Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
“You snuck out before he woke up?” On the phone, Maya is scandalized. “You know people don’t do that anymore.”
“What do they do?”
“They have brunch. Like adults.” Silverware clinks behind her.
“Maya, I came in the guy’s hand when he barely even touched me. I can’t go eat omelets with him. He probably thinks I’m a total psycho.”
“You are a total psycho. And he’s probably thrilled with himself. You’ve done a terrible disservice to straight women everywhere, like when Cameron Diaz said foreplay is overrated in The Holiday. He’ll never bother to go down on a woman again.”
The thought of Danny going down on me involuntarily clenches my stomach muscles down so hard, I drop the phone.
“Oops. Hello?”
“I’m here,” Maya says, but it sounds suspiciously like she’s placed me on speaker phone. “So, what did the note say?”
“What note?”
Silence. She’s probably muted me to say something rude. Once, her finger slipped and I heard her say, “Lord, give me the strength to not tell Lauren how fucking pathetic she is.”
“Maya? What note?”
“The note you left him with your phone number so he can text you—or if he’s a real man, call you—for your first date.”
“I didn’t leave one.”
Maya is silent again.
“Stop muting me to say mean things! And can we please not have this conversation on speakerphone while you’re in a crowded restaurant? It’s private.”
“You called me! And thank god you did, because you don’t have the slightest clue as to what the fuck you’re doing.” Maya sighs. “Great. Now my crepes are cold.”
I lie back on my bed and pull a pillow over my face. She’s right. I don’t have the slightest clue. “Look, I panicked, OK? All I could think about was finding my clothes and getting the hell out of there without waking him up. A note didn’t even occur to me.”
“He’ll have to find you online, then. Make sure you steam-clean your Insta.”
I wince. She’s really not going to like this part. “He can’t find me online because I didn’t give him my real name.”
Silverware clatters. “Lauren! You don’t go around having orgasms with people who don’t know your real name! Ideally, they should know your middle name too. Corinne, what is my middle name?”
Corinne must be the CrossFit pixie. She laughs over the brunch crowd and says, “Ophelia.”
“Brunch is a date, you know,” I say. “You’re actually on a date right now.”
Maya clicks the phone off speaker. “Don’t be mean. We’re just killing time before the dry cleaner’s opens.”
“I’m not mean. You’re criticizing me. And you were the one pushing me to get out there in the first place. To start showing up to my own life.”
“Not to sneak out of penthouse apartments like some orgasm cat burglar!” Maya takes a deep breath. “It’s OK. We can still fix this. You can freshen up and head back to the Met with some maple butter crumpets from Pike’s and salvage this train wreck.”
“I can’t. I’m meeting Casey at the softball game.
” I pull the pillow from my face and look over at the outfit I’d selected, hanging on my door.
My favorite cashmere turtleneck in grayish blue (which may or may not match my eyes) and a pair of tight black jeans.
“It will be the perfect test to see if my new man pheromones worked.”
Maya must aim for the mute button again, but her finger slips and I hear her whisper, “At least she told me what happened this time. Usually, I have to snoop through texts with her therapist.”
“Hey!”
“Sorry not sorry. And I really think you should listen to me for once. Skip softball and go bang your one-night stand properly. Your body count is embarrassingly low and could use the boost.”
“I did mention he wears Crocs, right? Like, unironically?”
“Ooh, daddy vibes. Even hotter.”
The bleachers at Zoe’s softball game are full when I arrive, so instead of sitting with Casey so he can smell my shiny new pheromones, I’m knee-to-knee with the softball moms and their eternal body of gossip—which today orbits around the rumor that their favorite DILF has a new girlfriend.
“I hear she’s this viper litigator with glass skin and Seahawks box seats,” one woman says, discreetly pouring rosé into her hydro flask.
“Welp. No competing with that,” another says, sipping her own.
I ignore them, instead juicing my new pheromones by reminiscing in vivid detail how Danny’s plump lips skimmed my hipbone.
These little vignettes keep playing in my mind.
The satisfying symmetry of his triangle tattoos.
His muscled body hovering over mine. The heat in his eyes and how badly he wanted me.
Me! As if I was some free spirit in a fringed halter top at Coachella, and not a life coach with perfect credit in Seattle.
