Page 94 of Canadian Boyfriend

“Anyway, why would I have condoms when you told me you didn’t want to have sex anymore?” His voice was rising, taking on an indignant quality that reminded me of Olivia. It was endearing. “Would you prefer me to be the kind of guy who doesn’t listen?”

I lay back down. “I would prefer you to be the kind of guy who didn’t listen in just this one instance.”

That punctured his indignance. He chuckled and turned onto his side to face me, propping his head on one hand like we were lounging on the beach.

Being back in a position where I could see the sky was a shock. It wasn’t that I’d forgotten the lights, but they were, inherently, shocking. And it wasn’t the kind of shock that hit you once—bam!—then receded. They were perpetually shocking. I had never seen anything so powerful, and I was pretty sure they were responsible formyshocking behavior. Not directly, not in that they’d beamedSeduce Mike Martininto my head, but in that they’d put my entire life into perspective, suddenly—almost violently. Like their very existence was shoving me toward a new way of being.

“So you want to get it on,” Mike Martin said, having recovered his equilibrium.

“I do.”

I could see him pause. He was going to want to talk about it. I held up my hands. “I know what I said before, but let’s just… be on vacation, OK? Take advantage of Olivia’s absence like we used to?”

He looked at me for a long time, so long I was sure he wasgoing to refuse, but then he smiled, cracked his knuckles, and started tugging on the waistband of my leggings.

“What are you doing? We need a condom!”

“We don’t, though, if we limit ourselves to things that don’t require them. We’ve been in this spot before. Therefore, what I am doing is attempting to remove your pants.”

“But…” Wait. Why was I trying to talk him out of this plan?

“OK, forget it, then.” He popped up to sitting with a snicker.

“No, no. I mean, youaresupposed to do a good turn every day, right?”

“Exactly.” He smacked his lips. “You lie back and watch the show while I do my thing.”

And I did.

The next morning we woke up tangled together in the tent. We’d stayed out watching the lights until after three. Well, watching the lights and fooling around. When we’d finally dragged ourselves back to the tent, he, to my shock, unzipped both sleeping bags, reassembled them into one giant one, and climbed in and held out his arms. It took me all of thirty seconds to fall asleep. I was emotionally and physically wrung out.

Christening yourself was exhausting.

I felt a bit sheepish by the light of day, as if last night had been a fever dream. I also dreaded the Talk that surely would have to happen now. Last night had felt like we were out of time, as if we had sidestepped reality, existing only in a dim, liminal space where two things could be true at the same time: I loved Mike Martin, and I was going to let him break my heart.

I tried to hold on to that duality in the bright light of day.I tried not to let myself hope, to wonder if there was a way I could tell him the truth. Truths, plural: I loved him. And I’d been lying to him all this time.

And a third truth: I wanted us to be together, for real.

I rolled over, attempting to extricate myself without waking him, but nope, he was already awake, all bright-eyed and handsome and sporting some stubble he no doubt hated. “I’m going to hike out to the camp store and see if they have condoms.”

I laughed. “Right now?”

“No time like the present?” he said cheerily.

“OK.” I waited for the Talk. It didn’t come.

He scrambled out of the sleeping bag, built a fire, and set a tiny kettle over it. I had coffee, he had tea, we both had granola bars, and he was off. “I’ll be back in three hours.”

I crawled back into the tent and dozed until I heard him whistling as he approached. When I first met Mike Martin, that day his eyes had turned into flat, green holes, would I ever have imagined him carefree and whistling?

I made my way out of the tent. He threw a box of condoms on the picnic table like he was anteing up at a poker game and sat on the bench opposite me.

“Well,” I said as my nether regions grew warm, “You want some lunch first?”

“I do not.”

In the tent, we did have the Talk, but not the one I was expecting. So I guess it was more likeaTalk.

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