Page 8 of Playboy For Hire

“A battle-axe?” I asked.

“Trust in the Lord. You’re spending too much time up here—” she tapped the side of her head, then brought her hand down to tap her heart “—and not enough time down here. God will find you someone when you least expect it. You just have to keep your faith up.”

I sighed. “Auntie Thea, you know I don’t really go to church anymore.”

I didn’t go to church anymore at all, in fact. The pastor at the church I’d grown up in had made his opinions on homosexuality very clear, and thirteen-year-old me had decided I was done with organized religion. My parents understood my decision and loved me no matter what, but Thea had a way of ‘forgetting’ what I’d told her about that topic.

“You may be done with God,” she countered, “but that doesn’t mean he’s done with you.”

“Even if there is a god, I think he—or she—orthey—has better things to do with their time than send me matches on hookup apps.” I took a sip of my iced tea.

“Sweetheart, the Lord does not care about your penis, he cares about your heart.”

I spluttered tea all over myself. Thea cackled at my discomfort and continued speaking.

“He will be sending matches to those other apps, the dating ones. Which are all you ought to be on anyway,” she said sternly. “A nice boy like you doesn’t need that other kind.”

Easy for her to say. It was a sweet sentiment, but even nice boys like me needed to get railed sometimes. Then again, I hadn’t been having much luck on either kind of app, so maybe God had given up on me after all.

“Well, tell him to get on it, then,” I told her. “It’s been two months, and I still haven’t found someone to take to the party.”

“Then you can take me.” She patted my hand. “I’d be proud to have someone so handsome as my escort.”

I tried not to wince at the way she called me handsome.

“I think they might notice if I brought you instead of a six-foot-three football player with a jaw as square as the Kennedy Center.”

She looked at me aghast. “Do not tell me you told Delia that was who you were dating. You did not go to law school just to make a mistake that silly.”

I laughed helplessly. “No, I didn’t. And I didn’t describe my mythical boyfriend in exact detail either. But still, I told them I’d bring him. And you’re beautiful, Auntie Thea, but you are not a man.”

“I could be,” she said, a little huffily. “People can be whatever they want these days. I bet I would have made a fantastic fake boyfriend, if someone had asked that of me in my younger years.”

I looked at her sideways, trying to figure out if she was being transphobic, expressing a heretofore undiscovered nonbinary identity, or possibly both.

“In any case,” she continued, “this is yet another example of why you should invite Jesus into your heart.”

“Please don’t tell me Jesus should be my boyfriend,” I begged. “I’m pretty sure church doctrine doesn’t encourage having gay thoughts about him.”

“Pssh,” she scoffed. “He wouldn’t be your boyfriend. He would just keep you from getting into these situations. You bore false witness against yourself, and now you’re paying the price.”

She was right about that much, at least.

“I know.” I hung my head in shame, mostly so she could have the pleasure of reaching out and patting it gently. Normally, I was too tall for her to reach.

“Why don’t you just tell them you broke up?” she asked when she drew her hand away.

Because I don’t want Brandon to win. Because I don’t want him to think I failed to keep another man. Or, worst of all, because I don’t want Brandon to realize I was lying and never had a boyfriend in the first place.

But I couldn’t say that out loud.

“I’m just sick of always being single,” I said instead. “I’m sick of always beingknownfor being single. And I’m really sick of people telling me I’ve been brainwashed into being gay by government chemtrails and that what I actually need is the love of a good woman.”

I had lots of cousins on both sides of my family, and no matter what reunion I turned up at, I was guaranteed to be the only one with no one by his side—a fact my Auntie Marie delighted in pointing out. Of course, Auntie Marie also believed that there were lizard people living inside the moon, so I tried not to take what she said too seriously. But still.

Auntie Thea knew exactly who I was talking about, because shetskedand shook her head. “That Marie had better watch her tongue this time. I’m a God-fearing woman, but I am not afraid to tell her where to get off. Do you know she thinks the baby Jesus was an alien from outer space? The same kind of alien she claims built the pyramids in Egypt?”

“I did not know that, but I am also not surprised.”

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