He looked at me with such intensity. Like he’d combust if his hands didn’t run across every inch of my body that very second.
Casey waves at me from across the stands, then cocks his head as if noticing something different about me. A new haircut maybe? I wink and turn my attention back to the game, elongating my neck because I can tell his eyes are still on me.
Oh my god. It’s working.
Sarah, one of the quieter moms, notices Casey’s glances and nudges me with her knee. “I always thought you two had something going on,” she says. “It’s common for people with shared grief to fall in love.”
“Oh, Casey and I are just friends,” I say, smiling tightly. “We’ve always been just friends.”
But that isn’t the whole truth, of course.
It happened on our very first meeting. The road trip, just as Ally had guessed.
We’d been driving for nearly ten hours, talking and listening to music.
There was an easiness to Casey’s listening, like he wasn’t in a hurry or planning what he’d say next.
Spells of silence came and went, but they didn’t make him nervous.
He was completely comfortable in his own skin, a generous ease that seemed transferable because somewhere along the drive, I stopped being nervous too.
I learned that he was the eldest of three brothers, with parents who’d been married forever and still locked the bedroom door on Sunday mornings. He was majoring in computer science, interning at Microsoft, and an avid mountain climber, a fact his mother hated.
I also learned he was driving to San Francisco to break up with his girlfriend.
“It didn’t seem right to break it off over the phone. She’s a great person, it’s just bad timing.”
I told him I was visiting my mother.
“Oh, nice,” he said, his face brightening. “Maybe we can park at her house for the weekend.”
“I’m not staying with her,” I said quickly. “Just a dinner. We have one every year.”
If he thought it odd I drove thirteen hours for one dinner with my mother each year, he didn’t show it. He also didn’t press me for more information. His own mother must have taught him some manners about these kinds of things.
I imagined his family visits were quite different from mine.
Entering without knocking, several open arms ready to greet him.
His mother making his favorite meal. His father clipping newspaper articles he thought might be of interest. No awkward silences.
No mental list of safe conversation topics. No chill in the air.
“No worries,” he nodded, letting the subject drop and turning up the radio. “I know a reasonable lot near the Presidio. We’ll park there.” He smiled at me and played some drums on the steering wheel, and I left the last of my hesitations about Casey on that stretch of highway.
An impenetrable fog rolled in near Redding, making it unsafe to keep driving. A mutual decision was made to pull off for the night at a traveler’s lodge. Two rooms weren’t even discussed. We both knew.
He looked different when we closed the door. The way he looked at me was different—darker, deeper. I leaned my back against the door as a soft rain pattered at the windowpane.
He placed his hands on either side of me, his palms flat against the wood.
He didn’t need to ask the question. The rapid rising and falling of my chest was answer enough.
He dipped his head down and kissed me directly on my heart, stamping cool lips to hot skin.
Then he raised his head until his lips grazed mine—patiently, slowly.
The sheer relief of the sexual tension being cut by his kiss melted me into his arms.
His capability was startling. His fingers caressed my body as if traversing a dog-eared novel, already knowing the best parts.
He stripped me of my clothes while I undid the top button of his jeans, feeling the coarse hair that gathered there.
He moved me onto the bed and climbed over me, his hair waterfalling into his eyes as I was bridged by his muscles.
This is the image I come back to, over and over. The way he looked at me. The way I was able to look back. The way he took me.
But it only happened once.
Afterwards, still tangled around each other, I couldn’t breathe.
The unimaginable had happened—I’d made a friend on my own without the help of Ally’s easy extroversion—and instantly messed it up by sleeping with him.
I feared the aftermath would be terrible.
Awkward. All strained conversations and tight smiles until he deposited me safely back on campus so he could never speak to me again.
It was a future unimaginable. So, I muscled the messiness back into something controllable.
I tamed it by uttering five words that felt clean and sturdy and right at the time.
We should just be friends.
Instantly, his skin felt different. Cooler and less connected. He removed his arm from under my head and sat up, wrapping the sheet more firmly around his lower half.
I’d half-hoped he’d object. Instead, he got out of bed, agreed to protect our new friendship by pretending it never happened, and went for a shower.
When he came back, it was as if he’d showered me off him as well. His playful smile had returned, watering down the sweet thickness from before, perhaps forever.