by Amy Matayo
“She will be. Just give it time.”
It’s a sharp jab that makes me sound like a womanizer, and I don’t like it. I wouldn’t take that kind of comment from anyone else, but Presley knows me. She knows me and accepts me, and even though I can’t stand admitting it to myself…she isn’t wrong. Most of my non-dates turn into a lot more real fast. A therapist once told me I have mommy issues, so I stopped going to our sessions. The issue is that I just like women. Or maybe it’s that I want women to like me. Either way, it’s all the same.
I shrug off the thought and focus on the woman in front of me…the only one who matters.
There’s so much hurt in her voice, there’s no way I’m telling her about my date with Mara tonight. Right now, I have too much repair work to do.
It’s a gamble, but I reach for Presley and pull her to me. Sometimes she’ll bolt; she isn’t one for affection. This time she lets me hold her. Thank God she lets me. I don’t want to be unfair, not to her.
She wraps her arms around my waist and buries her face in my shirt. She’s crying, sniffling. Presley only cries when she’s really hurt, choosing to show negative emotion through sarcasm or silence—her primary defense mechanisms. This tugs at my heart more than anything ever has.
“You left me there by myself. I stayed almost two hours while a waitress kept asking if I needed anything. Do you know how many times they offer to refill your water glass in two hours? A lot. That’s how many. And then I had to pee. And you know how much I hate public bathrooms.”
I wince over her head. She detests public bathrooms, has a firm—and rather ridiculous—belief that she’s being secretly filmed. We’ve argued over this irrational fear more times than I can count, but now isn’t the time. Her sadness rips at my heart, especially knowing I’m the cause of it.
“I’m sorry. I really am.”
“Apology not accepted.”
Wait, what? She’s letting me hug her. What else am I supposed to do?
“What do you mean, not accepted? Do you want me to beg?”
“Yes, beg.” Suppressing a sigh that would land me in even bigger trouble, I roll my eyes.
“I beg you to forgive me.”
“Still not good enough.”
“I just begged!”
She pushes off me and crosses her arms. “You’re still standing.” Her eyes flick to the ground.
You’ve got to be kidding. “I am not getting on my knees.”
She raises one eyebrow but says nothing. Oh, for heaven’s sake.
This time I sigh, long and loudly. I land on one knee, and groan when the other hits the floor. “I beg you to forgive me.” The only thing that would make this less sincere is if I yawned around the words. I know better than to risk it.
“Do it again, and I’ll break your hand,” she says, looking over my head.
“I wouldn’t dare. I promise.”
“You’ve promised before.”
She’s right, I have. But not about something this serious. I stand up and hold her by the shoulders, then look her in the eyes. “I promise for real this time. I’ll never leave you like that again.”
She nods, making no attempt to pull away. This surprises me, but I like it. It’s something she never allows, my attempts to take care of her. Presley is fiercely guarded and tough; when you grow up like she was forced to, you have no choice. Still, I’ve wished for years that she would soften up with me. It’s a fundamental attribute of being a man; we know that our women are perfectly capable of thinking and doing for themselves, but it’s always nice to know the option to rescue them is there.
In our relationship, Presley has always been the one to rescue me.
“So am I actually forgiven?” I ask, mentally crossing my fingers.
She’s quiet for so long I’m afraid the answer might be one I won’t like. It’s the same pause a parent might give when you ask for an extended curfew. A weighted pause. A fate of the world pause. At least I assume. I never had anyone to ask.
Still, my fate rests inside Presley’s deep breaths.
“Mostly. But part of it depends,” she says.
Playful, maybe? I dare myself to relax a little.
“On what?”
“On steak.”
I frown at that. Presley is a smart one, but sometimes she doesn’t make sense. I blame this on her mind and eyes always being focused on internal thoughts while her eyes are focused on the written word. Imagination runs deep with this one, so deep that you can read all the layers of her soul in one long glance…if you know what to look for. I learned to read her a long time ago, so much so that her depth often leaves me feeling inadequate. Her speech though, let’s just say vocal communication is more my specialty than hers. I pull back to look at her.
