Page 15 of Don't Hate Me
“You didn’t have girlfriends,” she snorted.
I was offended by that. “What the fuck was Kaitlin?”
“A prop. Someone who looked good on your arm. Someone you went through the motions with. Did you even like her?”
Not that much. “She was okay.”
“I’m just saying this is different, Marc. You and me, we’re not like what you’ve done before. This is real.”
She cupped my cheek in her hand, like I did with her so often, and forced me to look at her.
“It’s okay to be scared,” she assured me.
“Are you scared?” I asked her.
She shook her head. Of course she wasn’t. She was the bravest person I knew. “I love you. There’s nothing to be scared of.”
I pulled her hand away from my face then. “I won’t ever say it. Do you understand me, Ash? I’ll never tell you that. Ever.”
I didn’t know if it was because I would never feel it or not. I only knew I’d loved someone once, and losing that person, that love, being torn away from it, being rejected by it, had broken me. I didn’t know if I was capable of the emotion, but I knew, without a doubt, I would never cop to it.
“Okay. Do you not like it when I say it? I don’t have to. I can say you’ve got the best dick I’ve ever seen in my life, instead.”
“Mine’s the only dick you’ve ever seen,” I reminded her.
Did I not want her to say it? That she loved me? It made me uncomfortable, so I guess that was enough of a reason to not want her to say it. It also made me feel guilty knowing I couldn’t reciprocate.
She shook her head. “No, it isn’t. There were all kinds of images online when I was researching blow jobs. I still think yours is the best, though.”
“Fabulous,” I muttered.
“Anyway, that’s a good rule we’ve established. No L-word talk. Fine. But we need a few more.”
“What for?”
“For you being my secret boyfriend.”
Yeah, I still wasn’t exactly sure how I felt about that. Last night I’d promised her I would fuck only her. I didn’t necessarily see that as an issue. Despite what she thought, probably because of the impression I’d given her over the years, it wasn’t like there were a lot of women for me. I was too focused on getting to the finish line of my degree to get distracted beyond the occasional fuck.
What Ash was talking about would be a distraction.
“Look, Ash. I won’t fuck anyone else if that’s what you want, but how the hell am I supposed to be your boyfriend? I’ll either be at Princeton, or in Manhattan working at your father’s office. And you’ll be wherever he lets you go.”
“That’s why we need rules. A way to establish our relationship, so that, even though we’re apart, we’ll know we’re still together. Not fucking other people is only one way to do that.”
“Okay fine. I’ll humor you. What kind of rules are we talking about?”
“You need to text me at least once a day. On my new phone. I’ll use my old phone to text you sometimes, but I still want to show a gradual decrease in usage. It will look like I just started to lose interest in you because you weren’t replying. Per Arthur’s wishes.”
“Fine.” We’d basically been doing that for years. I didn’t see that as much of a change. Touching base with Ash was just something I needed to do. That was something I could acknowledge.
“Also, you have to be nice to me once in a while.”
“I’ll try,” I said drily.
“And chocolates occasionally. I’ve set up a PO box at the post office in town. You can send anything to me at that address.”
“I don’t have money to waste on chocolates,” I said with a frown. Then I jiggled her in my lap to get her attention. “A burner phone, a secret PO box…how afraid of your father are you? Tell me the truth, Ash. Because I don’t think you have been up until now.”
