Crop Top Season is for Lovers Part II

“Dirty martini?” an attentive, very attractive waitress asks from my left.

“Yes—definitely,” 

Subtle. 

I flash a slightly embarrassed smile as I take the frosted glass.

“I’m Kate, I’ll be taking care of you. How’s your night going?” she adds, flashing a perfectly calibrated service smile—warm, but not legally binding.

“It’s fine, thank you.” I take a sip of the martini and feel every cell in my body stand up and clap. Resounding applause.

She tilts her head, amused. “You know, I usually greet a table before they order a drink. But… clearly, you have vision.”

I like her. She’s got a little bite.

“What can I say, Kate?” I shrug. “I have a problem.”

We share a laugh. I order a few appetizers and she disappears, leaving me alone with my martini.

As of last week, I decided it was time to revive my dating life. Not just talk about it—actually try. Go on real dates. With real men. Men I wouldn’t normally swipe right on.

Men who are… good on paper.

Men with jobs. Jobs that pay them.

Men whose Hinge profiles don’t look like a casting call for The Bachelor. No professional lighting. No smolder. Just… a guy. Existing.

Men who might not even be six feet tall.

I know. Growth.

I let the light breeze of the rooftop restaurant I've chosen for the evening calm the flushness of my cheeks brought in from my martini entering my system. 

Brian enters. Not my first victim and certainly not my last.

 He looks normal enough.

 Boring enough. 

I hate him already.

When I started my latest hinge journey I wanted to date men that I thought I could really end up with. I’ve decided I need someone boring. Someone with a normal job. Someone who doesn’t go out every weekend. Someone who isn’t going to send me rage texts after screaming at them in the street after refusing to defend them for assaulting the bouncer at Revolver. 

Ya know, someone fun.

This is the problem I face, and maybe not just with men but with life, but with life in general. Why can’t something just be what it looks on the outside. Why can’t something just simply be?... dare I say it? Boring. 

Not everything has to feel like the world is collapsing in on itself to bring something better forward. Not everything needs to feel like kissing in the rain, or popping a molly just before hitting the dancefloor with three of your best friends, or finding yourself lost in a foreign country with the love of your life who happens to be someone you only met three days ago.

Maybe I need boring.

Boring is what I need.

As Brian approaches the table I feel all the energy being sucked out of my body as though I have no control of it whatsoever. I must have some control over it? Right?

“Hi!” I give my best attempt at a welcoming smile before standing up and giving Brian a hug.

“Hi!” Brian returns my fake enthusiasm with pure genuine joy, “you look so much better in person!”

I hate him.

***

The time is 4:45 am.

The location is somewhere seedy with an illegal liquor license.

The company is a fellow party girl of mine and a bar manager from a local dive bar who feeds us too many shots too late at night. 

The music is a mix of punk rock that topped the charts before I was conceived.

Sometimes I think people should stop letting me into bars.

Sometimes I think people should stop doing things I say.

Sometimes I think people should stop listening to me when I tell them I’m fine. 

“I love your crop top,” says a boy that followed me here from Davey Wayne’s before feeding me a key bump of some cocaine that tastes like gasoline.

“Thank you, it’s vintage Justin Bieber,” I say pointing out the Purpose Tour logo.

Davey Wayne’s guy chuckles, “I’m not familiar with his work.”

“He’s basically an unknown.”

“No big hits?”

“Nothing you’d know if you don’t listen to him.”

“I’ll have to check him out”

Behind Davey Wayne’s guy I notice the friend he came with glaring at us while we talk. I was wondering if they were dating given the way they behaved at the previous bar.

“Sorry I think you should go back to your boyfriend,” I say, genuinely trying not to start any trouble, but maybe secretly loving that I could be. 

I take a sip of my black cherry White Claw and look Davey Wayne’s guy over again.

He’s tall. 

And skinny, but broad. 

Taller than me so at least 6’1. I promised myself that this wouldn’t be a requirement for me anymore but I’m not mad that the opportunity has presented itself.

He’s doing that Dawson’s Creek James Van Der Beek thing with his hair, the one where it’s parted down the middle and falls carelessly framing his face. 

There’s a familiar fire in his eyes.

A mischievous smile.

“What are you talking about?” He asks, I nod toward his infuriated cohort.

Davey Wayne’s guy smiles a cheeky little half smile, “that’s not my boyfriend, I just met him at Good Times.”

