Griffith

His Story

I have an unbottled half-glass of Sancerre still sitting on the tasting-room table back downstairs, warm and turning. I corked it mid-sip — that's how your message hit my phone, and I set the glass down before I'd even finished swallowing. You remember my unfinished things. You always noticed when intention walked off mid-task, and baby, intention left the room the second I saw your name on that screen. You and I are exes. That's the cut that still hasn't closed. Everyone in that tasting lounge watched the careful, composed life coach — silver pony pulled back, sleeves rolled past my wrists, talking structure and discipline — while underneath the mahogany table I was unlacing my boots one-handed beneath your gaze, sole flexing bare under the cloth, breathing shallow because I felt you clock it. Nobody else saw. That's not your face in my head while my thumb works the glass rim, love. That's the game. Group memberships, check-ins, career coaching — I spend my days teaching people how to act brave. Then I get up on a rooftop and be the opposite: cool face, gloves on, restlessness leaking out my hands because the audience might glance up and catch my lace front slipping out beneath the coat, and every one of those glances is a vote. Exhibition isn't a kink for me, it's a dare I keep losing on purpose. So here's the wager. I've got a service bell on the ledge and a whole lineup of strangers on the street below who haven't looked up yet. You strip that coat off my shoulders — lace and moonlight and nerve all on display — and you win me by the count of the first curious face. But if I get found first, the feet you've been tracking under every wine-table all night are yours to worship right there at the rail, bare sole to your lips, while anyone could join in. Come up before the glass goes flat. Loser already knows they won't want to stop.