17
Owen
You like hot dogs, right?” Nolan asks as he hands over one he already bought, as well as a can of light beer that probably cost twenty-four dollars.
“I absolutely do. And…” I trail off before pulling a flask out of my back pocket.
Nolan’s eyes bulge like a cartoon character’s. “How’d you get that in here?”
This isn’t my first rodeo at Fenway Park. I tap the side of the flask with one fingertip. “Plastic. Metal detectors got nothin’ on me.”
His laughter booms and he gestures for me to hand it over. When I do, he throws back a big swig.
“Whoo, that goes down smooth. I forgot you’re a top shelf guy,” he says, patting me on the chest.
“Only the best for Andy’s best friend.” I raise my beer can in an offered toast and he meets it with a metallic click.
“Not just Andy’s best friend. You keep it up with these tickets and flasks and your brother’s getting dethroned, my man.”
“If these tickets were enough to impress you, I hate to say it but you might be a cheap date.”
We are—in fact—in horrible seats. Back of the stadium between first and second base. But that’s what I get for buying them the day before the game.
I was already planning to follow through on Amelia’s idea to get to know Nolan better at a Sox game, but when everything happened at the end of our date, I developed an ulterior motive. Maybe one of the people who knows her best could shed a little light on what the fuck I’m supposed to do now.
The Sox batter hits the ball and it looks great, but a Yankee far in left field catches it on a jump.
Nolan is on his feet in an instant. “No! Come on!”
I’m not a huge baseball guy. Couldn’t tell you a single Red Sox player’s name. But Amelia was right, Nolan is clearly in his element here.
“So, did I hear you’ve been hitting the dating apps recently?” I ask when he takes his seat again.
“Well…” he hesitates. “I was, but it’s pretty discouraging out there, man. I keep thinking things are going well and I mess up somehow. It’s almost like I need a dating coach. Or just some honest feedback. I must be doing something wrong, but I can’t figure out what.”
“You’re best friends with two women. Could you ask one of them?”
“My best friends are Andy’s wife and my own sister. I’m not gonna ask either of them to coach me on flirting.”
“Very fair.” I take another swig of the beer that’s rapidly warming in the sun.
“But hey, you’re a catch. You’ll find the right girl.
And uh…” This is probably as good a segue as I can expect, so I go for it.
“I may be in a bit of a similar situation. With the, um, messing up on a date and not knowing exactly how.”
Nolan says “Yeah?” just before the Sox pitcher strikes out the Yankee at bat. The crowd roars to its feet and the stadium speakers blare “I’m Shipping Up to Boston” and maybe this is divine intervention cutting me off. Maybe I shouldn’t talk to Nolan about this after all.
But the crowd eventually dies down, and Nolan’s attention span is better than I gave him credit for because he asks, “So, you’re dating someone? I mean, it seems like you’re always dating someone.”
He’s not exactly wrong. “Well, I’m often dating, but rarely dating someone specific.”
He raises both eyebrows, grabbing my shoulder. “But now you are? Tell me about her. She someone special?”
I laugh, because I really picked my poison with this situation. “She’s an enigma, and I think I need some advice about it.”
Nolan grimaces. “You know I’m probably not the best person to ask.”
“I mean this as unoffensively as possible, but I think you’re my only option.”
He laughs again and it’s warm and open, because he’s such a fucking nice guy. “Okay then, lay it on me.”
“I take it you haven’t heard anything from Amelia this week?”
“About what? Does she know the girl you’re seeing?”
I swallow the lump in my throat. “About the fact that she’s the girl I’m seeing.”
Nolan, who had been taking a nice long swig of his beer, suddenly starts choking—coughing and sputtering and pounding his chest as he wheezes in his next breath.
“Please don’t die,” I say, clapping his back. “It would be a shit way to start a relationship with Amelia by killing her brother.”
“A relationship?” He’s still coughing, hacking, fighting for his words, but he’s too impatient to wait for his throat to clear. “You’re in a relationship with her?”
“I mean, no. I don’t—I don’t know. It’s early. We went on one date, and neither of us is big into serious relationships but… is this weird? She’s your sister. I can stop talking about it if you want.”
With one final hacking cough, Nolan fully meets my eyes. “I honestly don’t know either. None of Lia’s partners have ever wanted to talk to me about her before.”
“It might be over before it begins anyway. I kind of messed up on Saturday.”
