My Favorite Sin

by Lina Langley

  “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.”

  I need to go home. I don’t know if it’s Lawrence revealing his sexual preferences to me or if it’s the realization that despite that, there is no chance for us, but I suddenly feel like I’m going to throw up. Maybe it’s because of everything else that’s going on in my life, but it makes sense to me that the only person who remains in my life is the one who is being paid for him.

  I need to get out of here. I can’t be around him anymore. I need

  I can’t feel like a charity case. Everything he has done for me has just happened because he has been paid to do it for me. Including picking me up from the drunk tank.

  I wasn’t wrong. I did make a fool out of myself, just like I feared I would have. I should have just stayed at home licking my wounds. I’m about to excuse myself and ask for the bathroom when I notice he’s staring at me.

  “I think we need to talk about this,” he says.

  I shake my head, looking away from him. “No,” I reply. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  He sighs. “Will you just hear me out?” he asks. “And then, if you decide to leave after that, you absolutely can. I just don’t think that you will.”

  I bite my lower lip. I don’t want to say anything to him, partly because I think there’s nothing he can say to me that is going to make this feel okay. But there’s no way for me to leave now, not without being rude.

  He sighs again and rubs the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry,” he says. “It was never my intention to make you feel trapped. Would you like me to drive you home?”

  “No,” I say. “That won’t be necessary.”

  I have to stay and hear him out. He has helped me so much already, it would be the height of rudeness of me to tell him to drive me home. I don’t even think I could take being in the car at the same time as he is, because I wouldn’t even know how to speak to him.

  “Are you sure?”

  I nod. “Yes,” I say. “If you want to talk then just… talk.”

  CONTINUE

  “This isn’t just for my job,” he says. He puts the photo album on the coffee table in front of us. “I could have just told you about this at the restaurant, after all.”

  “I know,” I reply.

  “But I didn’t want to do that,” he says. “I guess I just wanted you to see that it’s possible to be happy even if you don’t make the right decision right now. Things seem to be in flux for you and I… I don’t know, maybe this was misguided, but I wanted you to see you weren’t alone.”

  I nod, swallowing down the knot in my throat. I don’t look at him when I speak. “Is that why you wanted me to see your ex-boyfriend?”

  “Honestly? Yes,” he says quietly. “And I know that probably wasn’t the wisest idea I’ve ever had, but I needed to show you that—”

  “That you were into guys?” I ask, regretting it immediately. I shouldn’t have asked that so bluntly when he’s clearly struggling here. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I need to chill the fuck out. He hasn’t done anything to me and there’s no reason for me to act like he has.

  “I… guess,” he says. He’s quiet for so long that I open my eyes again and set my gaze on him. “But maybe you’re right.”

  “Right about what?”

  He furrows his brow. “Nothing.”

  “Oh, c’mon,” I say. “I’m already here. The least you can do is talk to me.”

  He nods. “I suppose that’s true,” he says. “I don’t know. I guess I haven’t said it aloud for so long… I thought you would understand, I guess.”

  I lick my lips and then shake my head. “Well, shit,” I said. “I ruined it, didn’t I?”

  He shakes his head, his brow furrowed. “No,” he says. “You didn’t ruin it at all. But I fear I might have overstepped your boundaries. I shouldn’t have done that…”

  I wait for him to say something else.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to add to your confusion.”

  I chuckle. “Don’t worry,” I say. “I was plenty confused already. You just…”

  You just what? You were bisexual so I thought maybe you were a possibility?

  “I just what?”

  I blink, saying nothing to him. I shouldn’t do this. Even as I approach him, I know this is a terrible idea, but it’s as if my body is the one driving me forward. My mind is on autopilot and there’s nothing I can do to stop myself.

  I suppose he could turn his face away, but he doesn’t. He stays where he is and he allows me to kiss him on the mouth, but he doesn’t kiss me back. I can feel his breath on my skin, the way his lips feel on my own.

  He’s so hot. He doesn’t seem to mind at all that I’m kissing him, he doesn’t pull away from me. There is a moment when I pull away from him and realize what I have just done. I feel like I can’t breathe. I want to apologize, but he doesn’t let me. He puts his hand behind my head and pulls me close to him so that we’re kissing again, but this time, he’s kissing me back, his tongue going into my mouth and warring with my own.

  My heart is beating really fast, especially when he moves away from me, a line of spit connecting our lips. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “I’m sorry—”

  “I’m sorry—”

  He holds up his hand. “There’s nothing for you to apologize for,” he says. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “I shouldn’t have kissed you,” I say.

  He nods. “You’re right,” he says. “But I shouldn’t have kissed you back.”

  I close my eyes and lean back on his sofa. He runs his hand through my hair, and his fingers are warm against my scalp. Despite myself—despite the fact that I know I shouldn’t do this and this is a bad idea—I lean into his touch and let out a deep sigh.

  “We can’t do this,” he says, his voice steady.

