Funny You Should Ask(30)

I cross my arms over my chest.

“I should have told you,” he says.

“Told me what, exactly?” I ask. “About your ‘arrangement’? Is that Hollywoodspeak for an open marriage? I’ve heard of the concept, you know. It’s not exclusive to you horny celebrities—some people even do it ethically.”

Gabe looks tired and part of me thinks that I should go easy on him, but another part of me thinks that I’ve spent way too much time in my life going easy on men.

I know that Gabe isn’t Jeremy. That their failures aren’t the same, the hurt they caused is different, but right now I really don’t care. I want to be mad at a man, and this one will do just fine.

“It isn’t what you think,” he says. “It wasn’t some big, grand plan. My management, my family, they were all just as surprised as you were.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” I say.

That seems to upset him.

“I was young and impulsive and stupid,” Gabe says. “We were sleeping together—a friends-with-benefits kind of thing. Casual.”

“I’m sure,” I say.

If he thinks this is making things better, he’s very, very wrong.

“I thought it would solve a lot of different problems,” he says. “Because at the time, we both wanted the same thing.”

“Well, I hope you got it,” I say.

Gabe keeps rubbing the back of his neck. I imagine it’s like a river stone back there, all that worrying making it smooth and hairless. I’d put my fingers there once before, though I can’t remember what it felt like.

That isn’t true—not exactly. I can’t remember the specific feel of that specific part of Gabe’s body but I do remember that I liked everything that I touched. And I do remember how much I liked it.

“People do it, you know,” he says.

“Get married for stupid reasons?” I ask. “Yeah, I know.”

“Was that…” He gestures.

It’s vague—more like he’s skipping stones than actually indicating anything specific—but I get what he’s trying to say.

“No,” I say. “I actually liked Jeremy.”

Only partly a lie. I liked him sometimes. I even loved him sometimes.

“The Novelist,” he says.

“Jeremy.”

Gabe nods.

“I actually liked Jacinda too,” he says. “I still do, in fact.”

“Great,” I say. “Should I expect to see a blind item about two former lovers rekindling their romance by renewing their vows in Vegas next week?”

“No,” Gabe says. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“I don’t care,” I say.

“Of course,” Gabe says.

I hate that he knows I’m lying.

This time I’m the one making the skipping-stone gesture, because I just want him to hurry and finish his dumb-ass apology so I can leave and go home and cry about his dead dog. Because I definitely don’t want to cry about some stupid misguided sense of lost time and missed chances.

“I’m sure you read all the things they were writing about her around that time,” Gabe says. “About the married directors. About the one who named her in his divorce proceedings.”

“Sure,” I said.

I’m steeling myself, because I really don’t want to feel sympathetic or understanding about whatever arrangement Gabe and Jacinda had, but the truth is that I do remember what the tabloids said about her.

“She didn’t. Sleep with them, that is,” he says. “It was all one-sided. They propositioned her, but she turned them down.”

I nod.

“It didn’t really seem to matter, though,” Gabe says. “No one believed her. As far as the tabloids were concerned, she was single and beautiful and therefore somehow responsible.”

I’d been asked to interview her. Years ago—when there had been rumors that Gabe and her were on the rocks—someone had pitched it to Broad Sheets. They’d begged me to do it, knowing that it would certainly go viral.

I’d bowed to the pressure, but then, the night before I was supposed to meet Jacinda Lockwood in the hotel lobby of the St. Regis, I’d chickened out and called it off. Someone else had done the interview instead. It turned out just okay.

“Oliver is the one who introduced us,” Gabe says. “We all thought it would be a mutually beneficial thing, but…”

He pauses.

“I didn’t expect you,” he says.

I freeze.

“I didn’t expect you to show up at my house with your very big eyes and your bad questions and your smart mouth and…”

I’m clutching the counter behind me like it’s the edge of a pool in the deep end and I’m a brand-new swimmer who isn’t sure she’s not going to sink straight to the bottom if she lets go.

Gabe looks up at me, and I hold on tighter.

“You surprised me,” he says.

He smiles, that devastating grin of his—the one that launched a thousand memes.

“They weren’t bad questions,” I say.

“They were.”

We stare at each other for ages.

“What is this?” I finally ask.