Page 10 of Tribute Act

Short and to the point.

Nice note. Nice guy. Great sex.

The reason I felt so hollow? It had to be that serial-monogamist gene kicking in. The one that turned every guy I fucked into a potential boyfriend.

Yeah, that was it.

Gav picked me up at the hotel an hour later in my car. He’d brought all my stuff so I could drop him off, then drive straight back to Porthkennack. We spent the journey to his flat teasing each other about our respective hookups and how quickly we’d both ended up leaving Club Indigo.

“You going to see Adam again then?” I asked, waggling my eyebrows at him.

Gav grinned. “Well, I’d definitely fuck him again. My God, Nath, his mouth.”

“Is that all? He seemed to be very into you. And a nice guy.”

“He is a nice guy.” Gav shrugged. “But I need to be single for a while longer. I can’t just jump into another relationship like—” He flushed.

I understood immediately. “Oh. Like me, you mean?”

He sent me a brief apologetic look. “I only mean I don’t want to end up in a rebound relationship.”

“Hey!” I protested. “None of my boyfriends were rebound guys.”

“No,” Gav agreed. “You were never in love enough with any of them to need a rebound guy. The point is, you just sort of fell into every one of those relationships.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I said, offended. “I didn’t fall into anything.”

“Yeah, you did,” Gav scoffed. “You’d let their eagerness to be your boyfriend carry you along for a while till you finally came to your senses and realised you weren’t in love. And then you’d fall into exactly the same pattern with the next poor sap!”

“It wasn’t like that!”

“So you loved them all, did you?”

“Of course I loved them—I still love them—all of them.”

“You see?”

“What? No.”

“You still love them now—all of them—the same as when you were with them. You were never in love with any of them. Not like I was with Carrie.”

I opened my mouth to protest, then closed it again, frowning.

“Anyway,” Gav said, waving an airy hand. “What about you and this Mack?”

“One-nighter,” I said firmly. “Didn’t even get a number.”

“Disappointed?”

I sighed. “Maybe a bit.”

Maybe a lot.

“I thought you weren’t looking for a relationship either?”

“I’m not.”

“Then why . . .?” he trailed off invitingly.