“Steak? What does that have to do with anything?”
Her nose is pink and her eyes bright with tears. She’s beautiful, and for one split second—a second so split it practically doesn’t even happen—I consider leaning down to kiss her. To taste the familiar and do my best to reassure us both. This woman is everything to me. Everything. If only I could get past this fear of risking what we have. If only that fear didn’t chill me to my bones.
“Because I had one picked out. When I was sitting there waiting for you. It cost fifty-seven dollars and I was going to make you buy it for me. But you didn’t show up. And I still want it.”
At that, I laugh. She sounds like a child denied an allowance—slightly whiny, very stubborn, and definitely spoiled.
“I’m not spending that much on a steak, especially not for you.” But we both know I will.
Her mouth falls open anyway. “Yes you are. You stood me up. You’re going to spend that much and then buy a bottle of wine just for me. You don’t have a choice if you want me to forgive you.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Forgiveness laced in blackmail. That sounds real nice.”
She nods once. “I’m super-nice. You’re lucky I’m such a good person.”
I laugh again at her fake sincerity. “You can’t even eat a steak that big. Where would you put it?” I look her over head to toe, my gaze getting stuck on her breasts. My pulse trips and my heartbeat speeds up and I have no choice but to release her waist and put some space between us. A couple more seconds pressed up against her like this and I’ll find myself in an embarrassing amount of trouble. I’ve been there before with her. Up to this point she’s never called me out on it.
“I’ll put it wherever I want to put it. In my back pocket if I feel like it. Are you really going to argue with me?”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. Next Friday after work?”
She sighs. “Okay. But if you stand me up this time, I’ll never speak to you again. And this time I’ll mean it.”
“Trust me, I’ve learned my lesson.” When Presley walks away to sit in front of her laptop, I back toward the door. “Next Friday it is.”
She glances up at me. “Next Friday it is. And Micah?”
“What?” I place a hand on the door frame and look at her.
“Bring your VISA Black card. I’m also getting dessert.”
I don’t smile to myself all the way back to the office, but I come close.
Things are back to normal. I never want to get that off track again.
THREE
As far as bombshell pictures of perfection go, Mara is it. If things keep up at this pace, I could have our future together mapped out by midnight. A partnership with Mara would do wonders for both our careers.
“Yes, I’ve met him. Twice, as a matter of fact. He’s definitely charming, though most men in the business are.” The way she emphasizes most men makes me wonder if she’s lumping me in that group. I can’t decide if that would be good or bad so I go with the former, mainly to preserve my ego.
“Taller or shorter than he looks?”
“Definitely taller. Also much quieter in person, which was a bit surprising.”
Mara is telling me about her run-ins with Seth Meyers,
he of the late night talk show and Saturday Night Live fame. She’s met nearly everyone on my must-meet list. It’s a real list, one written in black marker, hanging in the back corner of my closet underneath a single red dress shirt I bought the day I was hired for this job. A newscaster needs to wear the occasional red shirt; I read that in an article on Twitter a few years back and remembered it. A red shirt communicates power in the way a simple tie can’t. Speaking of power…
“Who else is on your first-name-basis list? Anyone I need to know about? Anyone I need you to introduce me to?” I wink and reach for my soda and take a sip, forcing myself to act casual but only half-kidding. She knows several celebrities personally; if she knows half as many heavy-hitters in broadcasting world, we could be well on our way already. It’s common knowledge that most of life is made up of who you know. As it stands, I’m already thanking the heavens that I met Mara at all.
My father once waited on the mayor of Atlanta, and the man gave him a hundred-dollar tip. Another time Bruce Springsteen showed up to the bar and ordered a whiskey and coke, then downed it in one gulp. After he left the bar, they renamed the drink The Boss and it outsold every other drink on any given night, take your pick. My father came home that night sporting the best attitude he’d had in weeks. I didn’t get yelled at or hit, and sometimes that’s a lot to be thankful for.