Shit. He’s straight.

“Well look out, because he definitely wants to fuck you.”

“That’s funny because I’ve been trying to fuck you all night.”

My eyebrows shoot up so high I have a new hairline. 

He didn’t miss a beat. Not one fucking beat.

“Fuck.”

He kisses me before I can think of anything else to say.

“So my place, or yours?”

The night sky holds no stars tonight. I know the city's light usually drowns them out, but tonight the clouds have erased even the possibility of seeing one. Funny how some nights don't ask you to imagine what's hiding behind the darkness. They simply hand you the darkness itself.

It's strange to see Cahuenga this empty. By day it's choked with traffic. By night it's usually crawling with club kids, street rats, and bar flies searching for one last place that'll pretend it's not closing.

I don't know what does it—the silence, the hour, or the way an empty street can feel haunted—but nostalgia arrives without asking. I think about warm summer nights spent with people whose names still live in my phone, even though we'll never speak again. I think about the peculiar intimacy of finding someone who was unraveling in all the same places you were. How friendship could be built on nothing more than surviving the same night together. Sometimes all it took was catching a friend's eye through the blur of the dance floor. A quick glance that somehow said, I'm here. You're okay. We’re together.

Davey Wayne's boy takes my hand and leads me down the empty street. He doesn't say a word. He doesn't have to. I can feel the excitement radiating off him, light enough to carry us both forward. I only hope he can't feel the weight gathering quietly in my chest.

“It’s right here.”

The apartment I walk into is wall to floor to counter to backsplash to sink to toilet concrete. It's almost impressive how committed they are to the bit. If it weren't for the floor-to-ceiling windows, I'd have made a joke about it looking like an insane asylum.

Instead, I looked around and asked,

"You got anything to drink?"

Instead of answering, Davey Wayne's guy pulls me into another kiss, deeper this time, silencing the question before it has a chance to linger. My back collides with the kitchen counter, his hands roaming beneath the hem of my shirt with an impatience that's almost contagious. My shirt comes off first, then his, discarded somewhere behind us without either of us bothering to notice. The room is quiet except for our breathing and the occasional clatter of something we've knocked onto the floor.

“I should probably tell you something,” he says.

The shift in his voice makes me pause.

“I’ve never done this before.”

I pull back and look at him. For a second, I wonder if I heard him correctly. The confusion on my face must be obvious because he immediately explains.

“I mean… I’ve never done this with a guy before.”

I stare at him for a moment, letting the words catch up.

Okay.

He’s straight.

I was only half wrong.

And somehow, instead of making me nervous, the revelation makes the whole thing feel even more interesting.

While I think of what I’m going to say I run my fingers through his hair and look into those sparkling mischievous eyes of his. All I can come up with is:

“Cool.”

I sit up on the edge of the bed, pulling my clothes back on while Davey Wayne’s guy gently snores on the far side of the bed. His peaceful slumber fills me with envy and for a moment, eases the dread that’s building inside of me. If only everything could be as simple as fucking a closeted gay man.

By the time I reach the living room, the sky has begun trading shades of blue for gold. Morning has arrived whether I'm ready for it or not.

I stop in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows. The city stretches endlessly beneath me, already waking up. Somewhere people are making coffee, walking their dogs, climbing into traffic. Somewhere someone is kissing goodbye to the person they love. Somewhere someone is sneaking out of a stranger's apartment, trying not to think too hard about why.

 I think about all the other boys in the city leaving a straight man’s house after getting ruthlessly dicked down and I remember how unspecial I am. How uninteresting.

I rest my forehead against the cool glass.

Los Angeles has a way of making you feel microscopic. Eight million people, each convinced their heartbreak is unprecedented.

It's strange how loneliness can make you feel both uniquely tragic and completely interchangeable.

***

I watch from my bedroom window as my neighbor walks out onto his balcony in his boxers to smoke his last cigarette of the day. I type away at my computer and pretend I don’t notice. He takes a drag and does the same.

There’s something romantic about our nightly meetings.

I wonder what he’s thinking about as he leans on the railing and looks out at the street.

I wonder about his struggles, his hopes, his fears. None of which I’ll ever know. I wonder about the parts of himself he keeps hidden from the ones he loves.

Probably nothing.

He’s probably perfect.

Or a liar. It’s probably that one. He’s probably a liar.

Perfect.