The question sounded intimate somehow, quiet in a way I hadn’t expected.
“I need the money,” I said with a small shrug.
“Again, I figured as much. But why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t know. It’s not like I won a Nobel Peace Prize or something. Taking your clothes off for a couple bucks isn’t exactly something you brag about to everyone.”
She was quiet for a moment, a few shallow breaths filling her lungs before she stepped onto the elevator with me. The proximity felt too close in a way that somehow made me both uncomfortable and calm as the doors slid closed and she pushed a button.
“No,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her voice was low, and I wanted to take the sadness out of it. Sighing heavily, I tried to think of the best way to explain why I hadn’t told her, but the truth was I had no idea. I’d convinced myself early on that people wouldn’t accept it—that Taylor wouldn’t accept it. And if she didn’t accept that part of me, she’d never be able to accept more of me, let alone all.
But none of that was true. I’d revealed so much more to her. Parts of my childhood even people who knew me for years didn’t know. She’d accepted all that with zero judgment, so why would she judge something so insignificant as this?
“I honestly have no idea,” I conceded. And because I couldn’t help breaking the tension with a joke, even if it was a poor one, I said, “Maybe I was worried you’d ask me to take my clothes off all the time or something. I don’t know.” I waved my hand at her like the thought was ridiculous.
Surprisingly, her lips curled up into the beginning of a smile. I wished I could savor that moment forever—that exact instant when we could both feel the air in the room thin enough for each of us to breathe comfortably again.
“Well, it certainly wouldn’t make sense for me to pay you to keep them on.”
I wanted to ask if she liked what she saw and what happened the other night. I didn’t, though. I couldn’t. So I stayed silent, hoping she would speak before I had to. I was scared to say the wrong thing as much as I was scared not to say anything.
And as the atmosphere around us seemed to heat up, I had to resist the urge to tell her everything I wanted to say: that I was sorry I didn’t tell her the truth, sorry I’d lied to her all this time about something that in hindsight didn’t matter. I had to resist the urge to tell her how beautiful she looked tonight, the soft curls of her blond hair falling perfectly around her face. And I wanted to tell her how I missed the feel of her skin—that it was all I could think about since I’d touched her.
But still I let the silence stand between us until I knew she could feel it too.
Matt once told me to listen more than I spoke because sometimes saying too much meant you really said nothing at all. Some moments, he said, were meant to exist in the in-between.
Besides, if you let the silence continue long enough, usually the other person felt the need to fill it because you knew something they didn’t. There was a reason there was music between verses or a timeout after the two-minute warning when your team was down by four.
The in-betweens were where the real action happened. And sometimes all you needed to do was hold on and wait for it.
Or not, I thought as the elevator descended quietly. I stepped off when the doors opened to the lobby, giving Taylor a slight nod goodbye.
And as I walked off, I heard it.
“Don’t go.”
“I can’t go back up there,” I told her before turning around to meet her gaze.
“It’s your job. I’ll leave.”
“I’m not gonna show back up in front of Sophia and Aamee. It was bad enough they saw me earlier.”
Rubbing her eyes, she seemed to be thinking hard about what to say next. Like she was weighing her words before they left her mouth.
“This is all so complicated,” she said, looking at me again.
“Darius will still give me my half if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“That’s not…what I’m worried about. I mean, I’m glad you’ll get paid. That’s not what I meant. I just meant… God, I don’t know what I meant.”
“Why don’t you take a minute to think about it?”
“I have. I’ve taken like a million minutes, and I can’t make sense of any of it.”
“Make sense of what?” I tried to think about what she could be talking about because we’d already discussed the whole stripper thing.
“The other night. My feelings for you. I can’t… There’s a reason I couldn’t…”
Watching her stumble over her words made me want to close the small space between us and wrap her up in a hug, but I knew better than to touch her without knowing how she’d feel about it.
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not.” She shook her head. “Nothing about me is okay right now. And I can’t let my problems become someone else’s. I’m sure you think I’m crazy.” She almost laughed, but the sadness that seemed to be stuck in her throat prevented it from fully forming.
“I don’t think you’re crazy,” I promised her.
“Really?” She seemed genuinely surprised.
“I’m standing in a hotel lobby wearing nothing but rip-off pants, so I don’t really think I have room to judge anyone’s sanity.”
This time she laughed, and I never thought such a small sound could make me so fucking happy.
“You don’t need to explain yourself to me. Now or ever. Not if you don’t want to.”
Her eyes closed, and I could sense the relief in them somehow. Like she’d been holding this weight since the
