“Dad. I won’t be using dating apps or websites.”
“And don’t go to bars to meet people! Cindy Matthews has a cousin whose daughter met a blind date at a bar in San Diego and he ended up raping her bumhole in an alley.”
“Mom!” Did you just say ‘bumhole?’
“It’s true—they posted about it on Facebook.”
“Oh my God. How awful.”
“Just don’t go out alone at night.”
“Daddy. I’m twenty-seven years old. You have to stop worrying about me.”
“You’re my daughter. I will never stop worrying about you.” His voice catches in his throat. That’s about as emotional as he gets, but I know he feels it.
I get it. I know my Dad is picturing twenty-one year old me curled up in the corner of my closet sobbing and saying that I want to die because my first love broke up with me. He’ll never forget that.
I almost forget it sometimes. I totally forgot about it while Vince was doing amazing things to my body. I started to think about it again this morning when I realized that I could actually like Vince. I started to remember how it felt to be in so much pain from being left by someone that I had loved without reservation. Honestly, it felt kind of good to feel something again. As much as I’d been trying to avoid it for the past six years of my life, it was like being reunited with an old friend.
“Maybe it’s just a phase for Russell. You know. An early mid-life crisis. We should call him. Dad can talk some sense into him.”
“No! God! I don’t want to get back together with Russell. You guys. I wasn’t happy with him.”
“Was he mean to you?”
“No, it wasn’t that, I just…Look, it made sense to be with him when I first moved here, it felt safe and in the context of the school it made sense, but…it’s over. And I’m glad. I’m moving on.”
There is a brief pause on the other end of the line. “Okay. Just don’t move on with an app.”
“I probably definitely won’t. How’s Bun doing?” Change of subject! Bun Affleck is the bunny that I adopted back in Bloomington after he bit a kindergarten student. I couldn’t bring him with me to live in a small apartment, so my parents graciously agreed to look after him when I moved.
“Oh the little dear, he’s very peaceful.”
“You know, Nin, we’re on our way to Florida to meet up with the Robinsons in a couple of days. We could stop by on the way to see you. For a few hours?” My Dad sounds so hopeful.
“Oh that’s a wonderful idea! We’ll just pop over and meet you for a late lunch maybe?”
“No, that’s ridiculous. I mean, I’d love to see you of course, but it’s not worth it for a few hours, and I’m really fine. Really.”
After two more minutes of insisting that I’m fine and trying to get them excited about their trip to Florida, I tell them I have to go.
I don’t tell them that I have to hang up so I can continue thinking about a boy in peace.
I need more hobbies.
Maybe I should get a summer job.
Two days without seeing Vince Devlin.
I touch my fingers to my lips. “How will we survive?”
In some parallel universe, there’s a me who chose to respond to my first broken heart by being courageously reckless and falling in love over and over again, a me who trusted that I didn’t feel so much about my first love that I’d run out of good passionate feelings and had to keep them tucked away for safe-keeping, so that by the time I’m twenty-seven and faced with someone like Vince, I can handle it.
In this one…The world and Brooklyn in particular is an infinitely more sexually-charged and exciting place to live in, now that I know he’s out there in it, but I barely remember how it used to be so easy to breathe or have thoughts that didn’t make my body tingle, before I met him.
Chapter Nine
Vince
After I got back to the office, I put together a market demographics package for a client, filled out paperwork for another deal, had a meeting with my sales team, got on a business development call with my brother, returned twenty calls and forty emails, and the entire time I had this big stupid grin on my face and the ghost of Nina’s lips on mine.
I don’t even know how long my partner Eve has been staring at me through the glass wall, but I can’t even pretend to not be happy when she strides in and shuts the door behind her.
“What is going on with you? Did you get back together with Sadie?”
“No. God, no.”
Eve knows about the Sadie situation because we had a client meeting later Saturday afternoon, and I was still messed-up about it. But I didn’t tell her any specifics. Like how she left me for a practically middle-aged elementary school principal and I followed him to his fiancées apartment and then decided to fuck her instead of kick the shit out of him. Eve would kick the shit out of me if she knew I’d actually planned that.
She crosses her arms in front of her chest and plops down on my sofa. “You met someone.”
“Hey, did the liquor license guy get back to you yet?”
“Yes. Don’t tell me you’re rebounding.”
“It’s not like that.”
“What’s it like? Do tell. I’m just kidding. I know you’re not going to tell.”
I love Eve like family and I’d trust her with my life, but she’s still my business associate and I have to keep some lines drawn between us.
“Is she hot?”
I grin.
“Of course she’s hot. Does she live around here? Shit, it’s not a client. Oh shit fuck please tell me you didn’t bone the twin chefs or I will murder you.”
“No! Not even one of them. She’s not a client. Or a potential client.”
“But she lives around here.”
“You’re not getting any more out of me.” She always manages to get more out of me. She’s the only one who can. Well, almost.
“Okay okay. Just tell me her name.”
“No.”
“Maybe I know her. Corky.”
“It’s not Corky. Get outta here.”
