24. Emmy
Harold texts with details. He suggests we meet at his office rather than my mother’s house to avoid making her uncomfortable, which is disappointing, as her discomfort was the thing I looked forward to the most.
“You definitely sound like your heart’s in the right place,” Chloe chides later, adjusting me in tree pose. “Every ounce of excitement I’ve heard in your voice is related to how mad it’s going to make your mom when you use this guy.”
“I’m not using him,” I argue. “I’m giving him a shot. Maybe I’ll like him. And it’s not like he isn’t hoping against hope to use me right back. He’s in this to get laid—nothing more.”
“And I guess you’ll do it just so you can text your mom and rub it in her face?” Chloe asks, going into triangle pose.
“Think how much better every Disney fairy tale would be with that,” I reply, following her movements. “Dear Evil Queen, the prince just said I’m prettier and better in bed. Love, Snow White.”
“I don’t think Prince Charming ever slept with the evil queen,” Chloe says. “But I hate that you’re otherwise correct.”
The sun is setting as I walk back down Main Street afterward. Bradley is across the road, glaring at me as she climbs into her beat-up car. I give her the finger and smile as I continue on toward the grocery store, where Liam’s truck is now the only vehicle parked in front. I’d normally avoid being seen in my current state, but after an hour of exercise, I’m positively ebullient. I don’t care that I’ve sweated off my makeup, that my hair looks like crap.
I don’t even have an excuse to go see him. I’ll come up with something.
I push open the door and enter the store, which is growing dim in the dying light, to find him on the floor with a level and a tape measure.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” I announce as I walk in and hop up on the folding table, “but I think you work too hard.”
His eyes flicker to my crop top and pants before he returns to his work as if I haven’t spoken.
I shouldn’t be in here and he is doing exactly what I’d theoretically want him to do, but the fact that he’s ignoring me is deeply annoying.
“Shouldn’t you be on your date?” he finally asks.
Ah, there it is. That’s what I wanted from him—a reaction.
“That’s not until tomorrow,” I reply. “I need a day to get everything waxed anyway.”
He hits a button and the tape measure whips shut. He rises and the distance between us seems to shrink a little, though he hasn’t moved any closer.
“Are you actually going to sleep with this guy?” he demands. And then he does move closer, until we are a few steps apart. I sit up straighter. The air between us is so thick I can’t take a full breath.
I don’t know if it’s tension or anticipation, but I’m already glancing at his belt buckle, already picturing the way his jeans would slide to mid-thigh if I undid it. I bet he’d be hard in seconds, and despite my previous comments about his size, I’m guessing I’d be impressed.
“I’m sure you have some kind of tedious, backward belief that women should wait for marriage while you yourself should not,” I reply with a roll of the eyes. “But I don’t want to get married, and I’m not going to apologize to you if I want to get laid.”
“There’s a world of difference between sleeping with a guy to piss off your mom,” he says, moving closer still, until my knees are brushing up against his thighs, “and sleeping with someone because you can’t stand not to.”
He’s close enough to push my legs apart and step between them if he wanted to.
He’s close enough that he could lean down and press his lips to my neck. His index finger could trace a nipple, skirt along the seam of my yoga pants. I glance down and see a bulge in his jeans that wasn’t there a minute ago. I can taste victory on my lips. In this single misguided moment, I want all of it—his hands on me, his mouth on me, his other parts on me—more than I want anything else. More than I want Lucas Hall. More than I want revenge. God knows I’d feel otherwise in the morning, but right now…it’s this, only this.
“You sure seem like a guy who wishes it was him I was about to fuck at an art exhibit.”
He places one hand on either side of me, bracing himself against the table, bringing us face-to-face. “I don’t need to take you to an art exhibit, princess,” he replies. He leans close so his mouth is beside my ear. “We both know I could tell you to get on all fours right now and you’d do it. I could tell you to get on your knees and suck me off. You’d do any-fucking-thing I asked.”
The effect is primitive and immediate: my nipples pinch, my core clenches so hard it hurts, and I’m pretty sure I just ruined a pair of panties.
“You have the confidence of a much more financially successful man,” I reply, but my voice is weak. I hold still, aside from my hands, which cling to the lip of the table as if they’re all that’s keeping me from melting into a puddle on the floor. “And if you’re so sure of yourself, why aren’t you telling me to get on my knees?”
His head lowers. His mouth is so close that I can feel his lips brush mine when he speaks. “Because I refuse to obsess over a girl who’s never going to stick around.”
He steps away as fast as he moved in, grabbing his keys and walking out the door.
I wait until he’s gotten into his truck. And then I scream in frustration.
* * *
I driveto Harold’s office on Saturday afternoon. The parking lot is empty aside from Harold’s BMW, which is the same model as mine. I can’t wait to tell my mother Harold drives the car she thought was so showy, so much worse than Jeff’s.
He climbs from the driver’s side as I pull up beside him. He is not quite as cute as I remember. There’s nothing wrong with him, but it’s possible I was initially so surprised to discover he wasn’t old that I’d overlooked several things—like the fact that his hair is thinning, and he’s kind of skinny, and his shirt is dumb, and mostly that he in no way resembles Liam. I bet this guy has never growled at a woman, has never said I could tell you to get on your knees and suck me off. You’d do any-fucking-thing I asked.
None of this will prevent me from going out with him and running straight home to tell my mother, however.
