Page 26 of Hamartia

Shit. I’d said that. I’d actually said that. What was I thinking? It’d felt different out there under the moon. In here it’s too bright and the words too loud and I can’t fucking do it.

“You have talked about every city in every country you have visited except that one.”

I laugh, nervously. Fingers tumbling over.

“Sorry,” I say. “I’ve wanted to say sorry.”

He blinks at this, slow, then again. It’s the same thing he did in the car when I brought up the first time we met. “You already apologized. In September.”

I shake my head. “I mean, yeah. I did. I guess.”

I can’t think. Can barely look at him. When I do I find him frowning, that perfect little arch pushed in between his brows again. He looks confused.I’mfucking confused. I scrub a hand over my face.

“I don’t know what I’m trying to say, or how to say it. But since then, since Paris, since I saw you…” I clench my hands into fists and then release them, splaying them across the table while beneath it my foot bounces maniacally. “I haven’t been able to…I mean, I’ve just thought a lot about you…maybe it started off being about guilt, for not being cool that day, but then it wasn’t just about that, and I guess I wondered if you ever, like, think of me. If you feel something like…about me. Fuck, I don’t know, man.”

I have literally no clue what I’ve just said, what disaster has come spilling out of my mouth onto the table. I want to get up and leave and never have to look at him again. Except when I lift my gaze, I find him watching me. So fucking closely, so completely, like nothing else exists but me and I fucking love how that feels.

He says nothing, just stares at me, hands curled loose but gracefully around his cup, breathing calm and even.

“You wonder if Ifeelsomething about you?” he asks, somehow with a straight face.

I don’t know how he manages it because it sounds so fucking absurd I almost laugh.

I close my eyes and shake my head. “No. I mean, yeah. Fuck. Forget it, that sounds ridiculous. It is ridiculous. I just thought…”

Fuck,Haven.

“Are you trying to say that you want to fuck me, Raphael?” He says it in that same soft voice and this time my stomach does drop out of my ass.

The way he’s looking at me feels like he’s reaching inside me, pulling out something hot and desperate and raw, and showing it to me.

The silence stretches too long before I manage to get out, “I don’t…know.”

He smiles. But it’s a different one, one I haven’t seen yet. It’s detached and a little cold and it makes a horrible sensation slither over my gut. He lifts his teacup, takes a final sip, and then slides out of the booth. He unhooks his coat from the hanger and pulls it on. As he types something out on his phone, he speaks.

“It seems you have a lot to figure out, Raphael. I do not know what you expected to happen here, but I am not the one to help you do it.”

Inside my head there’s a loud crashing noise, like a hundred teacups smashing on the floor. I blew it. I feel sick. Desperation coats my next words. “You didn’t answer my question.”

He gives me a long indecipherable look. “I am not certain I heard you ask one.” It’s a thinly veiled insult, but it’s an invitation too. An invitation to ask it, properly.

“What if I ask you to help me figure it out.”

Something moves over his eyes, something softer, something like understanding. Empathy. Pity maybe. Fuck, not that.

“I am not…the right person. I’m sorry.”

He sounds sorry too. And then he’s moving, away from me and towards the front of the restaurant where he’ll get into a car and I’ll never see him again. Panic propels me out of the booth and after him. He’s on his phone on the sidewalk outside but turns at the sound of the bell ringing as I pull open the door. Into his phone he says a few quiet words in Korean before hanging up.

“I’m the one who should be sorry.”

His sigh is loud. “Please stop apologizing to me, Raphael.” He studies me a moment before coming a little closer. “You won a Grammy award tonight; you should not look so miserable.”

I realize then that I’d forgotten. I’d fucking forgotten. I’d achieved one of my single greatest professional goals and a few hours later…I’d forgotten. I nod, sliding my hands into my pockets.

“So, you’re going to New York on Monday, right?”

“Yes.”