Chapter 15 #2
Ramona just stares at him for a long moment, unable to believe he’s telling her this. Maybe he just wants to distract her from the song—and it’s certainly working.
“You had a crush,” she says, biting back a grin, deeply amused by this revelation.
They’re in the final chorus now, with the key change where she switches the lyrics to sold my heart to the highest bidder.
He waves this off. “How many people had crushes on you? I was one of a thousand, easy. Too common to be noteworthy.”
Sure, he isn’t wrong. But something about this feels different from the anonymous men with their countdown websites. She tries to imagine him watching her onstage from a seat way in the back. The short tight skirts she used to wear, her long hair flowing. The suggestive lyrics.
She likes it. She likes it quite a bit, thinking of him watching her like that.
—
The game starts with the introduction of players on each team before the tip-off. Ramona is both shocked and thrilled to discover that there’s actual booing of the visiting team. She thought there’d be more, well, sportsmanship, but that doesn’t prevent her from booing at the top of her lungs.
Without a doubt, though, the best part is how into it Nick gets. During tense moments, he balances his elbows on his knees, head bent low like he’s praying.
“Come on come on come on,” he says quietly, eyes locked on the court. He never yells at his team, doesn’t throw out insults like some of the surrounding fans.
“Beautiful!” he says after a spectacular three-pointer, clapping his hands, and his intensity is infectious.
Ramona’s never been so invested in the outcome of a sporting event, especially when he turns to her for a high five.
It’s brief, that touch of palm to palm, but it’s enough to send her heart up into her throat.
She has to get ahold of herself. She cannot experience heart palpitations just because his palm touched hers.
When the buzzer sounds for halftime, the Clippers are only down 51–38. There’s a flurry around them as people head for concessions and bathrooms.
“Okay,” Ramona says, holding out her hand. “Let me see your dating profiles.”
Nick lets out a dramatic groan. “You want to do this now?”
“No time like the present,” she says cheerfully as he passes her his phone.
“Fine. Do your worst. I have a feeling this is about to be extremely humbling.” He sips from his soda, leans back in his seat. “You’ve never been on the apps, have you? Not even that one for celebrities? I’m sure it’s just as brutal as the rest.”
She shakes her head as she navigates to one of his apps.
“No, but I know all about image. And this photo?” With a wince, she holds out his phone to show his profile picture.
Terrible lighting, a smile that looks more like a grimace, his hair overly combed.
God, it’s a travesty that a man this good-looking can take a photo this bad.
“It looks like you’re auditioning for the role of socially awkward best friend. And you didn’t get the part.”
In one swift motion, she switches to his camera and takes a photo.
“I wasn’t ready!”
“I’m trying to get a candid!”
He laugh-groans as he pushes back against her arm, and Ramona takes a moment to recover from the brush of skin against skin.
He took off his jacket in the first quarter, revealing defined triceps and those forearms she got a glimpse of a couple weeks back.
It’s the first time she’s seen him in a T-shirt.
What she doesn’t say is that he really ought to have a photo that shows off his arms.
It’s true that she doesn’t have experience with dating apps, but she also doesn’t have much experience with relationships.
Aside from Zander, she’s never had anything last longer than a couple months.
You’re not the girlfriend type, metal drummer Ryan told her after they slept together, even though he’d cheated on his own girlfriend with her—one Ramona hadn’t known about, or she would have put an end to it before it began.
Not the girlfriend type. She’d already been labeled so many times—slut, feminist, antifeminist, shrill, hot, not hot enough—what was one more? Only now she’s wondering what it was about her that made men think: temporary. Good for a few weeks of fun, but not much else.
For all her confidence, she doesn’t know shit about commitment. Maybe she won’t be able to help Nick after all.
She can hear his steady, rhythmic breaths as she swipes through his profile.
She was right that being friends with him already feels easy, as long as she ignores his arms, his face, and the fact that he’s once again scruffy and unshaven today.
Part of her can’t believe he so willingly surrendered his phone.
He trusts her, she realizes.
She’s not sure if she’s fully earned it, that trust. It’s a heavy thing to hold.
“I see what the problem is,” she says after a while. “You sound too stiff, which is the complete opposite of how you are in real life. Give them some of that sparkling personality!” Another swipe. “Under hobbies, it says pub trivia? What’s your team name?”