“Lia can make it feel like you messed up for breathing too loud,” he says dismissively. “If she’s being rude it doesn’t mean you’re actually in trouble.”
Even though this is her brother—someone with far more right to speak about her than I have—I still feel irrationally defensive. “She didn’t do anything wrong. It was me. I… You sure I can talk to you about this?”
“Yeah, man, of course. What is it?”
I allow myself a single, bracing breath.
“Well, I thought the date went well, but when I was dropping her off at home I…” I cringe.
“Sorry in advance for this, but... well, I went to kiss her and just got caught up in it and I moved my hand to her throat and I thought I was barely touching her but maybe I pressed too hard or in a way she didn’t like or something, because—”
“Are you saying you choked my sister?” Nolan asks, more forceful than I’ve ever heard him. “The fuck is wrong with you?”
I’m suddenly very aware of the crowd around us, the extremely public setting I’ve chosen for this humiliating and questionable conversation. The middle-aged woman behind Nolan looks over from beneath the brim of her baseball cap, eyeing me like a hawk.
“No! No, Jesus, no. Not like choking her,” I say, lowering my voice to a pseudo-whisper over the bustle of the crowd.
“Fuck, I’m explaining this so horribly. Just like…
you know when you’re making out with someone and you kind of get lost in it and your hand goes up to their neck?
Just to like hold them there in like a sexy way?
It was in a sexy way, I swear. Or it was supposed to be, but…
Jesus, I’m really fucking this up, aren’t I. ”
“You were choking my sister in a sexy way,” he says flatly.
I collapse forward, head in my hands. “I swear it wasn’t anything violent at all, or at least I didn’t mean it that way. I really thought I was barely touching her but I guess… I don’t know.” I look up at him, and he must see the despondency in my eyes.
“Okay, yeah. No, I get it, I think.”
“Well, whatever my intentions were, she really didn’t like that.
And then she ran inside and we’ve barely talked since.
” I think of the sparse texts we exchanged earlier today.
My shock when she reached back out—even if just to get Guy’s number—then my disappointment when the line went dead.
“I tried to bring it up but she never texted back. So long story short, I think I fucked it.”
The Sox put a man on base. Nolan doesn’t stand and cheer. He’s lost in thought, gaze down, picking at his nails.
Eventually he says, “Look, I gotta be honest. I feel like I don’t know what I’m allowed to say.
I don’t think it’s my story to tell, and I don’t even know the details, but just cut her some slack, okay?
Reach back out. You know she’ll tell you if she doesn’t want to hear from you.
” He looks up to me again as he asks, “You said she freaked out?”
I nod.
“If I had to guess, I’d bet it’s not about what you did and more that she was embarrassed you saw her like that.”
“How do you talk to her about stuff like this? How do you get her to lower the drawbridge?”
“It’s all in the timing, man,” he says. “I mean it’s different because she’s my sister, so usually I just say whatever’s on my mind and she tells me to fuck off.
But sometimes she’s in the right mood to actually talk about her feelings.
Like at the bachelorette party with her job stuff, remember?
The real trick is, you just can’t be too grateful when she opens up.
Just play it cool. She doesn’t like feeling… weak or… pitied or whatever.”
I squint, seeing Nolan in a new light. “I thought you said you don’t understand women.”
He laughs. “I don’t understand women. Lia’s my sister. She’s barely a person let alone a woman.”
“And you really don’t mind if we keep going out? I mean, you don’t mind that it’s me?”
“Honestly, dude, I think she would castrate us for even talking about it. So no, it’s none of my business who she goes out with, except that I like both of you and want you to be happy.”
It’s silly, even humiliating, that those words warm my chest. I must be more desperate for approval—for friendship—than I realized.
I say, “Thanks, man.”
One strike. One man on base. The Yankees throw a hell of a pitch but our batter smacks it hard, straight out of the park.
Home run.
I get home from the game exhausted but optimistic. Nolan is great company, with more energy than a freight train and a bit of secret wisdom that even he doesn’t realize is there. And the main thing I took away from our conversation: I have to reach back out to Amelia.
I type out a text. Then delete it. Try again. Delete. Again. Delete.
Hey, how are you?
Hey, I’m sorry about yesterday.
I screwed up yesterday. I’m sorry. Please tell me how to fix it.
SLDKJHFJKSDLJFDKS
In the end, when I’ve been drafting texts for so long that my brain is numb, I make arguably the stupidest possible choice: I call her.
