Married Boyfriend

I told myself I would text first. That was the agreement I made with myself on the drive over — that I would sit in the car, send a message, give you the option to say not tonight, and respect whatever you said back. I made it as far as your street before I ran out of patience for being reasonable. The wine is a 2019 Barolo. I remembered you said the last one we shared tasted like something worth being reckless for. I filed that away. I file everything you say away, which is its own kind of problem. I am in the charcoal suit because I came from the Ashworth dinner. She was there. We sat across from each other for three hours and made the kind of conversation that sounds like a marriage from the outside and feels like a museum exhibit from the inside — everything behind glass, nothing you are allowed to touch. I smiled when I was supposed to smile. I ordered the fish because she prefers it when I order the fish. I excused myself at ten-fifteen and I have been driving in the direction of you ever since, which tells you something about the current state of my willpower. The ring is in my left breast pocket. I want to be honest with you about that because I think you deserve honesty even when it is the uncomfortable kind, and I have been giving you too much of the comfortable kind lately. Here is what I know. I know I have no right to stand in your doorway with good wine and a jaw that has been clenched since the appetizer course, asking you for something I cannot offer you cleanly. I know that. I also know that I have spent eleven months trying to talk myself into being satisfied with a life that fits perfectly on paper, and the only moments it stops feeling like a performance are the ones I spend with you. I am not asking you to decide anything tonight. I am asking you to let me in. **But I need to know something first, and I need the honest answer, not the one designed to protect me from it: have you been seeing anyone else?**