  I blink, not even looking at him. “Yeah,” I say. “I know.”

  I kiss him again before he can say anything else. I know we shouldn’t do this, but I don’t want to stop myself from doing it. I kiss him again, then move away from him, breathless. His mouth is half-open and he’s staring at me, saying nothing.

  “Is this about your friend?”

  “About which one?”

  He smiles. “Heartbreaker,” he says. This time, it’s him who initiates the kiss, his lips soft on mine. Then he moves away from me. “No,” he says. “I’m going to drive you home.”

  CONTINUE

  He doesn’t live far away from my house, but the drive feels eternal anyway. Putting my bike on the rack of his car is the worst part, because we have to work together but don’t speak at all other than about the bike.

  When I get into his car, neither one of us really says anything, not until he gets to my apartment complex. He doesn’t pull into the parking lot, he just parks on the street and puts his hazard lights on.

  I look at him, frowning. “What are you doing?”

  He looks me up and down. “Dropping you off.”

  “Right,” I say. I reach for the handle of the door to get out, but so
mething feels wrong about this. I don’t want to leave things like this. I just have no idea how to fix them. “I… thanks again, Lawrence. For everything.”

  He’s looking straight ahead, his hands still on the wheel. His jaw is clenched. “It’s fine,” he says. “It’s not a problem.”

  I take a deep breath. Fuck, I know I shouldn’t ask this, but it’s going to drive me crazy if I don’t. “What can I do?”

  He turns his head to look at me, his face expressionless. “What can you do regarding what?”

  I can’t look at his face when I answer. I focus on the buttons of his shirt, the way they bunch up the fabric on his chest. “What can I do to make things better between us?”

  He doesn’t answer for what feels like a very long. Then he puts a crooked finger under my chin and tilts my head up so I’m looking straight at him. His skin is electrifying on mine and I think I’m holding my breath. “You don’t have to fix this,” he says. “None of this is your responsibility.”

  “Lawrence—”

  “I need you to understand how serious I am about this,” he says, his eyes small and narrow. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to fix this. You’ve done absolutely nothing wrong.”

  I know that’s what he’s saying, but I don’t know if I should believe him. I feel like I was the one that made this happen. If I hadn’t called him when everything else in my life went up in flames, then maybe… this is my fault. This is all completely on me.

  He hasn’t removed his finger from my chin. He’s still holding me up and I’m staring at those wide blue eyes of his, sunlight shining on half his face. He’s very close to me, so close that I can see little bits of hair on his forehead, stubble he hasn’t taken care of yet today, the ridges and lines on his lips. I close my eyes, fully intending to move away from him, but it’s like my body has made a decision for me and I can’t stop myself from closing the space between us.

  I think about how bad this is for a millisecond, then lose myself in his lips. They’re firm and soft, and even though I’m not actively kissing him and he’s not kissing me back, this little bit of contact is enough to send electricity down my spine.

  It takes me a second to realize just how big a mistake I’ve made, my eyes wide, and I start to pull away from him. But I can’t before his mouth is on mine again, this time actually kissing me, deeply, passionately, until I’m breathless and all I can hear is my heartbeat.

  I pull away from him, panting, and open my eyes. He’s staring at me, his mouth half-open, his lips wet. “Fuck,” he says, more to himself than to me. “Fuck, I—”

  “I’m sorry, I—”

  He closes his eyes. “It’s okay,” he says. “You don’t have to be sorry. There’s… there’s no need for you to be sorry.”

  I have no reason to think he doesn’t mean what he’s saying, but I know that he’s wrong. There’s every reason for me to be sorry, including crossing a huge boundary. I wanted to fix things. I think all I’ve managed to do is make them worse.

  “Alejandro, I…”

  I don’t know if I can stay and have this conversation with him. My hand is already on the handle of the door and I’m ready to bolt, get back in my apartment and never reach out to him again. That’s what I’ve just done, I realize. I feel like I’m going to throw up. When he doesn’t say anything else, I open the door and start getting out of the car.

  “Wait,” he says.

  I can’t. I don’t know how to come back from this. I suppose I have to stay here and talk, since I was the one who fucked everything up.

  CONTINUE

  Fuck it. I was the one who made it weird between us and I’m the one who has to fix it. That was what I had indented to do before I managed to make everything worse. I swallow and look at him, the door still open. “What?”

  It sounds harsher than I want it to, to the point where he puts his head back on the headrest. “I owe you an apology.”

  “No, you don’t,” I say, so quickly my words are starting to merge into each other. “You didn’t do anything but sit there and be nice to me. I didn’t have to misinterpret it and make it weird.”

  He closes his eyes and exhales, his breath deep and shuddering. “You didn’t,” he says. “You didn’t misinterpret it. That’s why I wish you would stop apologizing.”

  I watch him, saying nothing.

  “You… you wouldn’t have thought that was appropriate if I hadn’t led you to believe that it was,” he says. “That’s on me.”

