Noah licked his lips. Nodded. Looked down at the floor before pulling his gaze back up to mine. I couldn’t tell if it was just in my head or not, but I could have sworn his eyes lingered a moment on my crotch before jumping up to my face. “You know, we’ve got an open spot in the club. I don’t know what your plans are for the night, but if you’re free, you can come join. You don’t have to be gay or anything to read under the rainbow. We accept the straights.”

Internally, I winced at Noah’s categorization of me. I didn’t blame him or feel offended. I understood that I presented as a typical heterosexual dude in society’s outdated terms, and Noah had likely seen me with Ashley at some point, further cementing his idea of me. It wasn’t his fault or his burden to carry. It was something that repeatedly occurred to me as a bisexual person. The assumptions and erasures of entire identities solely because of the way they present and who they’re with at the time. It was like assuming someone who ordered fish at a restaurant was a strict pescatarian and not just craving a little bit of salmon and capers.

But it wasn’t the time to go into all that with Noah. Maybe that conversation would come up some other day, but for now, Noah was expecting an answer. Did I take him up on his offer and crash his book club, or would it be better if I stuck to the original plan and headed off on my dick appointment with a bottle of wine and a condom in my back pocket?

It was an easy choice.

“Yeah, sure, I’ll join you guys if your friends don’t mind.”

I’d message the guy when I got back into my car. Hopefully he wouldn’t be too upset, but then again he likely had three other guys lined up in his chats, so I wasn’t too stressed about it.

Noah’s grin widened. “Perf. I’m sure they won’t mind. We’re a pretty chill group of people.”

That made me even happier with the choice I’d made. Ever since the breakup with Ashley, I had quickly realized that most of my friends had been her friends, and even though our breakup was amicable, they still remained a text away for her and were nearly nonexistent to me, none of them reaching out to see if I was doing alright or if I needed anything, even just a chat. As I got older, creeping toward my thirties now, I also came to find that making friends was way harder than it used to be back when you were forced together through similar classes or clubs.