One Night

by Best, Victoria J.

  “Are you Jackson?” the blonde asked my cousin, Henry.

  He shook his head. “Henry Radcliffe-Rogers,” he said and stuck out his hand for her to shake.

  It was obvious he was into her and unfortunate her father set her up with me. The blonde didn’t even look my way as she turned back to Henry.

  She blushed and shook his hand. “I’m Nicolette Fowler.” Her eyes never left him and I could tell the feeling was mutual.

  The redhead, whose name I still didn’t know, avoided my eyes. To keep the whole thing from being awkward, I decided to break up Henry’s fun.

  “I’m Jackson Radcliffe,” I said, turning to Nicolette and stuck out my hand for her to shake.

  She looked at me with a slight dismissive smile and shook my hand. “Nicolette,” she mumbled before turning back to my cousin.

  I tried to hide the smirk that was creeping in. Henry had quite an effect on the socialites of the city. It was almost sickening.

  “Seems my aunt and your father thought we’d be a good match.” I didn’t keep the irony out of my voice as I addressed Nicolette again.

  Nicolette looked back at me, her cheeks pinking. “Yes, well, my dad really is very presumptuous.”

  I laughed out loud and so did Henry, as we both ignored the women’s reactions; looks they exchanged with mystification. The women sat down at the table, Nicolette and the redhead both doing their best to ignore me. I would have been offended if I didn’t find the whole thing so funny.

  “I don’t think we’ve been introduced,” I said to the redhead and her emerald eyes darted to me and away just as quickly. It became clear she didn’t tell her friend about me.

  She flushed furiously, doing her best not to meet my eyes.

  Nicolette looked at her friend, tearing her eyes away from Henry for the first time since they walked in. It was then she seemed to realize her friend was embarrassed about something. Nicolette frowned and the other woman looked at her, giving a slight shake of her head as if to tell her they’d discuss it later.

  “I’m sorry.” Nicolette suddenly remembered her Manhattan socialite manners. “This is my friend, Liza Deveroux.”

  Liza looked up at me, something like resolve and resignation in her eyes, and I had to admire her sudden change in attitude.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” she said with an edge of condescension in her voice as she thrust her hand at me.

  Since it technically was the first time we were formally introduced, I took her hand, ignoring the zing of awareness that passed through me at the contact.

  “Pleased to meet you.”

  She pulled her hand away quickly—the same electric shock of attraction must have affected her as well—before turning her eyes downward to the dinner menu. Nicolette looked at Liza from the side of her eye, and Henry did the same with me. They were wondering what transpired between the two of us that would cause such a visceral reaction within five minutes of meeting one another. Well, they could keep wondering, because there was no way in hell I was admitting to either of them I slept with Liza and then tossed her out of my hotel on her ear. Though she hadn’t been very eager to stick around afterward either, I still felt like a jackass for it.

  We all inspected our dinner menus. Places like this had special menus for each night and even though I had grown up in expensive Manhattan restaurants, I had a hard time dealing with the pretentiousness. I peeked at Liza from the side of my eye and saw she was studying me. When she realized I caught her looking, her eyes darted back to her menu and she read it as if it were a New York Times bestseller for the next several minutes. Even after everyone else had looked up and Henry and Nicolette began to chat and flirt quietly, Liza kept her head down, looking at the menu.

  Nicolette turned to her after a minute, her brow furrowed with aggravation. “Liza, can you come with me to the ladies’ room?”

  I knew this was code for her wanting to speak to Liza in private.

  Liza shook her head vehemently. “Give me a moment to decide,” she said without looking up.

  Nicolette sighed and gave Henry and me a look of apology. Finally, after another five long minutes of me sitting awkwardly and Henry and Nicolette talking away, Liza looked up.

  “All decided, are you?” I couldn’t resist engaging her.

  It was as if there were some magnetic pull towards her I couldn’t fight, forcing me to talk to her.

