Chapter 1 #2
“That’s me,” I say brightly, ignoring his scowl, when I’d love nothing more than to match it. “And you must be Greg?”
He nods with a furrowed brow. “I would have texted, but my goddamn phone died,” he says, pulling his cell out of his pocket and staring at the unresponsive screen. He shakes his head, and now I’m wondering if he’s more upset about his phone than the fact that he’s twenty-five minutes late.
“Then my cab got stuck in traffic because the idiot driver took Lake Shore during rush hour , and I had no way of contacting you, so I ran all the way here from Michigan Avenue,” he goes on.
My chest tightens. I haven’t known this guy more than two minutes, but he seems like a colossal jerk. He’s got plenty of excuses, but he didn’t even apologize for being late. I hate that he called the cab driver an idiot. He’s acting like a toddler in the middle of a tantrum.
And now he’s repeatedly tapping his dead phone screen.
“You look like you could use a drink,” I tell him—not because I want him to join me, but because I’m a little concerned about his stress level.
Finally, he puts his cell away and looks me in the eyes. That’s when his expression softens. “Christ,” he says, his gaze moving down the length of my body. “My sister sent me your picture, but you’re even hotter in person. ”
I want to cry. “You’re not so bad yourself,” I say instead, flipping my hair.
But it’s true, he’s very handsome. The first thing I notice when I meet someone new is their eyes.
And Greg’s eye color is rare and captivating—a dark, steely gray around the edges, with a lighter silver in the middle.
He looks a little older than in the picture his sister showed me, but his laugh lines and salt-and-pepper hair suit him.
Greg grabs a cocktail napkin from the bar and wipes the remaining sweat off his brow. “Are you hungry?” he asks, pointing toward the crowd enjoying their meals behind us. “I know we were meeting for a drink, but I made you wait so long, the least I can do is buy you dinner.”
Honestly, I’m tempted to call it a night as soon as I finish my glass of wine.
Maybe the universe sent this abrasive man my way as a sign that I should throw in the towel and give up on dating altogether.
If I leave now, I could be home in time to watch The Bachelorette .
Ranking another woman’s suitors from the comfort of my sofa seems much more appealing than dealing with the real-life bachelor waiting for my answer.
But on the other hand, I don’t want to spend yet another night in my empty apartment. I’ll admit it—I’m lonely.
So what if Greg was rude at first? He was stressed about his broken phone. We’ve all been there. And he’s offering to make it up to me now. I should give him a chance.
“I could eat,” I say with an enthusiastic grin to camouflage my ambivalence.
Once we’re seated at a table by the window and Greg has his own glass of wine, he leans in toward me. “So you’re new to Chicago, right? Where did you move from?”
“LA, most recently.”
“Most recently,” he repeats with raised eyebrows. “So you move around a lot?”
“You could say that. I’m from Columbus, Ohio. When I was eleven, we moved to Beachwood, which is near Cleveland. After that, I lived in Ann Arbor, then New York, then Pittsburgh?—”
“Geez. Are you on the run, or something?” he jokes.
I laugh, even though his comment hits a nerve. My sister, Christy, calls me “Runaway Jenna.” It’s true, I have packed up my life several times and picked a new city for a new beginning.
If only it helped. I guess you can’t run away from a broken heart.
“Life’s too short to stay in one place for very long,” I say, batting my eyelashes to distract him.
“I guess you have a point,” he agrees, smiling at me. “Well, hopefully you’ll stay here awhile. My sister’s recommending you to all her friends. She says you’re a fantastic interior decorator.”
“Interior designer ,” I correct him.
“Basically the same thing, right?” he says as he takes a piece of sourdough from the bread basket.
“No, actually. Interior decorators focus on aesthetics. Designers focus more on the functionality of the space.”
“It’s like you’re speaking a foreign language,” he says while chewing. “I’m a finance guy, so this artsy stuff goes over my head. What kind of degree do you need for this interior decorating—sorry, designing thing? ”
“I have a master’s in architecture,” I tell him. “From the University of Michigan.”
Greg looks at me with wide eyes. “Architecture? Wow. And from Michigan? A buddy of mine went there—that’s a highly ranked program.”
“You’re surprised,” I say before I finish what’s left of my second glass of wine. I’m used to this reaction, but it still irritates the heck out of me.