That’s what celebrity does; it opens doors that would otherwise remain closed. It gives you something to brag about to your boring, jealous friends when you play poker on Friday night. If six degrees of Kevin Bacon is a real thing; one degree of Bruce Springsteen is even better. It made my father a celebrity in his own right in our corner of the country, at least for a while. It took three years for the story to go stale, another six months before he quit bringing it up completely. Sixty-seven. That’s the number of times I heard it from behind my bedroom door before I finally quit counting.
One. The number of times I asked him to tell me before he screamed at me to stop talking about it.
I swallow the rest of my drink and gulp down the memory.
“I could introduce you to a lot of people,” she says, running a fingertip in a circle around her own drink. “And things.” We lock eyes, and she holds my gaze for several electric seconds. She’s good at this, the eye contact thing. Normally women are shy, a little unsure of themselves around me. The only person who’s never been unsure around me is—
I realize I’m smiling and stop. I am not thinking about Presley right now.
Mara. I’m supposed to be concentrating on her.
“I’m sure you could teach me a lot of things,” I say, steering the conversation back on track. “And I’m open to whatever you have in mind.” It’s a challenge, match point at Wimbledon, a pin pulled on a hand grenade. Win or lose, stay alive or get blown to bits—I’m fine either way. As long as life is headed for a change-up, I can handle what it throws at me.
“Can I get you another?” The waiter appears in front of us and whisks our glasses away. I nod and watch him leave. Funny thing—if you want to appear important while dining, it’s best to reserve a quiet booth at the back. One might think a well-lit table in the center of a room should communicate importance, but it doesn’t. The middle reeks of insecurity and a need for attention. But the back—low light, obscure, hidden away from the masses—that screams I’m important, I don’t want to be seen. It’s the quickest way to get all eyes on you—at least from the help. A free tip for future reservations.
He places two fresh drinks on the table just as I cut into what’s left of my dinner, then fork a bite into my mouth.
“How’s the steak?” She pulls a bite off a dinner roll and butters it, then moans around the bite. I would be entirely turned on if it wasn’t for the question. How’s the steak? Presley wanted steak, and here I am eating one without her. With another woman at that. If she could see me now, she would pick up my salad fork and kill me with it, then use my napkin to wipe off the tines and polish off my tenderloin without blinking one of her long black eyelashes.
Good thing I don’t like black. I like blonde. The blonder the better. I focus on Mara and answer the question.
“It’s fantastic. Want to try it?” I gesture for her to hand me her fork, but she shakes her head.
“No thanks. I’m a vegetarian.”
Oh. I assumed the dinner salad, hold the chicken was for show, because isn’t that what most women do in an effort to impress a guy? Which has the exact opposite effect, mind you. Men like women who like burgers. It’s a fact, like it or not. It’s all I can do to hold back a disappointed sigh. Vegetarian? Want to know another thing Presley would do if she were here?
She’d laugh. Hard.
There’s a deer head mounted in my guest bedroom from the only time I’ve ever been hunting—back when I was fifteen and went on a weekend trip with an uncle and two cousins. My father was too drunk and belligerent to come along and wound up sleeping all weekend. I shot a ten-point on that trip. Presley whooped and hollered with me when I showed it to her, then went with me, both to the butcher and the taxidermist to have it mounted. I’ve been immensely proud of the trophy since then.
Something tells me Mara would hate it.
I won’t show it to her.
“I should try veganism.” It’s all I can do to choke out the lie, but it sounds good doesn’t it? The spoken word always sounds better than the written word, though Presley would place me in a headlock for verbalizing that view. She’s done it before with the intention to intimidate, but every single time I wind up wanting to flip her over my knee and—
I clear my throat and my thoughts with one forceful hack, then swallow a long drink of water. “It would probably make me feel better health-wise. Not that I feel bad now, but I’m sure the benefits of a plant-based diet far outweighs the negatives.”