  This time, her brows knitted together when she looked at me.

  “Yes,” was all she said.

  We placed our orders and the waiter took the menus before another round of awkwardness ensued.

  “Liza, the ladies’ room?” Nicolette reminded her through gritted teeth.

  With a sigh, Liza stood, setting her napkin back on her chair, and she pushed it in before following Nicolette away from the table.

  I wondered briefly if she was also part of the Manhattan elite; if she was, I had never seen her around the city. It didn’t matter who she was or where she was from, though, because I planned on getting to know a lot more about her by the end of the night.

  I took a deep breath as Nicolette and I rounded the corner to the women’s restroom. She pushed the door open, grabbing my wrist as if I were going to run away from her, and pulled me in. After a quick check of the stalls, she turned to me, hands on her hips.

  “What is going on, Liza? I know you hate blind dates but can you be a little less rude, please?”

  I sighed, debating in my head whether I should tell her about Jackson Radcliffe and our one-night stand. At this point, I didn’t feel like I had any other choice.

  “I’ve met him before,” I said hastily and with resignation.

  “Who? Henry?” Worry lit her face that I had something with the guy she was interested in.

  I shook my head. “No, Jackson.”

  Her eyes grew wide. “Where? When? What happened?”

  She fired questions at me faster than I could think.

  I cleared my throat, fidgeting with the bracelet on my wrist my dad gave me for my twenty-first birthday. Though I knew I had to answer, I didn’t want to.

  “It’s a long story and I really don’t want to…” I began, but she cut me off, grabbing me by the shoulders and leaning closer.

  “You met him at the club when I stood you up, didn’t you!” she yelled in a stage whisper, shaking my shoulders until my teeth rattled.

  I shrugged away from her grasp, putting my head in my hands and turning my back to her. This could not be happening. The one time I had a one-night stand and it came back to haunt me in the worst possible way.

  “Yes,” I muttered.

  “Shit, Liza! Did you sleep with him?” she asked me without preamble.

  I nodded, my head bowed, unable to look at her when I admitted it.

  “Liza!” she yelled at my back.

  I rounded on her, about to defend myself, but before I could, the bathroom door burst open and two women came in amidst a cacophony of laughter and both of us froze. I turned to Nicolette and caught her eye. She shook her head from behind the women, and put a finger to her lips. We stood there in silence as they made their way to the sinks, pulling lip gloss and compacts from their purses and primped in the mirrors as they chatted.

  “Did you see who was seated at the back of the restaurant?” one woman, with too-red lips and a too-tight dress, asked the other.

  “Oh my, God, yes! Henry Radcliffe-Rogers and Jackson Radcliffe! I heard they are quite the womanizers. They can womanize me any day.” The bottle blonde with an orangey fake tan said with a cackle.

  “Should we go talk to them?” Tight Dress asked her friend.

  Orange Tan thought for a minute as she caked powder on her face. “Nah, it looks like they’re on a date. I bet if we went to that club downtown they frequent, later, we would see them there, without their dates.”

  “Yes! I saw them both there last week. Jackson was surrounded by blondes.” Tight Dress patted her hair, which contained so many blonde hi
ghlights she looked like a skunk.

  I cringed at her words and caught my own reflection in the mirror, auburn curls glaring back at me. Jackson liked blondes.

  Nicolette looked at me, concerned. Who were Jackson Radcliffe and Henry Rogers-Radcliffe anyway? Who the hell did I sleep with?

  Suddenly, I felt like running far from the restaurant and never looking back. Nicolette looked sad, as if everything she imagined in the last half hour about Henry was false and her heart was already broken. I felt bad she had her hopes set so high for this date when she was likely to be disappointed. This was why I was ignoring Jackson—I had no room for more disappointment in my life.

  The women wrapped up their primping session and left the bathroom, leaving the scent of strong perfume and raucous laughter in their wake.

  “I think we should leave,” I said to Nicolette abruptly as soon as the women were gone.