He gives me a sheepish grin. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m just impressed. I mean, we exchanged a few text messages back and forth, but, um, you’re very different in person, that’s all.”
My face turns beet red. Greg and I only texted about when and where to meet, but now I understand what he’s getting at.
“I’m dyslexic,” I explain. “I try to proofread my texts before I send them, but even then, I still misspell words sometimes. Or I’ll let my phone autocorrect, and it picks the wrong word, and?—”
“Shit,” he says. “Jenna, I had no idea.”
“You must have thought I was an idiot,” I go on with a laugh, even though I feel like I got punched in the gut.
“It’s not a big deal,” he says. “I shouldn’t have brought it up. I feel like an ass.”
And I feel like I’m sitting across from my dad. Dean of the most selective private school in Beachwood—the one my little sister, Christy, went to—that I couldn’t get into. For a moment, Greg’s striking gray eyes are full of the same mix of pity and disappointment I see when my father looks at me.
“I can’t imagine it was easy getting through architecture school with dyslexia,” Greg says, his attention back on the bread basket .
I watch him consider his options, squeezing the ciabatta and poking at the focaccia. “It was hard as hell,” I tell him. “But I did it anyway.”
“Good for you,” he says, deciding on a breadstick. “Want one?” He tilts the basket toward me.
Not after you touched every piece of bread in there , I think, feeling slightly queasy. Less than ten minutes ago, he was wiping sweat off his face. “I’m fine, thanks,” I tell him.
“I’m not surprised you don’t eat carbs,” he says as he angles his head to peer at my waistline.
I fantasize about dumping the remaining contents of the bread basket on Greg’s head and leaving. Of course I would never do such a thing. Although I do enjoy the look on his face when the waitress comes back to take our order, and I tell her I want the linguine.
For the rest of our date, I nod, and smile, and ask him questions about his life. I go through the motions, flipping my hair and laughing at his terrible jokes.
But in the back of my mind, scenes from my childhood are replaying—grainy and choppy, like old home movies.
I’m seven years old, standing at the front of my second-grade classroom with shaky hands. Staring at letters on a page and praying that, somehow, this time, they’ll make sense. But they don’t. And when I get mixed up, the whole class starts laughing at me.
They started teasing me that day, and they never stopped—even though my dyslexia was relatively mild, and I worked with a tutor to manage it. “You’re lucky you’re pretty, ’cause you’re dumb as rocks,” my first crush, Gavin Smith, told me .
That’s why we moved from Columbus to Beachwood.
And that time, at least, running away actually worked.
I started sixth grade as “the new girl.” Within a week, I was known as “the cute girl.” By the end of the month, I was “the most popular girl in school.” And I leaned into it.
Why not, right? I’d never stand out for my intelligence, but at least I could use my looks to my advantage.
Greg has certainly proven that he doesn’t care what’s on my mind.
He’s been talking about himself nonstop for the past hour, and the only reason I’m smiling is because I’ve nearly made it to the end of this unbearable date.
Of course, he thinks I’m grinning because I’m into him.
He just walked me to the front door of my building, and now his arms are around my waist.
“Want me to come upstairs?” he whispers in my ear.
His hot breath makes me shudder, and I’m tempted to knee him where I know it’ll hurt. But his sister’s well-connected in Chicago, and I’m not looking to make enemies here.
So I kiss him on the cheek. “Not on the first date,” I say with a tilt of my head.
I let him down easy and give him hope, while making a mental list of excuses I can give when he asks to get together again.
I could say that my sister broke up with her boyfriend and moved in with me, so I won’t be able to meet up for a while.
After a week or two, he’ll lose interest.
“I’ll call you,” he says.
“You do that,” I reply with a wink. Then I turn around and hurry into the lobby before he tries to put his hands on me again.
The doorman, who’s probably the same age as my father but actually has a sense of humor, greets me with a smile and a dad joke, and I give a genuine laugh for the first time all day—which is sad.
That’s why my eyes start welling up in the elevator. By the time I make it to the twentieth floor, I’m crying. I’m unsuccessfully searching my purse for a tissue as I walk through the open elevator doors and, as luck would have it, I crash right into someone waiting to get in.
“Oh my gosh, I’m sorry!” I tell him.
And when I look into his eyes— something happens.
I don’t know how to explain it. I’ve never experienced anything like it before. I feel like I already know him, but that’s impossible. If I did, there’s no way I could forget him.