Julian
Took you long enough, Leticia.
I bite the response back, unsure what her reaction would be if she learned that I’ve known who she was the entire time.
Hell, even now I’m not sure what possessed me to swipe right when I came across her profile last week.
I blew my chance with her four years ago and then was promptly forgotten, if her reaction—more like nonreaction—to meeting me again at Angela’s party a few months back is to be believed.
My cousin is a menace, and she knew exactly what she was doing pretending to introduce us after I told her Leti hated me.
Except, I found out that Leti didn’t hate me at all.
You can’t hate someone you don’t remember, and there was no mistaking the blank look on her face as she shook my hand for anything else.
Since then, I haven’t been able to get this woman out of my mind.
It would be stating the obvious to say the same can’t be said of her, which is something I still can’t quite fathom. How am I so deeply forgettable to Leti when she’s been lodged in my brain for months? Longer, if I’m being honest with myself. Years longer.
I told myself I was merely satiating a need for answers by swiping right on her profile.
I never expected to match with her. What was more unexpected was the feeling it evoked seeing her name flash across my screen.
I couldn’t remember the last time I got butterflies in my stomach over a romantic prospect, much less nearly choked to death over one—and via a photograph, at that.
She’s even wearing the same blue dress that almost killed me, the devil woman.
I must have a degradation kink I don’t know about to think this was my second chance to make a better impression on her—a more memorable one, since apparently that’s not my strong suit.
We’d laugh about the strange series of coincidences that led us back together after our first date years ago and see if we could make something work between us this time around.
That is, until the horror of what I’d done sank in when I realized a few messages in that she still didn’t remember me.
She didn’t seem to remember meeting me at Angela’s party a few months ago either.
She thought she’d matched with a cute stranger, not someone she’d already dated and deemed unworthy.
I never should’ve said yes to this date.
On top of showing up late, I’ve spent the entire night putting my foot in my mouth.
The accident on I-10 I could do nothing about, but she’s got me pegged as a commitment-phobe because I don’t know when to shut up.
Instead of telling her that I value nontraditional relationships above institutions like marriage and have no wish to have kids of my own because taking care of a hundred teenagers every week at my job is taxing enough on its own, I ranted.
If there is no going back from there, there definitely isn’t any recovering from a we’ve been on this date before accusation.
Do I come clean about remembering her, or play it cool and wait and see where the conversation turns?
That one. Play it cool, Julian.
I eye her warily across the table, playing the part of confusion. “What do you mean?”
“Four years ago, a classmate I barely knew set me up on a blind date,” she says. “You were twenty minutes late, snapped at me for checking my phone once, and ate all of my truffle fries. And not only were they expensive, but you also only paid for what you ordered!”
Inwardly, I wince at the play-by-play. She’s right, of course. But even though she makes me out to be a douche, I remember a few details of that date differently from her.
“Do I not look familiar to you at all?” she asks.
I pop a sushi roll (my own, hallelujah) into my mouth to keep from having to respond right away.
My eyes narrow in thought as I chew, thinking over my response.
I may not know her that well, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the truth won’t go over well with this woman.
After a long swallow, I ask, “Did you used to wear glasses?”
“Yes.” She nods emphatically. “And I had bangs cut straight across my forehead. They only lasted the five months it took to grow them back out. Wasn’t a good look on me.”
Personally, I thought the bangs looked cute on her.
They were overlong and kept getting in her eyes.
She fiddled with them nervously for half the night, and it gave me some relief to know that I wasn’t the only one feeling anxious.
My first date with anyone ever, and it had to be with the most beautiful girl in the room.
I’m pretty sure my eyes were locked on the table more than her face that night, that’s how nervous she made me.
It hadn’t helped that from the moment we sat down, it seemed like Leti would’ve rather been anywhere else.
While my gaze had been squared on the table, hers were glued to her phone more often than not.
Still, that didn’t stop me from eating up what little crumbs she offered.
I made her laugh once and the rich, deep sound of it reverberated in my mind long after the date crashed and burned.
When her eyes finally landed on my face and stayed there, I felt the flicker of something in my chest as she smiled at me.
It was more of a quirk that lifted the side of her mouth than anything else, but still.
It was hard won, and the sense of pride I felt over it had been immeasurable.
“Okay, I think it’s coming back to me now.” The lie slips out before I realize I can’t bring myself to tell her the truth. “And you weren’t on your phone just once that night. You kept sneaking glances at the time like you couldn’t wait to get out of there.”
“Fair enough,” she says. “But you didn’t seem that interested in me. I can count on one hand how many times you looked at me that night, even though you didn’t shut up once.”
“I’m a nervous talker, so sue me.” It’s true, and though I can remember every single detail about her from that night, I can’t remember one word I said to her. Probably something stupid about the history of hamburgers. “And you were…intimidating.”
She still is, if I’m being honest. The glare she levels at me is proof enough.