  Leaving was the logical thing to do. Nothing good could come of us sticking out a date with two men who had no idea what a real relationship was.

  She looked at me, her face a mask of irritation and pity. “I don’t want to leave. I don’t care what some hoochies in the bathroom said about Henry. I really like him, Liza.”

  Nicolette’s face was set in that stubborn way that let me know she wasn’t going anywhere.

  I blew out a breath and looked up at the ceiling. Nicolette rarely showed this level of interest in men. She would hook up with them on occasion, or date here and there, but she never got this attached this soon. I felt guilty for trying to drag her away, despite my itching need to flee the restaurant as fast as I could. Warning bells were going off in my head about getting too closely involved with Jackson Radcliffe, but I couldn’t let my friend down.

  Jackson’s face flashed through my mind. Not the way he looked tonight but the way he looked that night a few weeks ago. The heat and intensity in his stare made my cheeks flame all over again. I couldn’t stay, I had to leave, and it was too much. The warning bells were going off at a high level now.

  I looked at Nicolette again and she mouthed, “Please.” Anxiety gathered in my stomach. I couldn’t leave because I made her a promise. With another sigh and an internal pep talk, I finally nodded.

  “Thank you so much, Liza! I really do owe you one now,” she said, and grabbed my hand to pull me from the bathroom.

  I’d just as soon stay there for the rest of the night. As we walked down the deserted hallway and rounded the corner, she stopped and turned back to me.

  “Don’t think I’ve forgotten what you said about Jackson. We will talk about that later.”

  Somehow, I knew she was going to say that. For now, I ignored her as we made our way back to the table. My stomach was in knots as we approached them and I wanted nothing more than to turn and run. Flashes of my night with Jackson flitted through my head and I closed my eyes for a second to shut it out.

  I cannot keep thinking about that night, I thought as we made our way back to the table.

  Both men stood as we approached and my stomach flip-flopped as Jackson turned to look at me. I ignored him, though my stomach did not, and the images of our night together refused to stop playing on a loop in my brain. Wincing inwardly, I sat down and immediately looked at my plate of food, which must have arrived while Nicolette and I were in the bathroom.

  I could tell he was looking at me, the intensity of his brown gaze seeming to burn a hole straight to my soul, but I didn’t look up. I couldn’t. If I did, I would get lost in him and who knew what would happen then. So, I kept staring at my plate of pasta as if it could swallow me up and deliver me from this place.

  “Liza, tell these gentlemen what it’s like teaching kindergarten,” Nicolette said.

  My head snapped up and I glared at her. I could see what she was trying to do, but it wouldn’t work. I didn’t want to share things about myself because I wasn’t going to get involved past tonight. Jackson Radcliffe was not the type of guy I needed or the type of guy who wanted more than a quick fuck in an anonymous hotel. Why wouldn’t she let it go?

  “You teach kindergarten?” Jackson asked.

  I had to look at him. If I didn’t, it would be too obvious I was trying to ignore him.

  “Yes, in Brooklyn,” I said curtly, without elaboration.

  “Brooklyn? That’s quite a hike from the Upper West Side.”

  I wasn’t sure if it was a question or a statement so I didn’t answer, only giving a brusque nod as a reply. I wondered how he knew where we lived.

  “Liza likes to take the subway,” Nicolette said with a wave of her hand.

  My face burned hot at her admission. These two men were affluent Manhattanites, and she basically just admitted I was poor. It wasn’t a deliberate dig, because while Nicolette was a lot of things, malicious wasn’t one of them. She just hated the subway and refused to use it, and wondered why anyone would use it at all.

  “I enjoy the subway too,” Jackson said.

  My gaze swiveled to him, this time finally meeting his eyes. Was he humoring me or making fun? Did he really like the subway and want me to know we had something in common? He was so hard to read and my head was spinning with the effort.

  A retort came to me and I spit it out before I could think it through. “Really? Someone from Park Avenue who likes the subway? I doubt that.”

