Chapter 9 #2
We settled in, and immediately the careful choreography of a first date began. Artie reached for the wine list at the exact moment Rob did. They had a brief tug-of-war that ended with the list tearing slightly down the middle.
“I'll order for us,” Artie announced, at the same time Rob said, “What does everyone like?”
They stared at each other. Rob gently extracted the torn wine list from Artie's grip.
“How about,” he said easily, “we each pick something? Make it more fun?”
“Fun. Yes. I love fun.” Artie grabbed the appetizer menu with both hands while trying not to look directly into the cameras quietly documenting this bizarre mating ritual. “I'll order some starters for us.”
She proceeded to order what appeared to be one of everything she thought sounded sophisticated, including something called “deconstructed Caesar salad” that turned out to be a whole head of romaine lettuce with a raw egg on top.
Meanwhile, I was trying to pay attention to Puck, who was telling me about his work as a yoga instructor, but my eyes kept drifting to Artie as she attempted to pull out Rob's chair for him while he was already halfway to sitting, causing him to have to stand back up awkwardly.
“So you live with Artemis?” Puck asked, following my gaze.
“Yeah, she's...” I watched Artie try to pour wine for Rob but overfill his glass so it nearly overflowed. “She's perfect. I mean, it's perfect. The living situation. Very... situated.”
Puck studied me with surprising intensity for someone who looked like a real-life fairy. “Oh honey,” he said softly. “You've got it bad.”
“What? No, we're just—“
“Roommates who stare at each other with cartoon heart eyes? Sure.” He patted my hand sympathetically. “How long have you been in love with her?”
I choked on my water.
Across the table, Artie was announcing, “I love escargot. They're almost my favorite food.”
Rob brightened. “Interesting. I've never actually had them. This should be an adventure.”
“I'm basically a snail-eating expert,” Artie said with confidence that absolutely did not match the panic in her eyes as the server placed a dozen brown swirly snails in some kind of butter sauce in the center of the table.
I watched in slow-motion horror as Artie picked up a pair of tong-looking instruments, clearly having no idea what to do with it. Rob was saying something about loosening it from the shell first, but Artie had already shoved a tiny fork into the shell.
In the perfect Julia Roberts Pretty Woman moment, the snail shot out of the shell like a slimy missile, arced gracefully through the air, and landed with a wet splat directly on Rob's shirt.
“Ten points for perfect aim,” Rob laughed, reaching for his napkin.
“Oh god, I'm so sorry.” Artie lunged forward with her own napkin, knocking over Rob's overfilled wine glass in the process.
Red wine cascaded across the table. Rob jumped back, shoving his chair directly into a passing server.
The tray went flying and a chocolate soufflé landed directly on a woman at the next table who looked like she'd stepped out of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Her scream could have shattered crystal.
“Ooh, look,” someone nearby held up their phone. “Is that Gryff Kingman, football player, or wait, is it Flynn? I can't tell the difference between them.”
More phones appeared. The manager looked like he might faint.
The Real Housewife was now shrieking about her Hermès bag.
Rob was covered in wine and oyster juice.
Puck was wide-eyed and frozen like a telephone pole about to be plowed down.
Artie looked like she wanted the earth to open up and swallow her.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” Artie gasped and fled.
I stood there for a second, then announced, “I should... check on her,” and followed, leaving Rob and Puck to deal with the manager and the still-shrieking bag owner.
I looked at Sloane whose face had gone full shocked Pikachu as she stared, her crew now filming the people filming us. “You stay here.”
I followed Artie into the unisex bathroom, and found her with her back against the wall, eyes closed.
“Hey,” I said softly.
She opened one eye. “Did I actually just assault my date with shellfish and cause a comedy of errors?”
“Technically, it was the snail that did the assaulting. Is a snail even a fish? They live on land.”
“They are a mollusk.” Artie says sadly.
I wrapped her in a hug and kissed the top of her head. “He laughed. It was funny. No one will even remember a year… or twenty from now.”
“Gryff, I'm acting like I was raised by caffeinated wolves.” She muttered against my chest.
“You're not—“
“I tried to pour his wine and nearly flooded the table. I ordered a salad that was just... lettuce and sadness.”
“The egg was also sad,” I offered.
She let out a laugh that was half sob. “This is a disaster. He's so nice and confident and completely unfazed by me being a giant next to him, and I'm ruining everything.”
“You're perfect.” I swallowed hard. “I mean, you're doing perfect. You're fine. You're doing perfectly fine.”
“Puck seems nice,” she said weakly.
“All I can think every time I look at him is that he's like a cute little meerkat. This is insane. We're both terrible at this.”
“The worst,” she agreed, looking up at me.
My eyes dropped to her lips. I leaned in slightly...
