Chapter 4

• An hour later, we sit at the bar in a restaurant, wine firmly in hand.
• “So?” Daniel looks between the two of us. “What’s the story with you two, are you single or dating?”
• “Well.” Rebecca smiles. “I have a boyfriend, Brett. And Kathryn here is trying to get an honorary membership to the nunnery.”
• I laugh. “That’s not true. I’m just very picky.”
• Daniel gives me a cute wink. “Nothing wrong with that. I’m quite picky myself actually.”
• “And what’s your story?” Rebecca asks.
• “Well . . .” Daniel pauses as if choosing the right words. “I am . . .” He pauses again.
• “Gay?” I ask.
• Daniel laughs. “I like women too much to title myself completely gay.”
• “So . . .” Rebecca screws up her face as she tries to make sense of that statement.
• “You’re bisexual?”
• Daniel twists his lips as if thinking. “I wouldn’t say I’m bisexual. My natural attraction is toward women. But lately . . .” His voice trails off.
• “What?” I ask, fascinated.
• “A few years back I was partying with a few guys that I didn’t know that well in Ibiza. One of them was gay.”
• “How many were you away with?” I ask.
• “There were four of us in total.”
• “So, three of you were straight?”
• Daniel nods. “Maybe it was the sun, maybe it was the alcohol, or maybe it was the cocaine, I don’t know, but something happened and we got a little randy, spent the weekend in bed, and now I have a bit of a fetish for men on the side.”
• Rebecca smiles dreamily over at Daniel, as if this is the best story that she’s ever heard. And I can almost hear the cogs in her brain clicking, assessing how liberated he must be.
• I sip my drink, equally fascinated with his story. “How does it feel to be sexual with somebody that isn’t your natural inclination?”
• “Good. Perhaps a little kinky.” Daniel shrugs. “I think that’s what it is for me, I feel like I’m doing something naughty, something that I shouldn’t be doing but at the same time feels so natural. And I don’t know how long I’ll keep doing it, maybe not forever, maybe not much more at all. But whenever I do it, I don’t regret it. It doesn’t feel wrong, if that’s what you mean.”
• “How many . . .” Rebecca’s voice trails off as she stops herself.
• “You can ask me anything,” Daniel prompts her.
• “How many men have you been with?”
• Daniel narrows his eyes as he thinks. “Hmm, not many, I would say more than ten but less than twenty.”
• “Jeez.” My eyebrows raise by themselves.
• “What’s that look for?” Daniel smiles.
• “Well, you said that you haven’t slept with many men. If that’s a low number for you what’s a high number? I mean . . . what are your numbers for women?”
• Daniel laughs. “Too many to count, I’m afraid. I meet some beautiful people in my industry, sometimes the temptation is just too great.”
• Disappointment fills me and I screw up my napkin and throw it onto the table in disgust. “I wish I was more like you,” I sigh.
• “Meaning?”
• “You know, all liberated and cool and”—I pause as I think of the right terminology—“I guess, free.”
• Daniel’s face falls. “You don’t feel free?”
• Oh God, why did I say that? Now I sound like a freaking drama queen. “What I meant is, I guess I would like to be in your shoes, you know, sleeping with whoever I wanted to for fun.”
• “You don’t have sex for fun?” Daniel frowns.
• This is all coming out wrong. “I mean, I have in the past. I guess I just got out of the swing of it as I got older.”
• “How old are you?” he asks.
• “Twenty-seven. I had a few boyfriends in high school and college, and then after that I had a long-term boyfriend. We broke up a year after my parents died.”
• “Your parents died?”
• I sip my drink; how did we get onto this subject?
• Why did I say that?
• “They were involved in a head-on collision car crash,” Rebecca replies; she knows how much I hate saying that out loud.
• Daniel’s eyes come to me in a question.
• “My mother died at the scene, my father died on the way to hospital. The driver that hit them had a heart attack and veered onto the wrong side of the road.” I feel the heaviness come over me as my chest constricts, and I glance up into the kind eyes of Rebecca, who gives me a soft smile and takes my hand across the table. I had just moved in with Rebecca at college when my parents died. She’s been my rock and a wonderful friend and has been there for me on many lonely sad nights.
• “I’m so sorry,” Daniel whispers. “Do you have any other family?”
• “Yes.” I smile. “I have a wonderful brother, Brad, and I have a sister who . . .” My voice trails off.
• “Who what?” Daniel asks.
• “Is a raving bitch,” Rebecca snaps. “I have no idea how the two of these girls are genetically related. They have nothing at all in common. Chalk and cheese.”
• Daniel smiles in surprise as he looks between us. “Why, what’s she like?”
• “Beautiful.” I sip my drink.
• “Entitled and mean,” Rebecca interjects.
• I smile sadly. “She’s not so bad. She’s taken our parents’ death the hardest and somehow her personality changed overnight. Brad and I have held each other up and limped along and yet, all she wanted to do is be on her own. She hasn’t handled grief the same as we have.”
• “You don’t see her at all?” Daniel asks.