4. Tommy
CHAPTER 4
Tommy
M y foot taps under the table without my fucking permission. She’s five minutes late for the coffee date she requested. We had to wait longer than I wanted thanks to a training trip. I texted her as soon as I got back to set this up, but I didn’t think this through, and after I read her dating profile repeatedly while on the trip, I became attracted to her in a new way. Not only is she beautiful and my type physically, I think she’s my type in all ways. I say I think because I don’t know which parts and pieces of Dani I loved and which ones I hated but dealt with because there wasn’t an option. It’s a fucked-up mentality, but that’s who I am these days. Is it possible to know what I want in a partner when I’m still sorting through who I am without the last one? My first task needs to be to find out what I like.
Margo walks in, and I forget my train of thought. She has her hair slicked back in a ponytail, and she’s wearing black leggings and a cropped oversized hoodie left unzipped in a casual way. Her cheeks are pink, and her full lips are glossed. I like that she doesn’t wear a lot of makeup I decide. I also like how she moves with purpose—as if she knows exactly where she’s going and what she wants. I like that when she sees me, a familiar, warm smile crosses her face.
She puts up her hand in a wave and rushes over to me, creating a swirl of her scent invading my space. She smells good. I like that, too. “Hey, I’m going to grab a coffee, and I’ll be right back.”
I raise a second to-go cup. “Skinny latte with almond milk and one pump of French vanilla.” Her mouth pops open, and I say, “Your friend used your coffee order to describe your personality in a section of your bio, Margo. I’m not a mage.”
Narrowing her eyes, she sits, slides in close to me, and takes the coffee. “I did tell you she did a good job with the bio,” she counters, sipping the coffee. “Should I take offense that she compared my personality to coffee, though?”
“You didn’t read it?” Her skin is so smooth up close. I haven’t been this close to her since the morning I stumbled into the gym drunk to try to ask her out. A lot of my problems growing up blossomed because I didn’t take chances. The first time I went out of my comfort zone was when I came to BUD/S to try out to become a SEAL. The statistics were against me, and that pit of uncertainty in my stomach felt particularly terrifying. “It’s your dating bio. Aren’t you curious what men are reading before they agree to go out with you?”
She sips her coffee and turns to meet my eyes. My stomach flips. Fuck. Don’t like that. “It’s not as if I was in the dark about what she wrote, it’s more of the fact that Jeannie forced me to do this experiment.” She goes on to explain the logistics but doesn’t get into why.
“What happened to force your friend to enact such a production?”
Biting her lip, she looks away. “I guess I can be fully honest with you. This is just pretend.” Ouch. Her admitting it hurts. “To get over my ex. I was having too much casual sex with strangers, and she developed a new method to end my suffering based on her knowledge of me and her professional opinion.” She clears her throat. “Before you judge me, I was always safe.”
“Why would I judge you? Just because I choose to live a certain way doesn’t mean I impose that on others or expect others to make the same decisions.” I finish my coffee. “I don’t even know if the way I lived was all it was cut out to be. Let me ask you a question.”
She nods, but a flash of fear sparkles in her eye. “Did it help to get over him? The casual sex, that is?”
She licks her lips. “At first I thought it did because it was a distraction. It’s so easy to get a man to sleep with you. Too easy. I wouldn’t say it was a game, but it definitely took the sting of betrayal away a little every time I walked away without giving them my name.” I try not to react, but her heartbreak fills the air. “If I had casual sex with the right person, yes, it would have helped. But I didn’t, and now I’m left dealing with the breakup and my friend’s concern over my wild ways.”
“I don’t have experience with casual, but I don’t know that I’d call it wild, Margo.” I think about how crazy I felt after the breakup with Dani. “Sounds like you were coping.” I swallow hard. “Did you bring the thing we agreed upon?” It’s the abrupt change in conversation we need.
Margo smiles immediately. “The most embarrassing thing I own?” She nods and pats her large tote bag hanging on the chair back. “I don’t know if this is the time or place to pull mine out, though.” A laugh slips out. “Why don’t you go first, and I’ll try to gain some courage.” Looking around, she’s cataloging if anyone is watching us.
“Did you bring something inappropriate to a coffee shop, Margo?” I let my mouth hang ajar and raise one brow in jest.
