I’m bare—more self-conscious about my face than I am about my body. My plump lips and wide, expressive eyes. And right now, Tahoe Roth is taking it all in.

Taking all of me in.

I’ve never been seen like this, since Paul. I’ve never allowed people to see me like this. Not a man, not anyone. I’m not even comfortable looking at myself like this.

Tahoe is oblivious to that, and he stares at my face for a long time. He stares with such searing intensity I could burn to ash.

His blue eyes look and feel intense on my face, his hands still on my jaw. I raise my hands up to his as he leans forward, exhaling, and he kisses my cheek. His beard scrapes over my skin, and I don’t move a muscle. My eyes shut, and when I open them again, I start to caress his face. He’s studying me. Still holding my jaw.

I run my fingers over his beard. “It’s past the prickly part. It’s soft now,” I croak.

He laughs softly and rubs the knuckle of his thumb over my lipstick-less lips, his eyes a little heavy looking. “My beard isn’t soft; these are soft,” he contradicts.

I trail my fingertips over his beard, and then, impulsively, over his lips.

He opens his lips as though he means to taste me. He seems to catch himself, taking my wrist in one hand and lowering my arm.

His vexation over Paul is evident in his voice. “Where is it?”

“What?”

“The shit letter he sent you. Where is it?”

More than be affronted at the anger in his voice, I’m surprised by the intensity in his tone as I look up. I sense that he’s not mad at me, but for me, frustrated that he can’t help me.

“I…you remember that?” When he only looks at me with a black look, I go to my room then open the drawer. “Under all my…stuff…”

He reaches through dozens of panties, feeling through my drawer. His hand is big and my panties look so flimsy as he burrows among them up to his thick wrist. He finds the letter, tucks it in his back pocket, and closes my drawer.

“Let’s go do something. We’re going to make this disappear, and then we’re going to chill, and not for one second will you be thinking of him.”

He leads me across my apartment and opens the door, and as I pass, he warns me with a determined look, “That’s the last time you cry for some motherfucker.”

* * *

We’re at Navy Pier, sitting on the dock with our feet hanging over the water. The rides and shops are quiet. Tahoe called Saint on the drive over, and apparently he knew someone who let us in.

It’s a dream here. A nearly finished six-pack of beers sits to my right, Tahoe to my left. It’s freezing, so we sit as close as we can get. The sounds of night surround us, so distant they could be a memory. I take a deep breath, finally relaxed.

Ten minutes ago, Tahoe handed me the letter along with his lighter. He asked me if I wanted to read it first. I didn’t. I was ready to let go, and I didn’t care to know. I didn’t hesitate. I lit that sucker on fire, watched it burn for a few seconds, then dropped the burning letter and watched the ashes dissolve into the water.

We toasted with beers, me on my first, T-Rex on his third.

“I love that you drink beer straight from the bottle,” I say.

“Why?”

“You can blend with the posh, and you can fit in with average guys.” I shrug. “I don’t know. I just like it. You’re like a tamed beast.”

He’s momentarily speechless, then he scoffs and shakes his head incredulously. “You did not just call me a tamed beast, Regina.”

“I did.” I giggle.

I watch him put his lips on the beer bottle and take a slow swig.

I can barely stand the physicality of him, the reaction I have to him, and I’m aware that I want to have sex right now. Or maybe I just want to be close to someone. Maybe he’s the one who always makes me aware that I want to be close to someone.

He looks at me with his blue eyes. “I like that you drink beer…like a guy,” he teases as he nudges me.

“Wow, thanks! I feel so womanly.”

His smile never falters, but his voice lowers. “You are. You put on a fierce face, but I’ve never bought it.” He takes another sip, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows.

“Yeah? I totally buy yours.”

He laughs and then sobers up, crossing his arms. “No one is the way they seem. We all hide little pieces, either because we don’t want to be judged, or because we don’t think we’ll be understood, or simply because we don’t want those pieces of us to belong to anyone but us.” He lifts his beer and drinks, and I drink too.

As he lowers the bottle to his side, I look at his moist lips for an extra second.

Tahoe has never bought into the image I put out, and I don’t understand why—even before we became friends, he seemed to see right through me.

A part of me has also always understood that the person the world sees—the lazy, laughing, easy-going Tahoe—is a front for a far deeper, more complex man beneath.

We all hide little pieces of ourselves. He’s right. The teacher who told you that you’d never be good enough marked you in more ways than one. The birthday your parents forgot. Tiny little details that add up to your sense of inadequacy, of simply not being enough. So you stop wanting to please the teacher, stop expecting anything for your birthday; you stop putting out your good stuff because you don’t want the world to crap on it. Where does that stuff go? Is it there lingering, waiting to come out?

He smiles at me, and there is the tiger in me, wanting to pounce on…him.