  I shake my head. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” I say. “Seriously. All you did was sit there.”

  He laughs, a little quietly. “I know you believe that,” he says. “And I want to believe it, but unfortunately, that isn’t the truth.”

  “Lawrence—”

  He swallows, holding his hand up before he speaks. “We shouldn’t see each other anymore,” he says. “I mean, uh, you shouldn’t come around my office.”

  “I wasn’t… so you can’t help me anymore?” I ask, and instantly feel like shit for asking him. “Not that that’s the most important thing. I just—you’ve always helped me so much.”

  “I know,” he says. “And now I can’t. And that’s because of me, not because of you, Alejandro. It’s because I crossed a boundary, I made you think this was okay, and I… we need some space from each other.”

  I close my eyes. “Until I leave, right? And you never have to see me again?”

  “Alejandro—”

  “Stop,” I say, tears welling up in my eyes. I don’t want to cry about this, but I don’t think I can stop myself when I close my eyes. “You’re saying this is your fault and it isn’t. I was the one who was trying to—”

  “No,” he says, closing his eyes. “No. This isn’t your fault and I’m not going to let you make it seem like it is. You can report me, I wouldn’t expect anything—”

  “Report you for what? Being kissable?”

  He laughs quietly, shaking his head a little. He doesn’t smile when he’s finished laughing. He leans forward and kisses me softly on the cheek. Then he moves slightly, so his mouth is right next to my ear. “You need to get out,” he says. “Now.”

  His breath sends a shiver down my spine. I know that I have to do what he has just told me, but there’s a part of me that wants to stay here and go back to his place.

  He pulls away and puts his hands on the wheel in front of him. I don’t say anything as I get out of the car. I don’t look behind me as I walk over to my apartment, dig for my keys in my pocket and lean my forehead against the door, my eyes closed.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  Well, now I have to leave. There’s no way around it, since I’ve managed to burn every single bridge available to me.

  I intend to go into my bedroom and avoid seeing Montgomery, but I can hear his footsteps coming toward me. Fuck. Of course I’m not going to be able to avoid him. He starts walking away from me, but I need to clear the air between us.

  I grab his wrist to stop him from walking away from me. “Stop,” I say. “Can we talk?”

  He looks down at my hand, the one that’s holding his wrist in place. I release him and take a deep breath, looking up at his face. There are bags under his eyes, which are small and bloodshot. “Fine,” he says, rolling his eyes. “What do you want?”

  “I just want to talk to you,” I say.

  “You’re talking,” he says, moving his hand away from mine. “What do you want, choirboy?”

  “I… I owe you an apology,” I say.

  He furrows his brow. “You owe me an apology because you don’t have a crush on me?” he says, a smile on his face. “No, you don’t. You owe me an apology for being a real dick, maybe…”

  “Okay,” I say. “So I owe you an apology for being a dick.”

  He shrugs. “It’s okay,” he says. “I think I owe you an apology for being a dick, too.”

  I swallow. “After you told me about your feelings,” I say. “I called Cyrus. I needed to
talk to him.”

  He raises one eyebrow. “Uh huh,” he replies.

  “He said he had feelings for me too,” I say, my voice strangled. “And I think I might have lost him for good and I—I don’t know what I’m supposed to do without him.”

  “Fuck, really?” he says, sounding more annoyed than concerned. But he still pulls me into a hug, a long one, and I feel better after that.

  “Thank you,” I say. “It shouldn’t be up to you to make me feel better about this.”

  He shakes his head. “Don’t worry,” he says. “You’re, well, I care about you, choirboy. Sorry, is that gay?”

  “Seriously?”

  “Well, you know what I mean,” he replies. “For real, though. I always thought you too would make a cute couple. How come you’re not into that?”

  I blink as I move away from him. Why am I not into him? Or am I actually into him? Or maybe I’m into someone else. Maybe I’m into Montgomery, fuck, or God forbid, Lawrence. Shit, everything is such a fucking mess.

  I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about it.

  I could tell him I want Cyrus, after all. Or I could tell him about Lawrence. Or I could tell him I want him, consequences be damned.

  He’s right. There’s no need for me to talk about Cyrus as if I don’t want him, because the truth is that I do. I always felt like there was too much to lose, but now, he’s the one who has brought it up and I think I would lose more by letting him go now.

  “You’re right,” I say. “I want Cyrus.”

  He cocks his head. “Okay… so why are you still here, talking to me?”

  I take a deep breath. “You don’t understand,” I say. “I’m going to leave no matter what. One of us is going to leave. There’s no future between us.”

  “Okay,” he replies. “So? What’s the problem?”

  “The problem is that… I don’t know if I can just have a fling with him,” I say. “I love him. He’s the closest thing I have to family.”

  He shrugs his shoulders. “Well, he’s already done a good job of fucking that up himself, hasn’t he?”