1

The ice in my Blue Raspberry clinked against the glass when I sat it down, my heart a one-man band in my chest. I knew this moment was coming and waited all night for it. Looking into Ethan’s gorgeous dark eyes sparkling with anticipation, I told him plainly, “No.”

            His eyebrows arched in surprise, no the last thing he’d expected to come out of my mouth. “No?” he said as if he’d misheard. “So, all those times you flirted with me… Batting your eyes and shit, what was all that?”

            Rising above the chatter of sixty conversations was the euro-disco beat of Nelly Furtado’s song Maneater. Inspired choice, DJ. In my head, I thank the Universe for acknowledging what I’d always known: that I was, in fact, a bad bitch.

“I’m sorry,” I told him, but I really wasn’t. I was still working him. What had Kerry Washington said on Scandal? If you want me, earn me! Ethan Reyes would appreciate me more the harder he worked for me, as logically any man would.  Xander Harris said it best on Buffy: The more unattainable, the more attractive. “I didn’t mean to lead you on or anything. It’s just… I know where this will go. I mean, are you even gay?”

            Ethan looked down at his waist, where his fingers were interlaced. I could tell it was a question he didn’t know how to answer yet, and I felt like a dick for asking it. Following a moment of quiet, he looked at me and said, “I dunno.” Truth be told, this was a terrible answer. A small part of me appreciated his honesty. It could save us both a ton of time. “All I know is I like who I like. It doesn’t matter what they got.”

            We were at a bar called Oasis, a little hole in the wall on Security Boulevard, across the street from Security Square Mall and next door to, of all things, Best Buy. It wasn’t exactly a Black gay bar, but it might as well be. On Friday nights you saw everybody here: kids my age (some younger) in cut-off shorts and crop tops, stout men in tank tops or polos cackling with their gurls over tequila sunrises and margaritas, queens with a full beat in huge blonde wigs bearing their slim waists in little more than a bra and panties earning the gawks of muscle-bound trade in adidas, tight jeans and tighter shirts. The floral scent of perfume was a serious clash with the manly man smells of beer and buffalo wings. It was 10p.m., so I didn’t see my colleagues, who usually came here after work for a quick drink. Sankofa Headquarters was only a ten-minute drive down the road.

            As sorry as I felt for Ethan, I’d feel even sorrier for me if I green lit a relationship only for him to up and cheat on me with a woman. At 21, I wasn’t about to be a tool for a straight man to satisfy his bi-curiosity for a season. “Maybe not today, but what happens when a girl with a tiny waist and a big ole juicy butt passes you? Then what? You’ll dump me and go back to swimming with fish.”

            He reached over the table and gripped my hand, desire aflame in his eyes. “I like you, Will,” he said, his thumb rubbing against my hand. I almost believed the sincerity in his voice. Almost. “I want you. That I am sure about.”

            I pulled my hand back from his. “Ethan…”

            “Please.” He was practically begging now. “Give us a shot. What, you talking to other dudes?”

            Laughter escaped my lips, a high reverberating sound that’d sound snobby in a different context. As if. “Yeah, right.”

            “So what is it?” He laughed; there were more nerves in it than humor. “Am I ugly?”

            Now that was a joke. A perfectly round ‘fro sat on his head like a dark brown sun. His narrow eyes stared into my soul. The hair under his chin and scattered over his cheeks suggested he hadn’t shaved in weeks, but it fit his whole ‘I woke up like this’ aesthetic. He was a Starburst for the eyes. “Shut up,” I said as my eyes rolled. “It’s not… I mean, we work together, Ethan. What’ll happen when we break up?”

            He let out a joyless chuckle. “When?”

            I gave him a look. “Are you saying you’re my forever?”

            His lips curled in a coy half-grin that revealed the dimple in his right cheek. Be still, my heart. “I could be.”

            “Please. You don’t even know me.”

            He grabbed my arm, looking at me as if I were the most stubborn man on the planet. “So let me. That’s why we’re here, aren’t we?”

            I nagged my brain for an excuse, somewhere between fact, that I wanted him, and fiction, that I didn’t. “You are a catch. But we work together. Things could get messy if we hooked up.”

            His stare shot into me like rays. “Technically we don’t,” he said. “We both work at Sankofa. But I’m an agent. You’re still an intern.”

            He got me there. He was at the stage in his career where he did actual field work. I spent most of my days at work scanning and filling; I couldn’t even get into the training hall on my own. “Until I pass the Ram and become medallioned. What then? We’ll be bona-fide colleagues.”

            He sighed, probably as tired of hearing my excuses as I was of giving them. “You won’t be eligible to take the Ram until next year. And by then, we’ll be madly in love and this conversation won’t matter.”

            A Sapphire Medallion separated a legitimate demon hunter from some Joe who decided one day to hunt demons, seeing how much the state us paid. To earn a Sapphire Medallion, you first had to pass The Ram exam, for which a Bachelor’s in Demonology was a prerequisite. Unprofessional demon hunters weren’t common, though. Most of them died before they made a name for themselves, and those that did survive their first hunt typically weren’t dumb enough to go for a second.