Her reply is a melodic laugh. Shaking my head, I pull my childhood journal from my jacket pocket and set the raggedy book on the table in front of me. “Mine is probably inappropriate, too.” I can tell by the hollow look in her eyes that she’s brought something worse than a childhood journal. I laugh in response to her reaction.
“When you told me to bring the most embarrassing thing I own to our first date,” she air quotes the word date, “I thought you meant something we own and use now. You didn’t give me much to go on.” Margo pushes her coffee away, reaches into her bag, moves a few notebooks aside, and lifts a rag out of it. It’s three shades of gray with strings fraying across the edges. It’s about the size of two dish towels put together.
“What is that?” I ask, unable to hide my confusion.
“This…this is my most beloved and embarrassing possession. It’s also not in my bio, I don’t think, and it’s a guarded secret. Her name is Ratty, short for Ratchet, what my mother eventually nicknamed it, and it’s my baby blanket. She’s seen me at my highest highs and my lowest lows and everything in between.”
I raise one brow and scowl at the rag. “That is a blanket? It looks like something I clean my floors with.”
“Hey, hey, you said there wouldn’t be any judgment. I’m a blankie girl, and that’s embarrassing in and of itself. What did you think I was going to pull out of my bag?” She raises one brow. “That’s the real question.”
I grab the blanket and look at it closer. “I don’t know, but not this. Do you ever wash it?”
“Rarely,” she admits, smirking as I examine her thing. “It loses its scent if you wash it too much. The scent is my favorite part. One inhale with this thing on my face, and it’s an instantaneous sedative for me.” Margo clears her throat. “What did you think I brought?”
“Not something this innocent.” More laughter as she snatches it back.
“It used to be pink and white. I sleep with it every night. I’m not going to bring a knife to a gunfight. I had a feeling you would bring something like this.” Margo puts her hand on my journal and slides the book in front of her.
“We both went in the same direction,” I say. “Childhood relics. Mine stayed in my childhood, and yours sleeps with you every night.” I smile at the side of her face as she opens to the middle and picks a random page to read.
“I don’t know many men who journal, and this is seriously scandalous.” She points. “Jennifer L. broke up with Matty and asked you to meet her at the park the same day. Fascinating,” she muses. “I have to keep going to see how this sordid tale ends.”
“Fine, fine. I shouldn’t have laughed about the blanket when Jennifer L. was forcing me into a scandal. I do have a question about the…” I pause, trying to figure out what to call it. Blanket is generous given its small size.
“Ratty. Her name is Ratty,” she injects.
“What does your ex think about Ratty?” I can’t say the name without smiling.
Margo bites her lip to stifle a grin. “Hollis thought it was funny. My ex. He didn’t care. I remember thinking that had to be a sign he was meant for me. Stupid, I know.”
“I don’t think it’s stupid at all. I think everyone tries to find reasons to call something we enjoy a good idea even if maybe it’s not a great idea.” I clear my throat. “Plus, you don’t wash it, so finding someone who doesn’t care about that is pretty big.”
She laughs again. “It’s not dirty. It’s well-loved.”
“Spoken like a true blanket girl.”
She lays her hand on my journal. “Can I keep this? If I’m going home with you, there’s a chance we will run into Jennifer L., and I might need some ammunition.”
Picking up my coffee, I sip. “You can keep it. I don’t want to keep your embarrassing artifact, though. She’s all yours.” Whatever this is with Margo feels different. It doesn’t feel fake, though, and that’s what it’s supposed to be. A relationship of convenience to placate the rumors when I get back home, and Margo is safe because she seems to be emotionally unavailable. “Thank you for sharing Ratty with me, though. I appreciate it.” I pause. “Would you truly say this is your most prized possession?”
Her gaze looks far away as she considers my question. “Sure, you could say that.” She puts the blanket back in her tote. “What is your most prized possession?”
“When I moved to San Diego, I didn’t bring much. I have a box of childhood items which is where that came from.” I nod to the journal she’s smiling at. “I guess the cow picture,” I say, shrugging. “My grandpa gave me this framed picture of one of those small, fluffy cows when I joined the Navy. I always stared at it when it hung in their house. It will always be a fixture in my house. Reminds me of my grandparents and childhood.”
Margo has her hand on her chin. “That has to be the cutest, most honest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Are you accustomed to folks lying to you?”
