by Linda Seed
She opened her mouth to speak, closed it, then sat back in her seat and avoided looking at him. “I had my sister ask about you at the college. She said you only dated super intellectual women. I guess that made me feel a little insecure.”
He guessed it did, too, given how the evening was going.
“I don’t date super intellectual women.” But, was that true? He was surprised to realize that it was. “Or, actually, I guess I have done that in the past, now that I think about it.”
“And I’ll bet they’d have loved that boring-ass movie,” Sofia retorted.
“They probably would have,” he admitted. “And I’d have sat through it just to make them happy. Which was what I was doing tonight, with you.”
Then, in a gesture bold enough to rival his initial kayaking attempt in its reckless grandeur, he reached out, pulled her to him, and kissed her thoroughly and passionately, his hands tangled in her hair. After a time that seemed long but not nearly long enough, he said, “I can’t imagine why you’d feel insecure, Sofia. You’re the most beautiful, vibrant, fascinating woman I’ve ever met.”
Then he let go of her and sat back in his seat to gather himself.
“Oh,” she said.
During the drive home, Sofia didn’t speak. She was too busy replaying what Patrick had said to her. And—more vividly—how he had kissed her.
She wasn’t used to feeling a lack of confidence with men, and it had thrown her off her game. Then the kiss had left her so thoroughly off balance that she’d begun to wonder what other assumptions she’d made that were utterly, foolishly false.
She’d seen Patrick as inept socially, a little out of his depth with her, perhaps somewhat inexperienced with dating and women. But the kiss had been so masterful, so commanding …
One of them was out of their league—but she was no longer sure which one it was.
She didn’t set out to sleep with him in order to regain the upper hand. That would have been too calculating, too manipulative … hell, too sleazy. And she wasn’t any of those things. All she knew was that she wanted him and that she needed to do something to feel better about her place in his life.
She wasn’t naïve, and she wasn’t innocent. When she wanted sex, she had it. She liked going after what she wanted.
Why shouldn’t this be the same?
When they got to her house, he walked her to the door. She put her arms around him, pulled him to her, brought her mouth to within an inch of his, and said, “Patrick, come inside. Come with me to my room.”
Patrick didn’t just hear what she’d said. He felt it, along his scalp, down his spine, and lower, where all of his blood was beginning to surge.
How many times since the day he’d seen her at Jitters had he imagined this? How many times had he willed this very thing to happen?
She kissed him, her tongue slipping into his mouth, warm and caressing.
She wanted this. She wanted him. So why did it feel so … wrong?
Knowing that he would regret this—and soon—he pushed her away gently and took a deep, shaky breath to steady himself.
“Sofia …”
“My sisters aren’t home.” She pushed her body against his. “It’ll just be us. Come on.” She took his hand and pulled him toward the door.
If he were any other guy, he’d follow her. If he were any other man, he’d accept her offer, have an amazing experience, and never think twice about it.
But he wasn’t any other man. He was the man his mother had raised him to be. And he couldn’t do this—not now, not like this.
“Sofia, thank you, that’s a lovely offer. But I … I can’t.”
And, oh, God, the way she was looking at him. With a combination of lust, confusion, and hurt.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean … it just doesn’t feel like this is right for me. Or for you. Not yet.”
A spark of something lit in her eyes as they stood in the glow of the porch light. Anger? Offense? Whatever it was, it made her even sexier than before. God help him.
“You’re turning me down.” She said it as though she were struggling to comprehend it. As sexy as she was, it seemed unlikely that anything like this had ever happened to her before.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She let go of his hand as though it were made of plutonium.
“Sofia …”
“Goodnight, Patrick.” She pulled her keys out of her purse and unlocked the front door.
“You’re upset. I didn’t mean—” But she didn’t hear whatever it was that he didn’t mean, because she’d already closed the door.
“Nice job, Connelly,” he muttered, feeling utterly baffled by the mysterious ways of women.
13
Sofia was in the kitchen angrily working her way through a bag of Oreos when the others came home. It was just past midnight, and Martina and Benny were a little bit drunk. Bianca, the designated driver, reached into the cupboard for a partially full bottle of wine now that she was finally free to enjoy an adult beverage of her own. She pulled the cork and poured herself half a glass of Chianti, which was typical Bianca. A whole glass would have been far too indulgent for her.
“How was your date?” she asked Sofia. “Judging from the fact that you’re here, and not still with him, it can’t have been very good.”
“It was fine.” Sofia shoved another cookie into her mouth.
“You should have come with us,” Benny said. “Martina flirted with that guy from the bank—what was his name?”
“Jim Putney,” Bianca supplied.
“But I wasn’t flirting,” Martina said.
“Oh, my ass.” Benny dismissed Martina’s denial with a wave of her hand. “If you’re going to practically invite a guy to do you on the pool table, at least own it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Martina’s eyes widened.
“Shut up,” Benny said.
“Both of you shut up,” Sofia said. “Shove a cookie in your mouth if you think that’ll help you stop talking.” She pushed the bag of cookies toward them.
“What crawled up your butt?” Benny wanted to know.
