsy pages. I put it back and do the same with a different book, which is even older. I wouldn’t read these—because I would be too scared of hurting them—but I think I could spend all night here, smelling their pages, tracing my fingers on the covers.

  I hear Lawrence laughs when he comes back. “Are you having a good time?”

  I put the book I’m looking at back, my face red. “Uh, yeah,” I say. “A great time.”

  “Good,” he replies. He sits down on a sectional facing the bookshelves and it’s only then that I realize there’s a television mounted over the fireplace.

  “I could write poetry about your house,” I say, more to myself than to him.

  He smiles. “Please do,” he says. “I would love to read that.”

  I shake my head. “It’s lovely.”

  His smile widens. There’s something about his expression that I can’t quite place, but I don’t have time to ask. He looks down at the binder on his lap. “This is what I wanted to show you,” he says.

  I furrow my brow. “What is it?”

  “A photo album,” he says. He opens the album. The first photo is a picture of a young man who looks slightly familiar, with dark curls that go all the way to his shoulders. His eyes are wide and he’s smiling. There’s a headband pushing his hair back and little beads of sweat covering his skin. He’s not wearing a shirt. It takes me forever to recognize him. “That’s… you?”

  “Yes,” he says. “I think I was… two years younger than you here?”

  I look at him.

  “After the girl I decided not to go to seminary for dumped me, I was certain I’d made a mistake by not going,” he says. “I thought I had wasted a year of my life doing something pointless. I was brokenhearted, of course, but too young and proud to admit it even to myself.”

  I continue to watch him as he starts flipping through the pages. It’s hard to reconcile the man that’s sitting in front of me with the one in the pictures, but he does still have the same glint in his eyes.

  “So I thought I would go abroad and do missionary work there,” he says. “Except I wasn’t actually qualified to do any of that and I wanted to go as soon as humanly possible. I didn’t want to wait. Truthfully, I wanted to run away from my feelings.”

  “From your ex-girlfriend?”

  He shrugs. “I suppose so, but it wasn’t just about her,” he says. “It was about me being certain that I’d made the wrong choice. I didn’t want to be around all the reminders of my poor choices. I scraped some money together and left.”

  “You left?”

  “Yes,” he says as he starts flipping through the album. “See this? That’s me in China.”

  “Wow,” I reply.

  He keeps flipping through the album. “And that’s Japan,” he says. “And that’s Korea, and that’s Thailand, and that’s France.”

  “France?”

  “Long story,” he says. “Beautiful country.”

  “Right,” I reply as I continue to look at his pictures. He looks so happy in all of them, so carefree. I don’t think it looks like he’s trying to outrun anything. There is one
person that’s in most of them with them, a guy about his age. I can’t tell where he’s from, but he seemed to have appeared in Japan. He’s pale, with black hair and high cheekbones, and sort of looks like he could be a fashion model. “Who is that?”

  “Oh, my boyfriend at the time,” he says, flipping the page again. “His name was Asahi. He was great. Here we are in India…”

  He keeps talking, but I don’t hear him anymore. I feel like the ground has just been taken from under me and like everything I know about Lawrence was wrong. I knew he was married, I knew he loved his wife, and I always knew I had no chance with him.

  I know I shouldn’t act like him dating a guy is a big deal. It’s clearly not a big deal to him, considering how he just told me that. It feels like it’s completely changed my perception of him, however. He stops flipping through pages and looks at me. “Alejandro,” he says softly. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  He raises his eyebrows. His perfectly arched eyebrows, fuck, do people just become sexier when you find out they’re bisexual or something? “Are you sure?”

  “I just…” I say. “I didn’t realize you were into guys, too.”

  He’s about to say something, but I wave my hand in front of my face. “No, you don’t have to say anything,” I say. “Like, I wasn’t trying to make that about me. I think I just have to process it.”

  He smiles, a glint in his eyes. “Alejandro,” he says, closing the photo album. “How much do you think you know about me?”

  I stare at him, then lick my lips. “Not much anymore, I guess?”

  He laughs. “How much did you think you knew already?”

  I look down, my heart beating fast. I feel like an entitled dick now. “I don’t know,” I say. “I never realized just how much we talk about me. Because that’s your job, I guess.”

  He nods. “It is,” he says.

  “And that’s why I’m here,” I say, my heart sinking. When I speak again, I do it in a whisper. “Because… because that’s your job.”