            “I don’t need distractions,” I said, “I need to start preparing for the Ram now. Surely, you know what that’s like. You finally got your medallion this year. I plan on taking the Ram only once.” The Ram exam was available in the first and third quarters of the year. While you could take it over and over, until you passed, your professional career would be in limbo for six months until the examination period opened again.

            “A lot of agents don’t pass The Ram their first time. So?”

            “Nothing against them, but it’s different for me.” I come from a family of legends. Failure was not an option.

            Groaning, Ethan shook his head “You’re hopeless,” he said. I detected a note of annoyance in his voice. He was about sick of me. I thought keeping him at arm’s length would make him intrigued, try a little harder to unpeel my layers. I didn’t want to make him mad at me. But it’s fine; this was part of it. I was making him work for it. Hell, I’d be worried if he wasn’t the teensy bit agitated. Wanting what you couldn’t get was annoying. If he didn’t care, he’d sound like it.

            “Let me take you home, I guess,” he said in a somewhat listless tone.

            I checked the time on my iPhone, which read 10:15. It was still early, but he was ready to call it a night. Uh oh.

            I’s fine, I thought. It’s fine…

            We were on I-695 for what felt like days. The problem wasn’t traffic. For a Friday night, traffic was light. The problem was my anxiety, the sinking fear in my gut that I’d blown it with the guy I’d been crazy about for the last three years. On my first day at Sankofa, Ethan was one of two people to talk to me (having been interning a week before me, he was pretty green himself). We'd learned the ropes together, though he had more to teach me than I him, being that he was in his third year of undergrad at the time. When I should've been studying after work, I was in the training hall with him. Did I downplay my abilities a little to feel his strong hands on my hips, pushing me up so that my chin passed the pull-up bar or over my arms, guiding them to a position that’d maximize the effectiveness of my spells so that I wasn’t waving my arms about all willy-nilly? Yes, yes I did. Every time he noticed it, he called me out. Though the way his hands would rest on my skin a bit longer than they needed to and the warm whisper from a mouth that always found its way within an inch from my ears even when we were the only two people in the room, gave me the impression he didn’t mind it as much as he claimed.

            Despite this, I just knew there was no way on God’s green Earth the man was gay, or bi, pan, whatever. He was nice to me because he was decent, not because he wanted to get with me. Flirting with him was fun and…yes, I admit to hearing a voice in my head asking, what if he’s gay? What if you have a shot with him?

            All year, I resisted it. This voice had led me down a path of heartbreak many a times and I would not fall for it again. Besides, it’d now been three years and Ethan had yet to react to my flirtations. Once he got his Sapphire Medallion, he got too busy to worry about little ole me anyway. We hadn’t trained together at all this year.

            Imagine my surprise when I found him waiting in the Grand Garden to ask me out for a drink tonight. My heart damn near exploded. But I had to play it cool. Returning a man’s interest was seemingly boy-repellent. I didn’t want Ethan to be yet another disappointment, build-up that’d ultimately go nowhere, so I decided to change my strategy. I tended to go full steam ahead with a relationship after a single date. An air of indifference may keep this one interested, I thought. Stupid. Now Ethan wasn’t speaking to me and I didn’t know how to fix it.

            “We’re here,” Ethan said with the emotion of timber. Indeed, I looked over his shoulder and saw we were parked outside my apartment building on Milford Mill Road.

            I opened the door but didn’t get out. I couldn’t let the date end like this. “Ethan, wait,” I said, staring into the pale glow of the moon reflecting off his eyes. A smile formed in his blue-white stare, and it clicked. He was working me, too.

            I kept my smile from becoming a smirk with the barest effort. “Um… never mind. Have a good night.”

            That’s right, keep him guessing, I thought. I would’ve fallen for those puppy dog eyes when I was 19, 20 or even four months ago, when I was too young to know the games boys played. I was a slow learner, but eventually I did learn.

            I got out of his car, a gleaming Honda Civic the color of roses. Wanting to salvage what was left of his night, he’d ask if he could come inside. And mustering up every ounce of restraint I could draw from my mana cells, I’d turn him down. Again. All the work I’d put into roping him into my web would collapse if I gave him the goods in the end.  

            “You know,” he said, and I wasn’t at all moved by the chill in his voice. We were both playing the game, and only one of us would win. “I was hoping to meet the real Will tonight. Shit, maybe I did. Enjoy the rest of your weekend, man.”

            Astonished, I veered towards him as he was pulling off. You’d have thought he popped me in the mouth. He didn’t say, See you Monday, but Enjoy the rest of your weekend, like he didn’t intend to speak to me tomorrow, Sunday or hell, ever.

I opened my mouth to apologize for being such a clown and beg for another choice, swear to him I’d be real from now on. But I was chasing the wind. Ethan was gone.

            Hoping to reach him before he turned onto Reisterstown Road, I pulled out my phone and got to textin’.  I’m sorry for being so stupid, I typed, the truth is… I like you. I like you a lot. In my warped brain, pretending I didn’t so you’d like me more somehow made sense to me. Please come back. So we can have a real conversation.

            He didn’t respond.