“She was just about to tell us how her date with Patrick went horribly wrong,” Bianca said.
“No, I wasn’t.”
“But it did. Didn’t it? Oh, no.” Martina, always the nurturer, reached out and rubbed Sofia’s arm. The silver bangles on her wrist jingled as she rubbed.
“Don’t be nice to me,” Sofia snapped. “If you’re nice to me, I’m going to feel even worse, and I’d rather not. I’d rather just … load up on sugar and artificial ingredients.” She grabbed the cookies back, since she hadn’t gotten any takers.
“Look. Whatever he did to upset you, it makes him an asshole.” Benny pointed one finger at Sofia. “It’s not worth bingeing on cookies over an asshole.”
“Except that he didn’t do anything! It’s what I did! If there’s an asshole in this scenario, it’s me!” Sofia gestured with her hands, which were dusted with dark cookie crumbs.
“Uh oh. What did you do?” Bianca sat down at the table across from Sofia, focusing on her.
“I fell asleep at the movies. And then I offered him sex.”
The other three were silent for a moment.
“Well … okay,” Bianca said. “The first part was a little unfortunate. But the second part probably made up for the first part.”
Martina nodded her agreement.
“It should have,” Sofia said miserably. “But it didn’t. Because he turned me down. And then I was just … just some woman who fell asleep on a date and then begged for sex, which he didn’t even want because he was desperate to get the hell out of here!”
“Ouch,” Benny said.
“The next time he and his friends are getting drunk and talking about the worst dates they’ve ever had, he’s going to tell them about this one. And they’re all going to laugh.”
“They won’t laugh.” Martina laid her
hand over Sofia’s on the table.
“Well … remember the time you told us about Jared Wilkerson?” Benny asked Martina.
“That was pretty funny,” Bianca said, smirking.
“See? See?” Sofia dropped her face into her hands.
“Why did he turn you down?” Martina asked, squeezing Sofia’s hand.
“He said it didn’t ‘feel right.’ ” Sofia put air quotes around the words feel right.
“Aww,” Bianca said, going a little dreamy-eyed. “He’s a romantic.”
“Where do you get that?” Benny asked.
Bianca explained, “He wants to wait until he’s in the right place emotionally. Which is really sweet. How many guys do that?”
“That’s a good point,” Benny conceded. “Most guys would think it feels right if the room’s not on fire.”
“No.” Sofia shook her head. “No. He’s not just waiting. He’s not just holding out for the perfect time, or place, or for us to get to know each other better, or … or marriage, or whatever damned thing. He said no because it was the date from hell, and he never wants to see me again.”
“I doubt that,” Martina said.
“And even if it’s true,” Benny put in, “who cares? Screw him. You just started seeing him, it can’t be that big of a deal yet.”
Except that it was. Somehow, it was. Despite it being early, and despite the fact that they hardly knew each other, despite all of that … she’d gotten her hopes up. Her hopes had been irrationally up. And she’d ruined it.
“It was a desperation pass,” she concluded. “Me offering him sex? It was desperation, because I knew the date had been awful, and I was just trying to fix it. I was using sex like duct tape.”
“I’d have combined sex and duct tape in an entirely different way,” Benny mused.
Martina ignored Benny’s quip and focused on Sofia. “If that’s true, then he was right—it would have been a mistake to sleep together. He knew that. He knew you were offering for the wrong reasons. And he could have taken advantage of it, but he didn’t.”
Bianca nodded. “Not only is he smart and kind of cute, he’s also insightful. And caring. He didn’t want you doing something you’d regret.”
All of that just made Sofia even more miserable, because he really was all of those things, and she likely would never see him again.
Patrick drove home wondering how he could get things back on track, and when he could see Sofia again.
It was clear he’d hurt her feelings when he’d turned down her offer—an offer so generous, so astoundingly miraculous, that he still couldn’t believe he’d refused it. He wanted her to make that offer again, under better circumstances, at a time when he could accept enthusiastically.
And he wanted that to happen as soon as possible.
But she’d been angry when he’d left her, and that wasn’t good. The whole date had fallen apart the moment they’d reclined the overly comfortable seats and the characters on the screen had started talking about Jean-Paul Sartre.
They needed a do-over. And they needed to do it soon, before the memory of the bad date calcified in both of their minds in such a way that no amount of well-intentioned effort could hope to break it loose.
The big thing that had gone wrong, he thought, was that she’d pretended to like something she didn’t in an attempt to be someone she wasn’t. Maybe the key was to put her back in her own comfort zone—even if it meant taking himself out of his.
It was an intriguing idea.
He would refine the idea and come up with a plan. But tonight, he was too busy trying to get the idea of what he’d turned down out of his head.
At home in his cottage, he settled into bed, looked up at the dark ceiling, and tried to think of things other than sex—like algebra, the best way to get stains out of grout, and his mother’s recipe for meatloaf.
When none of that worked, he thought of Jean-Paul Sartre. That had put him to sleep earlier this evening; there was no reason to think it wouldn’t work now.