“Are you a nervous eater too?” She raises a perfectly manicured brow.
A flush warms my cheeks under her perusal, and dammit I have nowhere to hide. Just like I didn’t have anywhere to hide when she yelled at me in the crowded restaurant for eating her entire basket of truffle fries.
“Okay, you were right to yell at me, but who the hell charges nine dollars for fries?” I scoff, then flinch as her glare intensifies.
Four years have passed and her death stare has only gotten scarier.
“I’m sorry. I was going to offer to buy another basket until I saw the price.
I didn’t have the money and was too embarrassed to admit as much. ”
“It’s fine.” She waves me off, but her tone is flat, which is how I know she’s still holding a grudge.
Then she lets out a long, aggrieved sigh as if thinking better of it.
She sounds much more sincere when she says, “I shouldn’t have yelled at you.
I was broke for most of college too. I forgive you in retrospect. ”
“At least we know why there wasn’t a second date.” I smirk at her. “Until now.”
I take a moment to really look at her while she’s finally in front of me, in the flesh.
Her hair is tied back but a few dark, wavy tendrils are loose, framing her face.
And that dress—fuck if she looks even better wearing it in person.
The light blue makes her tan skin glow, or maybe it’s the sheen of sweat making her glisten, drawing my eye down to her collarbone, to the bead of sweating dripping down her cleavage.
You are not a caveman. Stop staring at her fucking breasts.
The thing is, sex has always been connected to more than the physical body for me.
I have to know the person on a deeper level first before sexual feelings start to grow.
Even after registering her beauty the moment I first saw her, I didn’t immediately feel sexually attracted to her.
I still don’t know her that well, which is why it surprises me that nonetheless, I feel a glimmer of… something.
I’m still puzzling over the feeling when she raises a brow like she can hear my thoughts, and I realize my eyes are still trained on her breasts. Great. If this date wasn’t already shot to hell before she caught me ogling her, it sure is now.
“Were you—” Her mouth drops open. She crosses her arms over her ample chest, but it only pushes her tits up more. With a shudder, I shut my eyes against the view she has no idea she’s giving me. “Okay, that’s it, I’m leaving.”
“Wait.” Before she rises from her seat, I reach for her wrist. I should know better. You don’t touch a deer when it’s startled. That’s a good way to get them to kick you. “I’m sorry. Don’t leave. Please.”
Begging works, apparently, because she situates herself back in her seat. If her narrowed eyes are any indication, she isn’t happy about it.
“What’s the point?” The question slips out of her before I’m ready to hear it.
“We’ve been on this date before, so we know how it ends.
I’ll go home and complain to my best friend how you were late and stole food off my plate, and, oh yeah, that this all happened for the second time. Why repeat history?”
“The way I see it, we’ve been given a second chance for a reason. It was a bad date four years ago, but that doesn’t mean this date is also going to be—”
She pulls out her phone, a dismissal if there ever was one, and there it is. The killing blow to this night. When she realizes I’ve stopped talking, she glances up from the screen.
“Oh.” She puts the phone face down on the table, eyes shifting away from me. “Sorry. My roommate texted me, and it was instinct to—”
“You know what? Maybe you’re right.” I puff out a breath in an effort to dispel the sting of annoyance.
“I forgot, you hate the phone thing.”
“We probably wouldn’t have made our movie anyway, so if you want to call it a night after we finish eating, we can do that. We’ll call this a strange blip in the timeline and move on with our lives. If that’s what you want.”
“Okay. Thank you.” She nods. “I appreciate that.”
Luckily, it doesn’t take us long to finish our food. I place my card down on the table before she finishes pulling out her wallet from her purse. “It’s too late to make up for the fries, but I can try.”
Her smile is wry, but it does something strange to the organ pumping blood in my chest. Can hearts skip a beat without it being a health anomaly?
Funny how she can blow me off twice and still have that effect on me.
I should want nothing to do with this woman by now.
What little emotional connection we have shouldn’t mean anything to me, and I certainly shouldn’t desire a stronger one.
We don’t know each other, and she’s made it clear in no uncertain terms that she doesn’t want to.
“Well. I guess this is it.” We walk out of the restaurant together and stop on the sidewalk. She pushes a strand of hair back from her face and blows out a breath.
“Sorry for swiping a roll off your plate,” I tell her. “If it makes you feel any better, you have excellent taste in sushi.”
“Thank you.” She smiles up at me, that same quirk of her lips that lifts the side of her mouth. “It really wasn’t that bad of a date.”
For a moment, I’m tempted to keep the night going after her admission. See if we can turn our second first date around after all. But maybe she’s being nice, letting me down easy. Which is why I return her smile and let the moment be.
“Goodbye, Leticia.” I hold out my hand and she eyes it with skepticism. Hugging her good night is too informal, and kissing her is out of the question. So boring handshake it is. She takes my hand, letting it fold over hers.
“Bye, Julian.”