“I hope this is okay?” he asks. “There’s really no conflict of interest as your mother’s surgery is complete, and she’s got no more follow-ups scheduled with me, but I can hand her chart over to another doctor if you’re more comfortable with that.”
“No, not at all,” I say with a forced smile. I hadn’t realized until now that my mother wasn’t going to have any further appointments with Harold, but that’s definitely disappointing. “I’m sure she wouldn’t care.”
I get in his car, and we head toward San Jose. We talk about the weather, about the art we are going to see, and I decide these two topics bore me about equally. I found him amusing when we spoke before. Now he’s an unfortunate combination of anxious and uptight.
“You don’t date a lot, do you?” I ask.
He frowns. “Is it that obvious?”
“You seem nervous.”
“I’m just getting out of a long-term relationship,” he replies. “So I haven’t been on a first date in a decade. I feel like I’ve forgotten what to do.”
My stomach sinks. I don’t want to be his first date in a decade—I doubt this will be an experience he looks back upon fondly one day. “A decade? That’s a long time. What happened?”
I quietly pray that the breakup was his fault.
“We ran into some problems,” he says, “and she realized this wasn’t what she wanted.”
Fuck.
“What kind of problems?” Please let the problem be that you were cheating on her, Harold. Please let it be that you kept telling her to lose weight.
His lips purse. “This is probably TMI, but we had some trouble getting pregnant and learned, along the way, that I’m infertile. I’d have been happy to use a sperm donor, but it just changed something for her. Maybe she thought it made me less of a man? I’m really not sure. It’s been hard.”
Fuck my life. So far Harold is entirely blameless. I hate that for me.
“Our wedding got postponed because of the pandemic, and then she kept postponing. Maybe I should have seen the signs.”
Goddammit, Harold. I think you’ve cut my cruel enjoyment of this whole thing by half.
We arrive at the art exhibit, which is held in some sad, abandoned storefront in downtown San Jose that looks as if it was once a car dealership. The art sucks, and they aren’t even passing out champagne—we have to go to a little stand at the back where they sell bottled water instead. If this was a standard Saturday date with Harold, I understand why his fiancée cut bait.
Harold is currently explaining the causes of low sperm motility and assuring me it has nothing to do with organ function. I suppose I could say, “Let’s see how that organ is functioning right now”—I’m sure there’s a bathroom here somewhere—but it would be awkward, given how fucking miserable he is about the whole thing. I decide to hold off.
We get coffee afterward and he tells me about the honeymoon they were going to take—watching wolves migrate through Canada by helicopter—which sounds incredibly expensive and also incredibly lame. I’d have postponed that wedding repeatedly too.
I’m not going to proposition him. The coffee shop is small, and everyone would see us walking into the bathroom. I also think there’s a strong possibility that he will cry during sex—he seems like the type. Mostly, I just don’t think I can go through with it. I suspect—thanks, Liam—I was never actually going to go through with it in the first place.
He drops me off at my car and kisses my cheek without suggesting he’ll call, and I should be offended, but instead, I’m swept with relief. It’s only in this moment that I realize how deeply I’d dreaded this date going further than it did. This might prompt a wiser girl to question whether her need for revenge is more destructive than helpful, but I mostly just feel like I dropped the ball.
When I get home, I make dinner while my mom watches some show where all the realtors are scheming and hot and dressed like expensive escorts. I’d fit in with them perfectly.
Afterward, I’m cleaning up and accidentally let one of the cabinets close too loudly. Closing anything too loudly was enough to get me hit as a kid. Even all these years later, the sound of someone carelessly letting a cabinet slam shut feels like a slap in the face.
And indeed, my mother’s head jerks toward me, her eyes narrowed. “Are you being loud on purpose,” she asks, “or are you simply that graceless?”
I meet her gaze. This is where I could tell her how I spent my afternoon. This is where I could ruin all her fantasies about Harold. But instead, I keep it to myself. There’s power in knowing things she doesn’t. And the next time she says, “You’re never going to keep that weight off” I’ll be able to think you don’t know everything, Sandra, and actually have some proof on my side.
I smile at her. “Cabinet doors occasionally slam, Mom. Feel free to cook the next meal if it bothers you though.”
I go upstairs, pulling off my push-up bra as I go. I shimmy out of the tight jeans at the top of the stairs and throw them toward the hamper as I flop onto the bed. So much effort and discomfort and no revenge achieved whatsoever.
Both Liam and Chloe have texted. Because I’m weak, I read Liam’s first.
Yard Boy
So, how was your date? Are those wedding bells I hear ringing?
Do we live in a feudal society where I can be forced to marry? Otherwise, no. Because, as I’ve made clear. I do not want to marry. I simply wanted to defile the good doctor and rub it in my mother’s face afterward, as one does.
So you’re saying you did it.
I’m saying that it’s none of your business. I had needs. You were unwilling to meet them because you want someone who will find you if you fall through a roof.
I wait for him to reply. I’m joking, obviously. Sort of. Though it isn’t his business, I do have needs he was unwilling to meet, and he does want to find someone who will find him if he falls through a roof.
So, I guess I sort of wasn’t joking.
And he doesn’t reply, which I guess means he didn’t find it funny either.
It leaves me feeling restless and unhappy, too much of both those things to possibly fall asleep. So I text Chloe and tell her to meet me at Beck’s instead.