“Sparky.” She gave me so much shit about Sadie. “Tiffany. Amber. Lola. Ginger.”
“She’s not a fucking stripper! Her name’s Nina, alright?”
As soon as I hear myself say her name and feel my lips curl into a smile, I know I’m in trouble. I turn my face away from Eve, but I know she saw. I know she heard the way my voice got softer.
She has gone silent and it’s killing me.
I snap my head around to face her. “What?!”
Her lips are pressed together and her eyes are big as saucers. “Oh honey. You like this one!”
“Shut up. I barely know her. Shut up.”
“Oh, baby.” She puts her hand on my shoulder. “You finally met someone you actually like.”
I shake my head. “Not talking.”
“Just promise me you won’t fuck her right away.”
I drop my forehead to the desktop.
“Shit,” she says. “You already blew it, didn’t you?”
“No. Maybe. I can’t talk about this with you. Don’t you have to meet your wife somewhere for dinner tonight?”
“Shit. I’m late. Call me later, we’ll talk more! Just kidding!” She’s out the door, but she pokes her head back in. “Oh hey, you should bring her to my party! Not kidding! Do it!”
“It’s not like that! It’s just a one-time thing! Ish.”
“Shit she’s not married is she?”
“No! What kind of man whore do you take me for?”
“The kind that’s ripe for making a lot of mistakes.”
“Get outta here. Seriously.”
She gives me a concerned look. A real one.
“It’s cool, it was a fun thing, it’s no big deal. See you tomorrow.”
She finally turns and leaves my office.
She’s not wrong, though. I am in exactly the position to make a lot of mistakes right now. If Eve knew I’d punched a hole in a wall
last night I’d never hear the end of it.
I shouldn’t see her again. What we had was perfect, I don’t want to ruin it. Except I still have to paint that wall. I can’t leave that unfinished. Fuck. Maybe I should just pay Carlos to do it. Send him over there with a note and flowers from me. That would be a classy dick-move.
But I don’t want to be a dick to her.
Which is why I should stay away from her.
I can’t even remember the last time I felt this conflicted about anything, if ever.
I stare at my phone, and scroll through for a number that I haven’t called in a very long time. It goes straight to voicemail, as always, and I almost hang up before the long outgoing message is over. But I don’t.
“Hey, it’s Vince. I know it’s been a long time, but if you have time soon I really need to see you.”
Chapter Ten
Vince
Dr. Glass’s waiting room hasn’t changed at all in the year or so since the last time I was here. I was lucky she had a cancellation tonight, so I can talk to her before I decide whether or not to see Nina again on the fifth.
I flip the switch to let her know that I’m here and try to figure out what I’m going to say, but she opens the door to her office almost immediately.
“Vince. Good to see you, come in.”
“Hey Dr. Glass.”
I take a seat in the comfy floral sofa and move the throw pillows out of the way, like always. I know she thinks I’m trying to control the situation by doing this, but I don’t care. Comfy sofas don’t need more pillows.
She smiles at me, her notebook and pen on her lap. Her blonde-white hair is a little longer than she used to wear it, and she’s wearing lipstick. That’s new. At some point I had this fantasy that she and my Dad should meet and date and end up together, but that would have just been weird. She stares at me, watching and waiting.
I don’t have a fucking clue where to start. I’m rubbing my knuckles. I swear to God they haven’t hurt at all until I sat down here.
“Been a while,” she says, non-accusatory.
“Yeah, sorry. I got busy and things were, you know, coasting along.”
She slow-blinks and nods. “I know how it goes. You don’t have to apologize. I’m always here for you when you need me.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
She waits a few more seconds, and then says: “So what’s going on?”
My knee bounces up and down. “Yeah, I mean, it’s not really a big deal but it might be something, I don’t know.”
“Okay.”
I don’t know how much time passes before I finally say something, a few seconds or a minute. “What kind of dish detergent do you use?” Is what I blurt out.
She doesn’t even look at me like it’s a crazy non sequitur. This is probably how most sessions start with guys.
“For hand-washing? In the sink?”
“Yeah.”
“Dawn,” she says, “for really greasy pots and pans. Ivory for everything else.”
“You do? Is that pretty common? Ivory? That brand?”
“It’s quite popular among women. I’d imagine.”
“Why’s that?”
“It’s easy on the skin of your hands and it smells nice.”
“It does…So how come I’ve only known two women who use it? Besides you now, I mean.”
She crosses her legs, leans back and drapes her arm over the back of her chair. “Why don’t you tell me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who are the two women?”
Pause.
“Um. So, I broke up with Sadie. I mean, she broke up with me. This weekend.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” She says this as though she didn’t tell me five times that she didn’t think it was a good idea for me to get involved with my half-brother’s nanny.
“She told me that she was with someone else. Still is, I mean. For two months.”
“I see. How did that make you feel?”
“Made me feel like dancing.”
“Yeah?”
“No, it made me mad as fuck. Sorry. I wanted to beat the shit out of someone.”