14
On Monday morning, Patrick got up early, showered, shaved, and dressed, then drove to the college for his eight a.m. graduate seminar on postmodern literature. Confronting postmodernism was hard enough on an average day, but it was even harder when he was distracted by thoughts of Sofia.
What was she doing right now? Was she still sleeping? Going for a run on a trail through the woods? Maybe enjoying an early morning of kayaking, alone out on the water, at peace with her thoughts?
He’d been struggling with the fact that he hadn’t slept with her. Images kept flittering through his mind—images of what would have happened if he’d said yes.
Only an idiot would stand at the very gates of paradise and say to himself, Well, no, I don’t believe I’ll go in there today. Maybe some other time. What kind of fool refused such an opportunity?
The kind of fool who wanted more than just sex.
If she slept with him and regretted it afterward, that would add baggage that neither one of them wanted. She’d feel bad for having done it, and he would feel bad for having made her feel bad. And none of that would lend itself to them having a long-term relationship, which he dearly hoped they might do.
No, if she felt anything negative after their first time sleeping together, he wanted it to be sorrow that it ever had to end.
He was playing the long game, and sometimes that was difficult and frustrating. It rarely lent itself to easy gratification.
He was thinking about all of that while one of his students, a defiantly unkempt twentysomething man-child with greasy hair and a battered motorcycle jacket, was discussing the themes of rampant consumerism in the works of Don DeLillo.
A young woman—a prodigy, just eighteen and already in grad school—was arguing with him, and Patrick was content to let them sort it out between themselves as he sorted out his love life.
Should he call Sofia today? Or did she need more time to get over her obvious irritation with him?
“ … ridiculous, asinine assumption. Right, Dr. Connelly?”
Somebody was talking to him, but he wasn’t entirely certain who it was. He usually prided himself on giving his students his full attention, but Sofia had gotten into his head, and his professionalism was slipping.
“I … That’s … Do you have more evidence to support your assertions?” The young woman—girl, really—launched into a well-thought-out argument for why the man sitting across the table from her was utterly full of crap, and Patrick got the impression that no one in the room had noticed that he hadn’t heard a word they’d said until now.
At lunchtime, he met Ramon at Mustang Station in the University Union, and they wedged themselves in next to some students at a long wooden table with their pizzas and their soft drinks.
“How are things going with Sofia?” Ramon asked, after the preliminary chitchat was out of the way.
“We went out this weekend,” Patrick said, somewhat evasively. If he’d hoped that the answer would be enough to satisfy Ramon’s curiosity, he was mistaken.
“So? How was it? You guys do the deed yet?” He raised his eyebrows in question as he shoved a bite of pepperoni pizza into his mouth.
“We, ah … no.”
There must have been something in the way he’d said it, because Ramon chewed, wiped his mouth with a paper napkin, and focused on Patrick with sympathy. “Aw, shit. What happened?”
What, indeed? A lot had happened, but he wasn’t sure he understood all of it. He laid it out for Ramon succinctly but thoroughly.
“We went to the movies and we both fell asleep. Sofia got mad and said she hadn’t wanted to see that movie—even though she’d picked it. Then she complained that I only see intellectual women. We kissed, and then she … ah … made it clear she wouldn’t mind more. But I left. And now she’s angry with me—or, at least, she was the last time I saw her.”
Was that everything? It didn’t cover the subtleties, certainly, but it had hit on the relevant f
acts.
Ramon took a long slurp of his soft drink. “What movie was it?”
“Does that matter?”
“It matters. I can’t give advice unless I know the movie.”
Patrick hadn’t asked for advice—he hadn’t wanted to talk about this at all, in fact—but it was always possible Ramon had some insight. He told him which movie.
“Ah, jeez,” Ramon said. “Of course it was a bad date. No good date ever started with a French art film.”
“But—”
“Wait.” Ramon pointed one finger at Patrick. “Somebody was asking around about you last week. Will Bachman over in the science department wanted to know about your ex-girlfriends. Said he was asking for a friend. Must have been Sofia, if she complained about who you date.”
Patrick groaned softly. “What did you tell him?”
Ramon shrugged. “I told him about Stacy and Kim. I didn’t think it was a secret.”
“It’s not.” Stacy had been a full professor at Cal Poly until she’d left to take a job on the East Coast. And Kim had written a novel that had been featured by Oprah’s Book Club. She was now in talks to sell the story to a Hollywood producer. He hadn’t had particularly satisfying relationships with either one of them, but he could see how it looked—on paper, at least. “I wish you hadn’t done that, though.”
“Dude, I’m sorry. I thought he was asking for another one of those chirpy little undergrads who are always trying to get into your Dockers.”
Patrick’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know you don’t.” Ramon shook his head sadly. “It’s a wonder you manage to feed and dress yourself every day.”
Patrick didn’t particularly want his pizza. He wasn’t hungry, but he had a full load of afternoon classes and office hours, and he couldn’t do it on an empty stomach.
“So, she picked an artsy film because she found out about your exes and wants to seem as smart as they are. But the movie was crap, and you both fell asleep, and she tried to drag the date out of the Dumpster with a little naked romp, a little mattress tag. But even that didn’t work, so now she’s pretty much had it.”