Someone banged on the bathroom door from inside. “Other people need to pee. Stop having your crisis in the bathroom.”
“We should...” Artie gestured vaguely toward the dining room.
“Yeah.”
We walked back to find Rob and Puck deep in conversation, completely oblivious to our return. Rob was showing Puck something on his phone, both of them leaning in close.
“You've done base jumping in New Zealand?” Rob was enthralled with Puck.
“Six times. Have you done the Nevis Bungy?”
“Next month, I'm going for my birthday.”
“Oh my god, I'll be there next month for a yoga retreat. We should totally jump together.”
Rob suddenly noticed we were back. “Oh. Hey... so this is awkward but...”
Puck bounced in his seat. “Could we maybe switch? Rob's literally my dream man. He teaches aerial stunts.”
“And he does aerial yoga,” Rob added. “We're already planning to go skydiving tomorrow.”
“We could do a tandem jump,” Puck suggested, batting his eyes at him.
“Or side by side. I have my own rig.”
“That's so hot,” Puck sighed.
Artie and I looked at each other, then said in perfect unison, “Check, please.”
Twenty minutes later, after I paid the check, we were walking to our cars. Rob and Puck were a few feet behind us, making actual concrete plans to throw themselves out of a perfectly good airplane together.
“Did our dates just... date each other?” Artie asked.
“I think we're so bad at this, we created a rom-com for other people.”
“You're right. I think I saw this in an old movie once.”
Rob and Puck exchanged knowing looks, then gave us a wave and climbed into Rob's Jeep together, already discussing which skydiving location had the best views.
Sloane and her camera crew headed out as well after deeming the evening ‘a thing that definitely happened’ and she muttered something under her breath about saving what she could.
Artie and I stood in the parking lot, alone finally, the weight of the evening's disaster settling over us.
“You know what?” Artie said suddenly. “Flynn and Tempest are expecting a full report. We might as well go commiserate with people who actually like us.”
“Strawberry margaritas?”
“And that non-dairy ice cream Tempest hides from Flynn.”
“He knows about it. He just pretends he doesn't because he thinks it's cute that she thinks she's being sneaky.”
“Of course he does.” Artie shook her head. “Those two are disgustingly perfect for each other.”
Ten minutes later, we were walking up to Flynn and Tempest's front door. They lived directly across the street from us—Chris's real estate empire at work—in an almost identical house except for Tempest's collection of potted plants that had taken over the front porch.
Flynn opened the door before we could knock, already grinning. “How bad was it?”
“Our dates are currently planning to jump out of a plane together,” I said.
“Wait, what?” Tempest appeared behind Flynn, wearing pajama pants covered in tiny donkeys.
“Come in,” Flynn said, stepping aside. “This sounds like a multiple margarita story.”
Their living room was cozy chaos with manuscripts scattered on the coffee table, Flynn's playbook balanced on the arm of the couch, and Burrito Petito's toys everywhere. The donkey himself was currently asleep in his custom bed in the corner, occasionally twitching his ears.
“Okay,” Tempest said, already pulling out the blender. “Tell us everything while I make drinks.”
“They're soulmates,” Artie said. “Adrenaline-junkie soulmates who are probably going to have beautiful, death-defying babies.”
“So you successfully set each other up,” Flynn said slowly, “just not with yourselves.”
“We're so bad at dating, we're contagious,” Artie moaned, flopping back on their couch.
We spent the next hour rehashing every mortifying detail of the evening, with Flynn and Tempest alternating between sympathy and laughter. By the time we'd finished the pitcher of margaritas and demolished a pint of Tempest's “secret” cashew milk ice cream, my face hurt from laughing.
“You know what the worst part is?” Artie said, now lying with her feet in my lap while I absently rubbed her ankle. “Rob was actually perfect. Like, objectively perfect. Confident, funny, didn't care that I'm bigger than him, loves animals...”
“Teaches children's martial arts,” I added glumly.
“Fosters senior cats,” she continued.
“Called you beautiful within ten seconds of meeting you.”
“And I ruined it with shellfish violence.”
“Assault with a deadly mollusk.”
“You didn't ruin anything,” Tempest said gently. “You just weren't compatible. There's a difference.”
“I don't know,” Artie said, sitting up slightly. “I think there's something fundamentally wrong with how I interact with men. I turn into this weird, awkward, catastrophe person.”
“You're not a catastrophe,” I said. “You're just... enthusiastic.”
“I tried to pour his wine and created a flood, Gryff. That's not enthusiasm, that's a natural disaster.”
“Maybe,” Flynn said, looking directly at me with twin telepathy activated, “you just need practice being comfortable with someone you actually trust.”
Artie was quiet for a moment, then looked at me. “That's actually not a bad idea.”
My stomach dropped. I was in so much trouble.