She drops her hand, and it hits the table with a thud. “You really pull no punches, do you?” After a long exhale she says, “Not really, I mean to some degree, yes, but men…or people even, these days rarely are brutally honest. They’re not afraid of offending someone or being portrayed as rude or worse. Hollis never lied to me until he did. When he started lying, he didn’t stop until we ended it. You could say it was the drugs, but I’m finished giving anyone a pass for anything. I want the ultimate partner, and mostly I want the truth from a man.” Margo intertwines her fingers, searching for more to say, or thinking about her ex—neither are things I want her to dwell on.
“Fake relationship or not, I’ll never lie to you, Margo. I think if we build our friendship on trust, everything will go smoothly, and no one will second guess motives. I won’t ever do anything to make you doubt what I say. Maybe we make a new promise with each date. Date number one,” I say, trying to get a read on her body language. She hasn’t scooted closer or away for the entirety of our conversation. “No lying. Honesty only. Even if it hurts.”
“This sounds like something Jeannie put you up to,” she replies. “Very progressive and healthy. Have you spoken to her?”
I can tell she’s joking by the tone of her voice.
“It’s okay to admit you have. She’s the most persuasive person I know. Hence this,” Margo replies, motioning between our bodies. “Me concocting a far-fetched relationship to ward off her attempts to settle me down.”
“I haven’t spoken to Jeannie, though I can assure you I’m intrigued to meet her, but why is a relationship with me so far-fetched?”
“That would involve lying to Jeannie, and that breaks the first rule.” She pauses. “Well, you’re my client for starters, so something real between us would be outlawed, and she knows I wouldn’t let a man destroy my career. Everything else has been destroyed, my career is the one important thing I have left.”
“And second?” I prompt her, sensing she’s not finished.
“You’re not my type.”
Damn. Nodding, I cock my head to peer down at her. “I thought we just agreed no lies,” I joke, trying to save a slice of pride while she levels me completely.
“I don’t mean it negatively. I mean it in the way that you’re out of my league. If I stay in my league, I have a better chance of success in finding a man obsessed with me.” She grins as she twirls her cup around the bottom. “A man who will never look at another woman and want her again. You know? That full- throttle, mad kind of love. The lasting love that is so honest and pure, nothing sways you from forever.” Awkwardly, she clears her throat. “That’s why this works—you and me. Me being security screened and bound to secrecy and maybe just good enough looking to pass as your rebound, and you…well, saving me from myself.” She picks up the journal. “I’m going to binge-read this tonight before bed. It will be my most exciting read this month. Will he or won’t he give Jennifer L. a chance?”
“While cuddling Ratty?” I ask, ignoring everything else. “Plot twist, I was with Dani from middle school on. Jennifer L. didn’t stand a chance. I am loyal to my core.”
“Is that even a question? Of course. Ratty is my safe, comfy place. The only thing that’s been with me through it all.”
“What should our second date be?” I ask, as this one winds down, and I feel myself aching for the loss of her presence before it happens. “Or do I get to pick?”
“You can pick the date. I’ll pick the promise,” Margo says, then looks over to meet my eyes. Swallowing hard, I try to control my reaction. Is it possible she commands this full-body response, and it gets worse the longer I’m near her?
“Deal,” I say, licking my lips. It’s a test she passes because her gaze slips to watch the movement. Do it. Say it. Don’t be a pussy, I chastise myself. Clearing my throat, I go for it. “For the record and in the spirit of being honest, you are my type, Margo, and if anything, you’re the one out of my league.”
She smiles big, eyes locked on mine. “Was that you trying to flirt? Just asking so I can catalog it in the mental cringe folder.” Her laugh lights her face from the inside out.
“Do you have a mental folder that isn’t cringe?” I counter.
She shrugs as she stands. Picking up her cup, she leans down and puts her free hand on the table. “If there was a folder of such,you wouldn’t be there, Tommy. You can’t. It’s not allowed.” Margo slides her hand over and taps my wrist with her pointer finger once. Then she leaves, glancing over her shoulder once before she exits, shaking her head and smiling. My skin feels like fire where hers touched mine.
Exhaling, I gasp to catch my breath, a myriad of emotions swirling around in my mind. Nothing seems clear, and for the first time in a long time, I have something to look forward to. The second date needs to be the best damn date of her life. After one coffee, I know for a fact what I like, and it’s her .