Make Me Sin

15

Everything inside me starts to pound. I practice deep-breathing exercises, until he’s too close and I have to look up at him.

Without a word, he sits across from me, lowering his bulk to the chair with surprising grace. He removes his sunglasses. He takes a long swallow of his beer, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and waits.

“I’m not following you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

A.J. nods. I can’t tell whether he’s acknowledging what I’ve said, is agreeing with me, or is waiting for me to add more. He’s making me uncomfortable with his silence. All the anger I felt at dinner—which had begun so nicely to quiet down—surges back with a vengeance.

I lean closer to him and declare, “You made me call my parents assholes tonight!”

“Did I now.”

I think he’s amused. His facial expression hasn’t changed, but his eyes shine. In the low light they gleam like he’s running a fever. I wonder what my own reflect back at him.

“Yes, you did.” I don’t offer anything else, finding it more important to finish my champagne in one huge gulp. I lift my hand, motioning for the waiter. Across the room, he nods, catching my eye.

A.J. says, “Maybe they deserved it.”

“They absolutely did.”

“I did you a favor, then. Now you owe me one.”

He’s toying with me. I can sense it in the look in his eyes, in the way his lips seem to want to lift at the corners. I don’t feel like playing along. I stare at him so long it’s his turn to get uncomfortable. He drops his gaze and frowns.

“What are you doing here?” he growls.

“I could ask you the same question. This is a gay bar.”

His eyes flash up to meet mine. “Yeah. It is.” He offers no apology or explanation.

“Are you coming out to me right now, is that what you’re saying? You’re gay?”

He examines my expression. He takes his time with it, slowly letting his gaze rove all over my face, until he settles for staring at my mouth for so long I have to restrain myself from squirming in my seat. Finally, in a husky, almost carnal voice, he says, “You know better.”

If I don’t, my uterus certainly does. The pulse of heat that floods between my legs makes me clench my thighs together. Mercifully, the waiter arrives with another champagne.

“Here you go, sweetie.”

“Thank you. I’m also going to need a whiskey when you get the chance. Two fingers, neat.”

His gaze slides from me to A.J. and back again. He purses his lips, lifts his eyebrows twice in a hubba-hubba gesture, nods, and turns away silently.

“So you’re not gay. Congratulations.”

“You got something against gays?”

I’m insulted. “No!”

A.J. shrugs. “Me, neither. In fact, I think they’ve got more compassion than most, having to put up with so much s**t their whole lives. Can’t be easy, being one way when society tells you you’re not okay unless you’re another.”

I’m floored by this little speech. A.J. Edwards is the last person alive I’d have called enlightened. I briefly wonder how else I’ve misjudged him, but then decide he could just be screwing with me. I don’t know him well enough to judge.

I hate that I don’t know him well enough to judge.

I mutter, “That explains your attitude toward prostitutes.”

A.J. squints at me. “You’re in a worse mood than usual, Princess. What’s up?”

Now he’s being nice? “You’re talking about my moods? Can I just say that your mood swings should be treated with medication and extensive psychotherapy?”

My whiskey arrives, placed delicately on the table by the waiter who retreats as fast as he appeared. He obviously senses my pending mental break. I shoot the whiskey, coughing as it scorches a path down my throat.

A.J. says quietly, “Probably. But I think therapy is bullshit. The only person who can fix you is you; paying four hundred dollars an hour to pour your heart out to a stranger is just an emotional jerkoff. In the long run, you’re still stuck with yourself, problems and all. And I don’t put anything in my body that will alter my state of mind. Life’s too short to miss out on anything, even if it’s pain.”

There’s something in his voice that makes me pause with the glass halfway down to the table. I look at him. He looks back at me with naked longing darkening his eyes. I blink, and it’s gone. I might have imagined it.

“You’re drinking a beer. I think alcohol qualifies as mind-altering.”

He wordlessly turns the bottle around so I can read the label: O’Doul’s. It’s nonalcoholic.

This man is shattering every preconceived notion I’ve held about him. And about rock stars in general. Except for the prostitutes, I remind myself grimly. He’s got that one down pat.

“Let me get this straight. You’re a man who likes gay bars, but you’re not a gay man. You drink, but only if it’s nonalcoholic. You don’t believe in therapy or taking medication for emotional problems, but admit you probably need both.”

“Don’t forget the prostitutes,” he chides softly, and takes another swig of the beer that lacks any reason whatsoever to drink it.

“Okay, since you mentioned it, what’s with that? You’re not into normal relationships?”

“Normal relationships? No. I’m not. I’m into honest relationships.”

I stare at him, a little light-headed from drinking two glasses of champagne and a whiskey in such a short span of time. “Honest relationships. Like those that require money to exchange hands.”