Page 66 of I Almost Do

"I don't brood. Don't make me sound like some emo kid with black eyeliner and an earring listening to depressing music and writing bad poetry about how pointless life is."

She bursts out in a laugh, then sucks in a breath and turns toward me, a look of realization on her face. "James."

I pull back, a little wary. "What?"

"That was an oddly specific description of brooding."

I brazen it out. "Isn't that everyone's idea of brooding?"

"I was initially thinking more along the lines of Mr. Rochester. But you went straight to guyliner."

She leans over and touches my earlobe, right where a small scar remains from when I, very briefly, wore an earring.

"It was a phase. I was fourteen.”

"How does an emo rocker turn into"—she runs a displaying hand Vanna White style up and down my body—"this?"

"I was living at my cousin's house at the time. But then she had a baby, and they needed the extra room, so I moved back to my grandmother's place. My mother's mother," I explain.

"Your grandmother didn't let you keep the eyeliner and earring?"

"No, that wasn't it at all. My grandmother never said a word about it. She just asked me what I planned to do with my life. And when I told her that someday I was going to have more money than God, and people were going to call me 'sir,' she said that was a fine dream. But she didn't want to know about my dreams. She wanted to know what I was going to do to make the life I wanted."

"Wow," she says.

"If I'd told her I was going to play in a band and sell out concerts, she'd have made the T-shirts for me. But I decided on a future in finance. I became pretty single-minded about it, actually." My grandmother reminded me that, regardless of my past, and even regardless of an unsure present, I did have the ability to shape the life I would have as an adult.

"I've never met your grandmother."

"I only lived with her for six months before she passed," I say. "Aneurysm." I shove down any emotion the memory might provoke.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers, hugging me.

I wrap my arms around her. "You deal and move on." In this case, I moved on to live with an aunt, uncle, and three cousins.

"Your mother died when you were very young?" she asks.

"I was seven." I need to change this subject. I don't want to talk about my parents. I don't want to talk about my childhood at all. It's best left in the past, where it belongs.

"So," I say, "masturbation."

She looks up at me, thrown for a moment by the conversational pivot, then laughs.

"Yes?" She drags the word out questioningly.

I shrug. "I'm just curious if we're going to try this on a regular basis or if you were thinking it might be a one-off."

Curious, my ass. I'm dying for confirmation that what we did worked for her.

"We should definitely be doing this on a regular basis."

I lean over her and indicate her nightstand. "What do you have in the drawer? Anything fun?"

Her eyes go wide in delighted shock. "James."

"Don't be shy now," I say. "What's in the drawer?"

She narrows her eyes at me, then reaches over and pulls it open.

---