The white sleeves of his oxford unevenly rolled up, his tie crumpled and drifting, his dress pants dotted with wine.
His suit jacket draped across my shoulders, nearly hiding all of my little dress. Neither of us knew where our shoes were: Vegas.
"The thing is, Utah," he was saying in his heavy midwestern drawl, "it isn't the person you are with; it is the way you are when you are with them. If you were with Him, you would be running through this fountain, and he'd be all standing here pissed at you. But if you were with a fountain runner, you would be the one standing there being all pissed off. Why are you always the other way round? When are you going to do what you really want to do?"
I laugh and sit down beside him. My elbow thumps into his side in my sloppy descent, and he reacts so dramatically that he nearly rolls himself over the edge and into the water.
"Doctor, have you lost your mind?" I say, "Might I remind you we just ran through that fountain?"
He sits up, shaking his head, "No, no! You did that for me! Because I am a co-depended fountain runner. You are always whatever WE need you to be. When do you get to be you?"
Out of the corner of my eye, I see a security guard making his way toward us. I pull on his arm, and we head for the nearest bank of elevators.
The wine, the wetness, the marble floors, and even the chill of the desert night turning make the walk feel like we are ice skating across a pond. He begins to sing a song from the Verve Pipe, slurring the lyrics but not their meaning.
And it begins to feel just dangerous enough that I stop paying attention to the blaze of us and our wild night to concentrate solely on getting him to the room without incident.
"Yes, Dear," I answered, smiling at the strangers and slipping the bottle of wine from his hand.
His weight shifts, and he resets his entire mass against my bad shoulder. It pins me behind him to the glass wall. I feel a stitch rip loose from the strap on my dress.
He whispers into my hair, "but I want that man to be me, okay?"