Mara stops chewing to look at me. “There are no negatives to becoming vegan. It’s much better for your digestion, not to mention it saves lives.”
It saves lives. Is there a chill in the air? Time to change the subject.
“So the ad campaign? Do I get to approve the photo, at least? Or are you going to choose one that’s particularly embarrassing to put me in my place? I’m okay with either one, just so you know.” I wipe my mouth and lay my napkin on the table.
“I figured you were the type of guy who wouldn’t mind being put in his place.” She takes a sip of wine and studies me through her eyelashes. This woman. This perfectly sexy woman. She returns her glass to the table. “But no worries, I’ll show you the picture before we plaster it all over Peachtree Street. Not to mention Interstate fifty-nine. It wouldn’t do to have you embarrassed by your own photo. We need to keep our stars happy.”
“That’s what I like to hear.” I smile over at her. “What do you say we get out of here?”
With a long look, that perfect bottom lip slides upward. Then she holds up her phone and snaps a photo when I’m not ready.
My hand flies up to stop her. “Hey, no pictures without warning me first.”
She gives me a look. “I wanted to capture the look on your face while it was still there.” She checks her phone. “Besides, it’s a perfectly good picture.” She shows me the photo, and I have to agree. I look better than usual. “I’m going to post it.”
“Fine,” I say. “But make the caption a good one. Make me sound sexy.”
“Not to worry. You already look it in the photo.”
Her words create a little spark in my chest. Nice words. They flatter at the exact right time. Now on to more important things, like leaving and picking a place to land.
“So…you ready?”
“I’m ready,” she says. “Where would you like to go?”
“You name the place, though it’s awfully cold right now so we should probably stay inside.”
She plays with the ends of her hair. “We probably should.”
There’s that innuendo again, bouncing between us like a ping pong match played at lightning
speed. One of us is bound to win, so it might as well be me.
“My house isn’t too far away. Want to go there?”
She slides her gaze to the table, and for one brief minute I worry she’ll say no. When she looks back up, that worry disappears.
“Sounds perfect.”
Her voice. It’s low and inviting, soothing and beckoning.
Like a whipped puppy, I follow her out of the restaurant and onto the sidewalk, hoping to hear it again.
“It’s the pretty girls that you can’t trust,” Presley said for probably the hundredth time since I met her. “All us ugly ones know this for a fact.”
“You’re not ugly. You’re the prettiest girl at this school.”
“You have to say that so I’ll keep feeding you breakfast.”
“I’ll say it twice as much if you keep sharing your lunch.”
“Shut up, Micah.”
I smiled across the table and swiped a French fry off her plate. Presley stuck out her tongue and took another swig of milk, then set the carton down in front of her. There was a tiny milk mustache clinging to the skin of her upper lip, but I didn’t tell her. It was cute. And even though what I said was meant as a joke, the words were true. She was the prettiest girl at school by anyone’s estimation, especially mine. Long dark hair, tiny freckles across her nose, a dimple on her chin, the widest chocolate eyes I’ve ever seen, and all of it capped off by the prettiest smile since Julia Roberts first flashed hers in Pretty Woman. I had seen that movie three times, and not because of the story line. Presley chose that moment to burp.
If only she had more class, then she might be perfect.
“Gross.”
“Gross yourself.” She wiped her lip with the back of her hand, and the mustache was regrettably gone. She gave a pointed look in front of her. “See, that’s what I’m talking about.”
I looked over my shoulder, a familiar feeling of whiplash creeping inside my brain. In the two years I’d known her, I quickly learned that a conversation with Presley could take off on many different directions. One minute we might be talking about a movie, and then she could switch to the pros and cons of air travel and the benefits of an English degree for the contestants on Wheel of Fortune. Her thoughts spun in a giant sphere while mine just centered on wanting another hamburger. Hers sat untouched on her tray, and there was nothing interesting behind me.