“I fear you won’t take me seriously as an educator if I tell you.”
“Please tell me it’s not something completely embarrassing like Quiz in my Pants.”
“Risky Quizness,” he says. “We’re really competitive. It’s a bunch of professors, and it’s very dorky, but it’s a lot of fun.”
“That’s about as dorky as I would expect from you, and I respect it. ‘Your ideal partner…’ ” she reads, “ ‘enjoys an evening listening to records and cooking together’—records? You’re into vinyl?”
“A bit of a collector, actually.”
She used to be the same—only now most of her records are locked away in the room she never enters.
“…‘and then going to the farmers’ market the next morning.’ Actually, that part’s really nice. I don’t get why no one has fallen in love with you yet.”
“Truthfully?” He balances his elbows on his knees again, glancing down at the court, where kids are taking halftime free-throw shots.
“The idea of a serious relationship is a little terrifying. I’ve only had the one experience, and obviously we both know how that ended.
It’s strange, because being divorced usually comes up on the first date, if it hasn’t come up earlier.
And then you get this new kind of judgment.
You can see the wheels turning in the other person’s head as they try to figure out why, and if you’re someone they should be wary of. ”
There’s an undeniable shyness as he says all of this, so out of sync with how he usually carries himself. Ramona silently wishes hell upon anyone who’d write him off just because his marriage didn’t work out.
“Please don’t feel sorry for me,” he says when she’s quiet a beat too long. “It was for the best. I know that now.”
“I’m not,” she lies. She fiddles with her ponytail again, wondering how much she can get away with. “Can I ask what happened?”
“Why we got divorced?”
“We don’t have to talk about it if—”
He shakes his head, though he doesn’t quite meet her eyes.
“No, it’s okay. Friends share their personal lives, right?
” Then he goes quiet for a few moments before speaking again.
“She had an emotional affair with a colleague. She said it hadn’t gotten physical yet, but she was in love with someone else. ”
“Fuck,” Ramona says, fighting every urge to reach out and touch him. And then she stops fighting, because she doesn’t know how else to express her sympathy. Her hand lands on his knee, rubbing back and forth a few times through his jeans. “I’m sorry.”
When he stiffens at her touch, she drops her hand.
Right. He said he didn’t want her pity. “We were together so long and knew each other so well. Maybe we took each other for granted, I don’t know.
I’ve spent the whole year trying to figure out what I could have done to drive her away.
What I did wrong that made her want someone else.
Was I working too much, or was I unavailable when she needed me? ”
What if you didn’t do anything wrong at all? Ramona wants to ask.
“She’s not a bad person,” Nick rushes to say, and her heart breaks a little, hearing him defend his ex-wife like this. “Really. And it wasn’t an ugly divorce. After all this…I still want her to be happy.”
If he put that on his dating profile, he’d have to beat women away with a stick.
Ramona swallows hard. “Very mature of you.”
“It comes with age,” he says, mouth tilting into a smile, and she gets the feeling the joke is signaling that he’d like to move on.
So she holds up her own phone. “Let’s try another one. Natural smile this time—yes, much better.” Then she holds out her arm for a selfie of the two of them.
“I realize that I’m new to the whole dating thing, but I think it might send the wrong message if I have a picture with Ramona Wilder on my profile.”
“Ha,” she says, right before the whistle blows to start the third quarter. “No, this one is just for me.”
The Clippers lose, 123–91, but everyone agrees they made a tremendous effort. Surely, they’ll get ’em next time.
As they’re leaving the arena, Nick motions for her to follow him into one of the merch shops.
She’s almost a little devastated that the game is over.
For just a moment, she tries bargaining with the universe, wishing they could go home together instead of back to their separate cars.
Even if all they’d do is talk. Even if he doesn’t touch her for the rest of the day.
Ramona has to swallow back a stab of jealousy, imagining women swiping right on him. Back in his office, she’d wanted him in a purely physical way. Now she’s not sure what she wants—only that she can’t have any of it.
“To commemorate your first outing as a normal person,” Nick says, swapping the baseball cap on her head for one with the team’s updated logo. His gaze locks to hers while her heart races, and she wonders why nothing about this feels normal at all. “I’d say it was a rousing success.”