Page 170 of Tech Bros

“Yeah.” I log off and quickly stand.

“Seriously?”

“Who all’s coming?” I ask.

“Just me so far, but we could ask around.”

“No—just you is fine. You know a place that has good wings?”

He grins. “Of course I do.”

Lucky fucking me.It’s a gay bar. I feel like a piece of meat the second Hunter and I walk in the door in our dress shirts and slacks. He’s a few inches taller than I am, but I’m the prettier of the two of us. There’s a part of me that wants to untuck my shirt to cover my ass as it tends to attract tops like a magnet, but I decide to wait and see how I feel after I’ve had a drink before I make myself look less desirable.

“Jesus,” I say to Hunter.

He chuckles. “Sorry. It was the first place I thought of when you said wings.”

“Bullshit. You come here all the time, don’t you?”

“They have a great happy hour.”

“The wings better be amazing.”

“You used to like attention,” he says as we sit down at the bar. He ensures we’re not sitting too close to each other, a signal that we’re not a couple. I resent the move.

The bartender, a big, bearded bear who looks like he belongs in a biker bar, winks at me before asking what we’re drinking. Hunter orders a light beer, but I need something stronger. “Just something kind of sweet with a lot of tequila in it,” I tell the guy.

“You got it.”

I turn to Hunter. “Don’t let me get wasted.”

He snorts. “Okay, babe.”

“My old boss emailed me today,” I blurt.

“What’d he want?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t read it. I haven’t yet, I mean. Obviously I’m gonna read it, but then you came in?—”

“And you jumped at the chance to get drunk. Tell me more.”

“You already know everything,” I tell him.

“Any regrets?” Hunter asks.

I don’t tell him that my body is currently entirely composed of regrets and second guesses. “He didn’t want to choose, I wanted to be chosen, I guess, so I chose myself,” I say. Thank God my drink arrives because I need to shut up for a minute. “Damn, that is strong.”

“Name’s Kyle. Let me know if you need another,” the bartender says with another wink.

I smile and turn back to Hunter. “Oh! Wings,” I say.

“We’ll get ‘em in a minute,” he says. “Enjoy your tequila.”

In the end, it only took me four weeks and one margarita to tell Hunter the extended version of the mess I made with my boss and my roommate. Hunter started to visibly cringe when he realized half my inability to do a three-way relationship was because of the way our own relationship ended. That was around when I ordered another drink and we moved to sit at a table instead of the bar.

“It’s not like I blame you,” I tell him.

“For what? For offering you a job?”