Make Me Sin

27

Grace licks her lips. “God, he was so hot in that.”

“And when we were on tour, one time I saw him without a shirt. It was a total accident. I walked into the wrong dressing room. You’ve never seen a guy go sideways so fast, though. He was so pissed I thought he was going to explode. He acted like I’d caught him f*****g a chicken or something.”

A chicken? I look to Grace, the expert. “That’s not a real thing, is it? Please tell me people don’t have s*x with poultry.”

She smiles at me like I’m the village i***t and pats my hand.

Kat says, “If you think f*****g chickens is weird, you should’ve seen some of the stuff we saw in the red light district in Amsterdam when we were on tour.” She shudders. “I’ll never look at bananas the same way again.”

“You guys are really starting to freak me out.”

“Moving on: Is his chest as lickable as it looks underneath all those stupid hoodies he’s usually wearing?”

Grace is more interested in hearing about A.J.’s naked torso than I’m comfortable with.

“I was too busy being goggle-eyed by all the tattoos to really notice. You’d never know it, but he’s got full sleeves, wrist to shoulder, in addition to stuff just everywhere, all over, front and back. Nico has lots of tats, but I’m talking hard-core. I’m talking full-on hard-core.”

I remember his face when he told me to get my ass on the back of his bike. I remember the look in his eyes. Now I imagine he’s naked, covered in tattoos, and, with that same look in his eyes, ordering me to strip and get my ass in his bed.

I drop my face into my hands. What’s happening to me? I’m a good girl!

“Look.” Kat digs her cell from her handbag, types something, waits, then hands it to me. It’s a website depicting various types of tattoos, in particular the types criminals in the Russian penal system are known to have.

“Okay, so the tattoos on A.J.’s hands might look similar to some Russian prison tattoos. That’s not evidence of anything! Maybe he just likes the culture!”

“Maybe.” Kat puts the phone back in her bag. Then she gives me a look that says or maybe not.

“It’s not like she’ll ever find out, anyway.” Grace toys nonchalantly with a lock of her hair. “Since she’s so full of guilt over her ‘unforgiveable’ name-mix-up episode with Eric that she’s going to beg him to take her back and forget all about the crazy-sexy secret Russian spy she’s dying to do the dirty deed with.”

I roll my eyes. “He’s not a secret Russian spy!”

She pounces. “Aha! So you don’t deny you’re dying to do the dirty deed with him?”

“You’re fixated on s*x, you know that?”

“Why do you think I became a marriage therapist? Not only do I get to enjoy my own s*x life, I get to hear all about everyone else’s!”

“Then why didn’t you just become a s*x therapist?”

She wrinkles her nose. “Too tacky. Might as well own a massage parlor that gives happy endings.”

I blink. “That’s not a real thing, either, right? Happy endings at massage parlors are just urban legends.” I look at Kat. “Right?”

Kat and Grace look at each other, pick up their glasses, and clink them together in a toast.

“Oh, screw you guys,” I mutter.

Kat slurps the salt off the rim of her margarita glass. Casually, she says, “Well, if you do ever find out anything . . . strange . . . about A.J., my advice is to keep it to yourself. In my experience, it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie.”

Equally casually, Grace asks, “That sounds interesting, Katherine. Care to share more?”

Kat’s face grows serious. She sets down her drink. She meets my gaze. Suddenly, in place of my normally lighthearted friend, there’s a stranger looking back at me. A stranger who’s older, and wiser, and has endless dark shadows in her eyes.

“You know what I went through,” she says, her voice quiet. “And I learned that people keep secrets for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes they’re sad reasons. Sometimes they’re selfish reasons. And sometimes . . . they’re dangerous reasons. If—and I’m only saying if—A.J. has secrets, they belong to him. And they’re best left alone.”

Kat’s talking about Nico’s crazy brother, Michael, who’s in prison for trying to kill her, among other things, and Nico’s crazy sister, Avery, who overdosed due to the complete insanity of her life . . . not least of which was the incestuous affair she was carrying on with Michael since she was a kid. The whole thing was a complete mess. Kat came out the other side okay, but there’s the occasional moment, like this, when it seems like her world was knocked off-kilter, and she hasn’t quite found her way back to center yet.

In the silence that follows, I think of how A.J. never looks into a camera lens. How he sits alone in a dark corner of a gay bar on a Sunday night, when the rest of the world is at home with their families. How when he looks at me, all he sees are ghosts.

I heave a sigh, and fill another tortilla chip with salsa. Around my chewing, I say, “I think this might be a good time to tell you guys about what happened last night. Then tell me if you think I should let this particular sleeping dog lie, or pat it on the head and wake it up.”