The Edge of Always

not gonna happen.”

3

An hour and two drinks later, I’m on “Rob’s floor” of the building with Blake. I’m just a little buzzed, walking and seeing perfectly straight, so I know I’m not drunk. But I’m a little too happy, and that bothers me a bit. When Blake suggested we “get away from the noise for a while,” my warning sirens were going off like crazy inside my head: Don’t you go off by yourself at a nightclub after a couple of drinks with this guy you don’t know. Don’t do it, Cam. You’re not a stupid girl, so don’t let the alcohol make you stupid.

All of these things screamed at me. And I listened until at some point, Blake’s infectious smile and the way he made me feel completely at ease calmed the voices and the sirens down so much that I couldn’t hear them anymore.

“This is what they call Rob’s Floor?” I ask, looking out over the cityscape from the roof of the warehouse. All of the buildings in the city are lit up brilliantly with glowing blue and white and green lights. The streets appear bathed in an orangish hue pouring down from the hundreds of street lamps.

“What did you expect?” he says, taking my hand and I inwardly flinch at the gesture but accept it. “A posh sex room with mirrors on the ceiling?”

Wait a second… that’s exactly what I thought—well, in a roundabout way—but then why in the hell did I come up here with him?

OK, now I’m panicking a little.

I think maybe I am slightly drunk after all, otherwise my judgment would not be this far off. And it freaks me out and almost completely sobers me up to think that I would ever be up for any kind of “sex room,” even in a drunken state. Is the alcohol really just making me stupid, or is it bringing out something inside of me that I don’t want to believe is there?

I glance over at the metal door set in the brick wall and notice a light shining through it and the doorjamb. He left it open; that’s a good sign.

He walks with me to a wooden picnic table, and nervously I sit down next to him on the top of it. The wind brushes through my hair, pulling a few strands into my mouth. I reach up and tuck my finger behind them and pull the strands away.

“Good thing it was me,” he says, looking out at the city with his hands draped between his knees; his feet are propped on the bench seat below.

I pull my legs up and sit Indianstyle, folding my hands in my lap. I look over at him questioningly.

He smiles. “Good thing it was me who brought you up here,” he clarifies. “A beautiful girl like you down there with all of those guys.” He turns his head to look right at me; his brown eyes appear faintly luminescent in the dark. “If I had been someone else, you might’ve been the rape victim of your very own Lifetime movie.”

I’m completely sober now. Just like that, in two seconds flat, it’s as though I never drank a thing. My back shoots straight up rigidly and I suck in a deep, nervous breath.

What the fuck was I thinking?!

“It’s all right,” he says, smiling softly and putting up both hands, palms facing outward in front of him. “I would never do anything to a girl that she didn’t want, or anything to one who’s had a few drinks and just thinks it’s what she wants.”

I think I just dodged a very deadly bullet.

My shoulders relax somewhat, and I feel like I can breathe again. I mean, sure, he could just be filling my head full of more bullshit to make me trust him, but my instincts are telling me that he’s perfectly harmless. Keep my guard up and be careful while I’m alone up here with him, but at least I can relax. I think if he intended to take advantage of me, he wouldn’t have announced the danger of the possibility like that.

I laugh a little under my breath, thinking about something he said.

“What’s so funny?” He looks across at me, smiling and waiting.

“Your Lifetime movie reference,” I say, feeling my lips shape in a faint, embarrassed smile. “You watch that stuff?”

He looks away, sharing my embarrassment for him. “Nah,” he says, “I think it’s just common knowledge comparison.”

“Really?” I taunt him. “I don’t know; you’re the first guy I’ve ever heard use ‘Lifetime movie’ in a sentence.”

He’s blushing now and I’m kicking myself for being so happy to see it.

“Well, just don’t tell anybody, all right?” He gives me his best pouty face.

I smile back at him and then look out at the city lights, hoping to deter any hopeful expectations he might have developed over the course of our brief, playful exchange. I don’t care how nice or charming or sexy he is, I’m not caving to him. I’m just not ready for anything other than what we’re doing right now: having an innocent, friendly conversation with no sexual or relationship strings attached. It’s so damn hard to have that with any guy, because they always seem to think that a simple smile means something more than it is.

“So tell me,” he says, “why are you here alone?”

“Oh, no…,” I shake my smiling head and my finger at him, “… let’s not go there.”

“Come on, throw me a bone here. It’s just conversation.” He turns fully around at the waist to face me and rests one leg on the tabletop. “I genuinely want to know. It’s not a tactic.”

“A tactic?”

“Yeah, like digging around inside your problems to find something to pretend I care about just so I can get in your panties—if I wanted in your panties, I’d come out and tell you.”

“Oh, so you don’t want in my panties?” I look at him in a half-smiling sidelong glance.

A little defeated, but not deterred by it, he softens his face and says, “Eventually, yeah. I’d be fucking mental to not want to sleep with you, but if that’s all I wanted from you and that’s what I brought you up here for, I would’ve told you before you agreed to come up here.”

I appreciate the honesty and definitely have more respect for him, but my smile sort of locked up when he said something about ‘if that’s all’ he wanted from me. What else could he want from me? A date, which could lead to a relationship? Ummm, no.

“Look,” I say, backing off a little and letting him know it, “I’m not looking for either, just so you know.”

“Either of what?” And then he realizes ‘what’ a second later. He smiles and shakes his head. “It’s all right. I’m with you on that one—I really did just bring you up here for the conversation, as hard as that may be to believe.”

Something tells me that if I wanted either, sex or a date, or both, that Blake would give it to me, but he’s smoothly backing off without making himself look rejected.

“To answer your question,” I say, giving in to him for conversation’s sake, “I’m single because I had a few bad experiences and right now I’m just not looking for any do-overs.”

Blake nods. “I hear yah.” He looks away from my eyes and the breeze catches his blond hair, pushing his semi-long bangs away from his forehead. “Do-overs generally suck, at least in the beginning. The learning process in itself is a nightmare.” He looks back at me to elaborate. “When you’re with someone for so long you get used to them, y’know? It’s a comfort-zone thing. When we get settled in our comfort zone, trying to pull us out of it even if everything about it is hell and unhealthy, is like trying to pull a fat ass couch potato out of his living room long enough to get a life.” Maybe realizing he was getting too deep with me too soon, Blake lightens the mood by adding, “Took me three months with Jen before I was comfortable taking a shit with her in the house.”

I laugh out loud and when I’m brave enough to look back at him, I see that he’s smiling.

I’m starting to get the feeling he’s not over his ex-fiancee as much he’s trying to make himself believe. So, I try to do him a favor by steering the hurtful topic to myself before he has that eureka moment and his world comes falling down around him all over again.

“My boyfriend died,” I blurt out, mostly for his sake. “Car accident.”

Blake’s face falls and he looks right at me, his eyes full of remorse. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”