Jeremy Thrane by Kate Christensen

out.”
    “That isn’t at all the point,” he said pleadingly. “You’re not listening.”
    “Tell me the point.”
    “I’m married,” he said urgently. “I have a daughter. It used to be worth it, but now it’s not. I know that sounds harsh, but you made me say it point-blank.”
    I felt as if I hadn’t inhaled for a few minutes. I drew a deep, jagged breath; the oxygen went immediately to my head and cleared it somewhat. “Where is your lovely wife tonight, by the way?”
    “She met some friends for a drink after Bret went to bed. She should be back any minute.” He stood up, carefully placing his empty glass on the coffee table in front of us. “I have to pee,” he said. “I’ll be right back, don’t say anything interesting while I’m gone.” This was an old joke between us, but I didn’t smile. How dare he refer to our past life now?
    I sat numbly in my armchair and stared at the fire, trying to ascertain what, exactly, had just happened here. Ted’s presence in this house felt intrusive and unfamiliar. I had become proprietary about this room; I’d spent far more time in it than he ever had. The burning wood snapped as flames bit their way through and turned it to ash.
    Ted returned and stood by the window with his hands in his pockets. “I hope there won’t be bad feelings between us,” he said in the unhappybut self-assured tone of someone who’d always had his way, all his life, and was used to having people do exactly what he asked of them.
    I resolved never to let him see that he had broken my heart, assuming my heart was really broken. Just then, I felt numb, horny, and angry, but those feelings were easy enough to hide under a veneer of proud indifference. I could act too.
    “I don’t see how that can be avoided,” I said.
    “I wish it could,” he said, running an aggrieved hand through his hair, which hadn’t thinned at all as far as I could tell. “I’d hoped, after all we’ve been through, that you would understand.”
    “Did you,” I said.
    “I was thinking maybe—financially. God, it sounds so crass and I don’t mean it that way. I want to set things up so you never have to—”
    “I don’t want your money,” I said. “You’ll just have to trust me. Although of course there’s no guarantee that you can, is there? ‘I was Ted Masterson’s Gay Love Slave.’ ‘Ted’s Dirty Little Secret—Male Lover Tells All.’ ”
    “Please remember that I have a daughter,” he said tersely.
    “I’m impressed,” I said. “I never realized you were such a devoted father.”
    “It’s amazing what parenthood does to you. It makes you want to be better than you are. For the first time in my life, I know what it means to put someone else before myself. I’ve grown up, I guess.” He flashed me his puckish, self-deprecating grin.
    “Won’t you miss me?” I said, hating myself for asking but unable not to.
    “Well, of course I’ll miss you,” he said with a ruefulness that seemed involuntary and maybe even genuine.
    Suddenly, things felt a little more familiar between us. “I wish you didn’t have to be so noble and hypocritical.”
    “Noble and hypocritical,” he repeated, laughing wincingly. He sat in the chair next to me, but he didn’t take the hand I held out to him, so I let it fall onto the armrest of my chair.
    There was a sound behind us. We turned, swiveling our heads in tandem so Giselle saw our faces between the chairs, backlit by the fire.“Hello, boys,” she said in her silvery-metallic voice. “Mind if I join you for a nightcap?”
    “I’ll make another pitcher of martinis, that all right with everyone?” said Ted in a voice I didn’t know, a husbandly, hearty, manly-man voice. He stood up and headed over to the bar. “Did you have a good time, honey?”
    Honey. A look flew between them, a look I would have missed if I hadn’t been paying strict attention. I sat up straighter in my chair.
    “It was okay,” she said as she ruffled