Love Is A Bitch

Roses By The Stairs

"So, how did seeing him again go?" Whitney asked, tapping her pen on the edge of her clipboard. I shrugged and avoided her gaze, staring absently at the wall behind her.

"It was alright. My friends that didn't know him before seem to like him, and my wife likes him." I folded my hands in my lap, feeling a sense of guilt when I thought about how Sarah had casually chatted with Ryan, not suspecting a thing.

"Brendon, you can be honest with me. You know everything you share here is confidential. How did seeing him make you feel?" I smiled and honestly answered Whitney.

"Well, horny for one." Whitney rolled her eyes, but she was smiling and holding back a laugh.

"Brendon, you know very well I don't care about your sex life, I'm here for emotional support." I continued joking to avoid a serious conversation on the topic.

"Well, emotionally support me being horny then." Whitney shook her head and laughed under her breath, and I grinned broadly.

"Okay Brendon, I can tell you don't want to talk about your emotional involvement with Ryan right now, so let's talk about your physical involvement- but please, spare me details." Whitney clicked her pen and crossed her legs, waiting for me to speak up.

"I mean, we didn't have sex if that's what you're asking. We were playing cards Friday and then in the studio on Saturday and things got a little interesting, but nothing too bad." Whitney sighed.

"Brendon, I know we've talked about this before, but I have to ask- are you gay?" I shook my head no immediately.

"No, I'm not gay. I find women very attractive, but I also find men very attractive."

"But why do you keep going back to this one man? You functioned without him for years, but you used other platonic male friends as surrogates for what you had with Ryan. Why is that?" I exhaled deeply and ran both hands through my hair, tapping one foot on the shag carpet Whitney had decorated the room with.

"I mean, we were in love at one point."

"But not anymore, right? You have a wife, and you mentioned that he sees girls occasionally."

"Whit, I really don't know. I'm just attached to him in some way, I don't know why."

"What made Ryan different than Dallon? Or Gabe?" I scoffed and held up one finger.

"First of all, Dallon is way too commanding in the bedroom, or rather, the tour bus, and Gabe was an exclusively one time thing that happened in a closet at Pete Wentz's house-"

"I said spare me details!" Whitney laughed with exasperation. "Seriously Brendon, I know it's about more than an old crush and sex."

"Mm, are you sure it's more than that?" I asked, cocky as usual when Whitney said something that was probably right.

"I don't know Brendon, you tell me. Actually, we're about out of time for today, so you tell me at our next session. And hey, I have a goal for you this week." Whitney was organizing her notes as I held the room's door open and we walked out into the waiting room area.

"What would that be?"

"I want you to hang out with Ryan at least once this week without doing anything remotely sexual with him." I raised an eyebrow.

"What's the point of that goal?"

"Just trust me, okay?"

"Okay, I'll complete the goal if I get an explanation for why you gave it to me after I complete it." Whitney smiled and nodded.

"Sounds good to me." We hugged, and I made my way outside. I had skateboarded here, but I didn't feel like skating back in the late May heat.

"Hey Kenny, how would you feel about picking me up for some lunch and hitting the arcade?" I launched my request the minute Kenny picked up the phone. I heard him shuffling something around, and then he answered.

"I'm always down for the arcade and some greasy pizza, where are you at?"

"Outside Whitney's, greasy pizza and arcade money is on me today." I grinned as I heard the jingle of Kenny's car keys in his hand.

"Alright, see you in ten." He hung up, and I put my phone in my back pocket and sat on the bench outside Whitney's office.

Within two minutes of being seated, my phone beeped with a text.

Sarah
Hey babe, when are you going to be home? xx

I sighed, knowing that Kenny and I would be a few hours at the arcade.

A couple of hours hun, Kenny and I are going to the arcade.

I saw a few seconds later that my text had been read, but Sarah didn't respond. I shrugged it off and scrolled through my other texts.

Zach
Hey, you're hanging out with Ryan again? What's up with that?

I rolled my eyes. Zach was a good manager and a good friend, but he was always in my business.

Nothing's up with it, he recently moved a lot closer and we thought we'd link up and fuck around in the studio.

Zach
fuck in the studio*

I laughed a little after reading Zach's text, but I didn't have time to respond because Kenny had pulled up.

Kenny had introduced me Giavannio's, an out of the way pizza joint with a huge arcade downstairs. The place was mostly inhabited by teenagers, but it was really reminiscent of my own teen years, and Kenny felt the same way, so we frequently got lunch or dinner their. Dallon had always wanted to eat somewhere fancier, and Zach never wanted to watch us play arcade games for two hours, so it was always just me and Kenny if we went there for a guys day.

Over huge slices of pizza and glasses of Sprite, I decided to tease Kenny about Nicole before he had time to ask me about what Whitney and I had talked about.

"So, how's Nicole?" I took a long sip of my Sprite with a smug expression on my face.

"Why would you be asking me?" Kenny pretended to act shocked, even though he knew I was going to harass him about his obvious attraction to her endlessly.

"Oh come on, did she go back to yours on Friday?" Kenny took a bite of his pizza before responding.

"Maybe she did, I assume Ryan stayed a while to "play cards", didn't he?" Kenny sassing me was unusual, he usually just laughed along with whatever the running group joke was, but not today.

"Whoa, maybe she did? What the hell does that mean?" I laughed, getting up to refill my Sprite. Kenny waited to answer until I sat back down.

"It means maybe she did, the real question here is how much card playing did you and Ryan actually do?" I wiped my face with a napkin and shook my head.

"Kenny, he was a summer fling in 2007. We played blackjack, that's it." I felt like kicking myself for lying to Kenny, but at this point it was all I could think to do. I didn't want anyone who didn't have to know to find out.

"Well, if you must know, Nicole did spend the night on Friday."

"Wait, really? Holy shit dude, that's wild. I never thought you'd actually have to guts to ask her to stay over!" Kenny flushed a little red. "Oh come on now, don't tell me you slept on the couch."

"No, I didn't sleep on the couch." Kenny replied quietly, grinning smugly.

"I knew it! I fuckin knew it!" I chanted as we finished our pizza and headed downstairs to the arcade, where we'd probably be for the next couple hours.