  I had no idea if he lived on Park Avenue, but I was trying to make a point.

  His dark eyes seemed to smolder molten as I spoke and I immediately regretted what I said. He wasn’t making fun of me; he was telling the truth.

  “We aren’t all too rich to do regular things, Liza. Some of us even enjoy them,” he said in a way that sounded like a growl.

  He said “rich,” as if it left a bad taste in his mouth.

  Nicolette caught my eye as if to tell me to be nice and I gave her an imperceptible shake of my head. I was over all of them at this point. My pasta tasted like cardboard and I just wanted to go home and crawl under the covers.

  “I apologize. I didn’t mean to offend you,” I said, though I felt a small sense of satisfaction deep in my gut for making him angry.

  He snorted but didn’t answer, and Henry and Nicolette looked between the two of us in a way that suggested they were trying to decipher what was happening between us. Henry especially looked confused because he wasn’t privy to the information Nicolette was. An uncomfortable silence stretched across the group as the din of the restaurant seemed to pick up some. The post-happy hour crowd was streaming into the bar area and I was glad for the distraction of loud voices and laughter. We ate in silence, everyone afraid to speak after the odd exchange between Jackson and me. I had made it weird, which was something I was used to, but I didn’t care, because focusing on my food made it easier to not think about Jackson and that horrid but wonderful night.

  When we had all finished our food, the waiter approached again to ask if we wanted dessert or coffee.

  “No, thank you,” I answered quickly before the rest could speak.

  Nicolette scowled at me and Jackson glanced over with something like amusement.

  “I would like to take a look at your dessert tray,” Jackson said with a smirk, directing his eyes to me.

  Annoyance and fury built in my chest but I did my best to not let it show on my face. He was trying to goad me into a reaction. Instead, I turned to Nicolette because I remembered something that would get me out of here after all.

  “Don’t you have that event tomorrow morning? For the children’s hospital?” I asked her.

  It was the truth, she did have an event and for some unknown reason, it was really early.

  With a sigh, she looked at me, a firm frown on her face. She knew I was right and that her father would blow a gasket if she didn’t show up on time.

  “I do, actually. I completely forgot about it. I’m going to have to pass on dessert as well,” she said with another sigh.

  Henry and Jackson frowned in tandem. They exchanged a look before turning ba
ck to us.

  “How about we have our driver give you a ride back to your apartment?” Henry said, talking exclusively to Nicolette.

  Nicolette beamed at him and I frowned. My hands were beginning to sweat with anxiety. I had to get away from Jackson.

  “We can catch a cab. Right, Nic?”

  “That would be great!” she said at the same time as my refusal.

  Dread at being confined in a car with Jackson crept into my stomach, along with butterflies. I frowned, silently berating myself. My traitorous body wanted to be near him while my logical brain knew it was a terrible idea. Nicolette jumped up from her chair and Henry followed.

  I couldn’t move for a minute, unable to accept I would have to spend another minute with Jackson. Humiliation made my face heat and I looked down as I stood up and pushed my chair in, with deliberate slowness. This was why I didn’t do things like one-night stands; because somehow, they always came back to haunt you.

  “Liza,” Nicolette hissed between her teeth, in a tone I knew all too well. She was on the verge of a tantrum.

  Sighing with resignation, I followed the rest of them towards the exit, being careful not to look at Jackson. He was walking almost as slow as I was and was directly in front of me. He was trying to fall into step with me, but as was the nature of most restaurants in the city, it was too narrow of space for him to walk directly next to me. For that, I was thankful, and I slowed down even more, as slow as I could go without stopping.

  “Are you trying to slink away and escape through the bathroom window?” Jackson asked me suddenly, so close he was able to whisper.

  His proximity startled me and I wasn’t able to answer for a second. I didn’t want to answer anyway because I didn’t want to add any fuel to the fire and make him think he was getting to me in some way.