The phone rings, and rings, and rings, and rings, and then… goes to voicemail.
Fuck.
I slam my finger on the red button. I don’t have anything intelligible to say anyway.
I toss my phone down on the kitchen island and start pulling off my shirt, ready to shower and call it a night, when I hear a vibrating sound behind me. I dart back to the phone and flip the screen over. She’s calling me back.
She’s calling me back!
“Hello?”
“Don’t sound so surprised,” Amelia says, “you called me first.”
I huff out a laugh that’s embarrassment and relief. “Yeah. I sure did.”
“Why, may I ask?”
“I uh…” I seriously doubt this is a good idea, but I’m already here.
“I’m sorry about what I did last night. I’m really sorry.
I didn’t realize that was… that that would make you uncomfortable.
But before that I had a really great time, and I think you’re unbelievably fun and smart and gorgeous and I might need a few tries to get things right, but I really want to see you again, if you’ll let me. ”
At first she doesn’t reply. I pull the phone back, checking she hasn’t hung up, but the screen is still bright with her name. When I put the phone back to my ear she says, “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“That was a pretty good apology. Very complimentary, which is important.”
Then I’m laughing. Not because what she said was funny, but because she really has my balls in her fists. Suddenly I’m happy just hearing her say she likes receiving compliments from me. When did I become this pitiful?
“Good enough that you’ll still let me come to your show next weekend?” I ask.
“You want to?”
I lean back against my kitchen counter, anchoring myself to the granite. “Yes please, Empress Mercado.”
“Oooh I like that one. Keep that in the arsenal.”
“Is that a yes?” My cheeks are tight with a big, uncontrolled smile.
“That’s a yes. I’ll text you the details.”
“Great,” I exhale. “Great. Oh and guess what?”
There’s amusement in her voice as she asks, “What?”
“I hung out with your brother today.”
“No!”
I’m picturing her actions in time with the sound of her voice. In my mind’s eye, she was laying down in bed, relishing my long-winded apology, but now sits bolt upright.
“Mhm. And guess what we did?”
“You went to a Sox game, didn’t you?”
“You got it.”
“I’m so smart,” she laughs. “I knew he would eat that shit up.”
“I’ll never doubt you again.”
“So I assume you told him about us?”
Now this is interesting. I take the opportunity to fish just a bit. “And what would I have told him about us, exactly?”
“Oh, I don’t know, probably that you’re desperately into me because you like mean women, and can he please, please tell you how best to woo me.”
“Verbatim. That was verbatim what I said.”
“Figures. How was the game though?”
And oh my God… we’re talking on the phone. We’re just… talking on the phone. It feels like a breakthrough.
It shouldn’t. It’s not romantic or sexy or even particularly interesting. But the fact that she wants to stay on the phone with me and just talk feels like I’ve unlocked a privilege that few get. Like I did something to deserve it.
“I think it was fine?” I say. “Don’t tell Nolan, but I actually don’t give a shit about baseball.”
She cackles her witch laugh, unpolished and raw. “A man who hates baseball and isn’t afraid to grovel. You might be my dream guy.”
She’s joking, but it still feels like a palace door slipping open. “I’ll remind you that you said that next time you threaten to cut my balls off.”
“Good luck. When I get to castrating, there’s nothing that can get in my way.”
We talk for an hour and a half more. She tells me about the horrible craft fair she went to, and the rancid, sticky children she had to put up with.
We both hate kids, and I’m more convinced than ever that she’s my ideal woman.
I assure her that she’s perfect and did nothing wrong and deserves better than some dingy craft fair.
I’m prepared to go on at length, but then she says Archie is scratching at the door for his night walk and she has to go.
“Wait,” I say. “What if I don’t want to wait until your show next weekend to see you?”
There’s a pause—brief but present—before she says, “You know this is casual, right? We’re just having fun until we get sick of each other. I can’t do something serious, especially not right now when I’m focusing on my career.”
“No, yeah, of course,” I say, though it’s starting to feel like a lie. “But can I casually take you out to dinner tomorrow? You have to eat dinner, right?”
I wait for her response, the seconds stretching like a cat in the sun, until eventually she says, “Okay.”
The word is relief. A gasp of air after diving underwater. Another chance to be surprised by her mordant wit, challenged by her cutting analysis, tempted by her soft mouth. I already know I’ll be counting the hours until then.
But you know what they say about best laid plans.