Page 59 of Size King

“Have you found a place yet?” I ask.

“No, I’m staying with Emma until I find one,” she says. “How do you like living in the mountains?”

“I love it,” I answer honestly. “It’s quiet. Everything you could ever want is still within driving distance, and you get temperatures other than hot and sunny.”

“Doesn’t it get lonely living in the mountains?”

“For me, not really.” I shrug. “Admittedly, I do come back down to L.A. pretty often. Someone has to cause trouble with Luke over there.”

“I don’t know much about small towns,” she says. “But I’ve always found them quaint and cute. I’d be afraid of it getting too cold!”

“It does get chilly, especially around this time of year,” I say.

It is almost winter, but there’s no way to tell just by looking out a Los Angeles window. It has been sunny all day, and the highs are in the eighties.

“You probably have snow, right?” she asks.

“We don’t have any snow right now,” I say. “We might be getting some snow Tuesday, though. That’ll be interesting.”

“Do you live in a cabin or a mansion?”

“I’d call it a sizeable house. It’s bigger than your average suburban house, but it’s notenormous. It’s smaller than the house I grew up in.”

“Well, I’d like to see it sometime,” says Jillian. “I’m from New York. We don’t have mountains over there.”

“Hey, come over anytime!” I blurt out. “My house is yours.”

“You’d really have me over?” she asks with skepticism. “You don’t even know me. I might be lying about myself.”

“Are you lying about yourself?”

“No. I would never lie to you. Or would I?”

“I’d have you over right fucking now,” I say loudly. “Are you kidding? You’re sexy as hell!”

“Am I?” she asks. “What’s sexy about me?”

“You’re areal, full, curvy, enticing woman that could get any guy in this place, but you’re choosing to drink with me.”

“I could just be using you for drinks,” says Jillian.

“That’s fine. I could just be using you for sex.”

“Ha!” She laughs. “We’re having sex, are we?”

“Well, not here in front of everyone, obviously,” I tell her. “Later.”

“At your mountain mansion?”

“I’m way too drunk to drive to Wrightwood tonight,” I say. “And a Lyft would cost three hundred dollars. Nah, Luke’s got a house by Venice beach. We could have hot, passionate sex in the moonlight by the ocean. What’s better than that?”

She is blushing, biting her lip. She knows I am a scoundrel.

“Or we don’t have to do that,” I say. “Perhaps I misread our energy.”

We sit there quietly for a few seconds, both trying to think of the best thing to say, and struggling in our inebriation.

“Do you have any kids?” Jillian asks me.