When I was with Callum, I felt lucky and chosen, and also that people assumed I was his frantic personal assistant. I’d worked on banishing my insecurity and imagining that we were just two people in love, a delusion that lasted until I saw the expressions on strangers’ faces as they calculated, “What’s that one doing with that one?” I’m not some hideous troll, and attraction isn’t just about looks, but Callum had fulfilled one of my most deeply shallow fantasies: what if I was with a guy like that?

Of course, I’d found out that Callum had been busily fulfilling that fantasy for half the Eastern seaboard and several foreign countries, especially when he was on a job. I’d been terribly hurt by this and furious at myself for ignoring obvious clues, but whenever I’d almost worked up the nerve to ask Callum a question about, say, the increasingly thirsty texts from his personal trainer, Callum would gaze at me the way he was doing right now, as if we were already having sex. I can’t say that Callum is a great actor, but he loves acting romantic; he’s like a Hallmark Christmas movie hunk who doesn’t just kiss.

“I’ve been thinking about us so much. And how I hurt you. I don’t know why I did that, and I’m so sorry. Man, am I sorry.”

Callum is one of the only guys I’ve ever met who can make bro-speak—using words like “man,” “dude” and “bud”—sound erotic. Maybe it’s part of his lifeguard-in-a-porn-video appeal. But I wasn’t going to listen. I wasn’t his bro.

“I know, I shouldn’t make this about me, my shrink says that I never deserved you, why am I such a fuckup?”

The top four snaps on his worn denim shirt were open, and he was rubbing his tan, rock-hard chest while looking right at me, and he could actually get away with the wristload of knotted rawhide bracelet, vintage Rolex and red kabbalah string. He could get away with anything, and he was great in bed and surprisingly generous. Right now he was aiming for an Oscar, or at least a Daytime Emmy nomination, in turning me on, and it was working. God damn him.

“I know you can’t forgive me, and I would never ask you to. All I want is, I don’t know, just a chance. To prove myself. Maybe start with a weekend—my agent has this amazing house in Quogue, right on the ocean, and he says it’s all ours. We could hang out, no pressure. Just see what happens. Man, I can’t stop looking at you.”