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wouldn’t have thought it was weird as long as you weren’t on a date.”
    “Yeah, but it doesn’t matter.” He dismissed my concern.
    Maybe I was overthinking it, which I did sometimes.
    He took a breath. “Okay, so how ’bout this. How about I say goodnight to my date and my friends, grab a bottle of wine, and come over in an hour and sit with you and tell you all about the kid I saved so you can look at me like I’m a god, and then we can make out on your couch. How would that be?”
    “And what would we do tomorrow?” I teased him because it was so not going to happen. I would not be the cause of someone else getting dumped when it had been me so often in the past. Once, when I told a guy laughingly that I didn’t put out on the first date, he had simply got up and left me at the restaurant he had driven me to.
    “Tomorrow I’ll feed you, take you home to my house, and we can make out some more and then maybe you can fuck my brains out in my bed.”
    “Maybe you can fuck my brains out,” I said, fishing, because even though I could do both, being on the bottom was what got me off most, best, every time. I didn’t mind topping, but I had a definite preference.
    He let out a huff of air. “I have this headboard on my bed—” He swallowed hard. “—that I would really, really like to hold onto while you fill my ass.”
    “Been thinking about that, have you?”
    “Since I saw you at the store that first day.” He nodded, his eyes clouded. “Yeah.”
    I looked at him, and all I saw was heat and desire and a forced stillness, like he was ready to grab me but was holding himself in check. “I think you should stay here and have a good time and be on time tomorrow to pick me up.”
    He whimpered in the back of his throat. “I really don’t want to do that, and for the record, the date is insignificant. Only the celebration and my friends are important.”
    “But you’re still going to take that guy back to your place,” I said knowingly.
    “If you tell me I can come and see you instead, just to talk to, just to sit with… I won’t.”
    He would pass up getting laid to come and sit on my couch with me. It was nice, but again, almost irritating at the same time. I was made differently. If I was interested in someone, no one else would do until I had exhausted every possibility with my crush. Obviously, he was more of an opportunist than I was, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
    “Nate?”
    But it was very judgmental of me and probably why I had not been laid in a while. There had been a couple of guys after Duncan that I had not told Melissa about, some one-night stands that I was not proud of, but on the whole, my friends were right: I was much too serious when it came to actual dating and potential partners. I talked too much, I wanted to know things—I didn’t want to waste my time if there was no future. I didn’t want to just sleep around. I wanted to find a man I cared for who would want to be a part of my life. I wanted that committed monogamous relationship, but no one else seemed to want to be in one with me. My friends said I should lighten up and just enjoy dating, but if dating equaled sleeping around…. As always I was right back to square one.
    “Nate?” Softer the second time.
    “Sorry.” I shook my head. “You should get back.”
    “I’d rather—God, do you have any clue how hot you are, or is it just completely lost on you?”
    But I wasn’t. I was very average, and the compliment, the timing of it, was out of place. It felt like he got caught and was trying to make amends. And he didn’t have to. He liked what he saw because he knew me, and that was all. “I grow on people.”
    “Jesus, Nate, for a smart guy, you have no idea what you’re talking about.”
    But I did. I was not the GQ model; I was the other guy, the English professor you liked and waved to at Starbucks and, if I was straight, introduced to your newly divorced mother. “So, tomorrow,