“Who?”
“The guy. Russell.”
“Russell? You knew the man that she left you for?”
“No, I never met him. She told me his name. Russell. Never met a Russell that I liked. Ever. Except Russell Crowe. I mean I never met him, but he seems cool.”
She’s scribbling something on her notebook. “So you haven’t had contact with this Russell that she was seeing?”
“Is seeing.”
“She’s still seeing him.”
“Far as I know. No. I saw him. I…I followed her to his place after she told me, and then I followed him. For a little while.”
“Tell me about that.”
I tell her about that. I only have like thirty-five minutes left, so I tell her everything, all of a sudden, in a rush of words. Feeling-words. All that shit that she taught me to use back when I was just a walking container of rage. She scribbles like mad, keeps shifting around in her seat. She doesn’t interrupt me at all, and then waits for me to continue when I take a sip of water, even though I can tell she’s dying to comment because she’s tapping her pen on her thigh.
“I want to see her again.”
“To further work through your feelings of revenge towards her ex?”
“No, I just want to see her. I don’t even know if the revenge thing came into play once I started talking to her.”
“But you purposefully didn’t get her number?”
“No, but I told her I’d be back to paint the wall.”
“When?”
“Thursday morning.”
“Okay. And when you say you want to see her again, you mean that you’d like to have sex with her again?”
“Yeah. A lot. But I’ve also been thinking about what it would be like to have coffee with her in the morning. When I walked past a restaurant today I thought about having brunch with her there. Brunch! I hate going to brunch. I just had this feeling she’d like it.”
“That’s a nice thing, Vince.”
“I mean, what’s next? Thinking about marriage?”
She sits forward in her chair. “Are you thinking about marriage?”
“No! No. Definitely not. I just met her. I mean, we’re totally different. I just meant…I don’t know. She’s nice.”
“It’s okay if you don’t know what you meant. We can explore it some more in our next session.”
“Yeah. I mean. I guess. I think I’ve figured some things out talking to you already, though.”
“Have you?”
“Yeah.”
“Is that why you came to see me? To tell me about what happened?”
I sigh. Fucking shrinks. “No, not only. I wanted to ask your advice.”
“Okay. It sounds like this woman you’ve met is very special, and my recommendation is that you do not see her again until you’ve sorted through your anger and abandonment issues.”
“I don’t have abandonment issues. Sadie does. Charlie’s mom does.”
She gives me a look, like: Have I taught you nothing over the years, Vince? She thinks I’m projecting all of my youthful fears of abandonment onto Charlie and dealing with them myself by leaving women before they leave me. Whatever, maybe before. Not what happened this time. That shows I’ve changed. And I really don’t think I would do that with Nina.
“There are abandonment issues to be sorted through. Tell her you like her but you don’t want to ruin your chances for a real relationship by rebounding with each other.”
“But I don’t want her to be with anyone else.”
As soon as I say the words out loud I realize it’s true and it’s ridiculous. I barely know her.
“Vince. I’m very pleased to hear that you’ve met someone that you’re responding to in this way. But you’ve just come out of your first long-term relationship. And while I’m proud of you for refraining from pun
ching the principal…Rebounding is a thing. It’s a thing that we do because it’s more fun and easier than dealing with the feelings that are brought up by the end of a relationship. My concern is that rather than unpacking and working through your deepest feelings, you’re merely replacing one physical act for another. Fighting for fucking.”
My eyes flick up to meet hers. Every now and then she uses the f-word to make sure I’m paying attention. It works.
“Uh huh.” My knee is bouncing again.
“I’m not saying that what you’re beginning to feel for Nina isn’t real. I’m not trying to discourage you from being attracted to a good woman that you very much deserve. I’m saying that this is a delicate period for both of you, and if you want it to turn into a real lasting healthy relationship, then it’s better for both of you to deal with your own issues separately now before they get tangled up in hers. Do you understand?”
“Uh huh.” My stomach sinks. “Yeah, I hear you. I get it.”
“It’s just a matter of having patience, and trusting that things will work out with her if they’re meant to.”
“Yeah. I know. You’re right.”
I shouldn’t have come here.
Chapter Eleven
Nina
I take three deep breaths before opening the door, but it’s not enough oxygen to sustain me. Seeing Vince standing there in a gorgeous shirt and suit jacket, carrying a big leather backpack and a gallon of paint is just too much for my brain and body to process. This means he is going to be removing his shirt and jacket while he paints, and I will have to hide in the bedroom, sitting on my hands, biting my lower lip and counting to infinity in French. He grins and tells me that he brought an old T-shirt and jeans this time. I am both disappointed and relieved.
When he passes by me through the doorway, I try not to inhale his cologne too loudly. He smells like a chic conference room in the Italian Riviera and I want him to ravage me on the table and then go for a stroll with him on the beach.
He looks both disappointed and relieved to see that I’m wearing baggy jeans and an over-sized T-shirt. But he keeps looking down at my bare feet while he sets out the drop cloth that he brought, and the paint tray and roller.
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