by Claire Cain
“Did you date?” he asked bluntly, but avoided eye contact with me and sipped his coffee. I felt a flash of dread at the now unavoidable exes conversation.
I definitely wanted to know what his history was, to fill in the gaps a bit, but I didn’t care to share my own experience. He knew I had been with someone when we’d run into each other at the grocery store while I was home for Christmas five years ago, just before I’d gotten engaged, and we’d both been dating people at the time. But yuck. Who wanted to discuss these things with… well, with Luke?
Not it!
“A bit.” I know. I know! I wasn’t trying to be evasive, but I suddenly felt painfully aware of my awkward dating history.
“So, no one serious since high school except the uh… the guy a few years back?” he pressed.
“I didn’t have a boyfriend in high school, which you maybe knew. I did date a guy, Marcus, while I was in Boston. It got serious.” I watched for a reaction, but his face was a mask of neutrality. Or maybe it wasn’t a mask. Maybe he wasn’t at all bothered by that news. Why would he be?
“How serious?” I guess he was curious enough, though.
“We were engaged.” I let out a shuddering breath after that, then hid behind my coffee mug while I waited for his response.
“Wow. That’s… wow. But I guess it didn’t work out?” His voice was gentle now, less prodding, but I still felt frustrated by his persistence. I didn’t normally have much of an issue sharing the details of my breakup with Marcus, but somehow telling Luke made me feel all twisty and irritable.
“Well, no, obviously not. He wanted me to stay with him in Boston, and I had an offer in New York. It was my dream job, and he knew that. In the end, I couldn’t imagine sacrificing my plans in favor of his, so we parted ways. He was upset, but it was an amicable split. We lived together for a year before we broke up, so that was awful, but since I was moving away anyway, it made the transition better than it would have been otherwise. I also learned I’d never do that again—live with someone, so… that was good.” I shoved the last third of my croissant in my mouth and chewed it so I would stop talking, so I would feel better, so I could crush something in my teeth.
“It sounds like he didn’t get you, maybe.” He was leaning on the table now, his arms crossed in front of him, looking at me.
“No, I don’t think he did. And maybe I didn’t know myself either—at least until the time when I did, and I knew I couldn’t marry him and change everything for him. I wasn’t ready for all of that yet. I don’t think I loved him, and that was part of it.” I lifted one side of my mouth into a reluctant half-smile I hoped conveyed the mixture of regret but not desolation I’d felt afterward. I’d been upset about ending the relationship, but also relieved. I was mostly just relieved when I got to New York, excited by my job, and glad not to have to factor someone else into all of my decisions. I felt sad that I thought I’d loved Marcus and embarrassed a little by the realization that I hadn’t loved him, but I wasn’t even mildly depressed. In the end, that lack of depression had me more concerned than the breakup itself.
“Well, then it’s good you split.” He punctuated this statement with a nod.
“What about you?” I asked, eager to shift things away from me, but anxious to hear what might be coming.
“Not much to tell. Nothing special,” he said without expression. Really, there was no expression on his face. Fine then.
“You’re going to have to elaborate.” I tried not to convey my annoyance at his non-answer. He’d been the one to start the conversation, so his avoidance, or vagueness, was just not ok.
“I didn’t date in high school—just avoided that whole issue so I didn’t fall into the same situation Louis did. Not that I would have, but I just focused on school so I could get out on my own. I dated on and off over the years, but anytime I found someone I might be interested in something more than casual dating with, it was about time for me to move or deploy or whatever. It was always easier to cut ties. So I haven’t had a long-lasting relationship. Certainly no engagements to speak of, and no roommates either.” He ate the last bite of his croissant, his eyes never leaving mine. I swallowed some coffee and set my cup down gently.
“Well, what a pair of losers,” I said with a forced smile, trying to shift the conversation to something else. I pushed my fork and spoon a few inches away, then turned my attention to my lap where I folded my paper napkin in accordion folds. I tried to laugh but it felt forced so I kept quiet and my eyes stayed glued to my napkin.
I felt a strange and convicting sense of relief at hearing he hadn’t ever been serious with anyone. Was I glad he hadn’t found someone? Was I the kind of person who wanted to hoard people for myself? That was an ugly thought. But maybe it wasn’t everyone—I only cared that Luke hadn’t found someone serious, someone special.
I shook my head at myself and changed the subject. “How’s Louis?”
Luke sighed, looking deflated. “He’s ok. Tessa is awesome—they keep my office space wall-papered with her artwork. She’s thirteen now, so that has transitioned to photography. And Louis is… fine. I don’t know what other word to use.”
“I can’t believe she’s thirteen.” I smiled at the memory of the last time I saw her—she’d been eight or nine, and couldn’t stop talking, even when Luke’s mom told her to say goodbye and they pulled out of the parking lot where we’d run into each other. I don’t think her mouth ever stopped moving. “And Jen?”
He cringed before speaking. “She’s in Sandy or somewhere south of Salt Lake. Last I heard she was working as an aesthetician. I haven’t actually seen her in two years, since Tessa’s eleventh birthday. She was quiet. She ignored Louis, didn’t speak to him the whole party, and glared at him whenever he came into view. I think she’s still really angry with him.”
“I’m sorry.” That he’d be upset by his brother’s unhappiness, and Jen’s too, was no surprise to me.
“Yeah. I am too.” He gave me a reluctant smile and eyed me as he sipped his coffee. I smiled at him too but couldn’t think of what to say now. I didn’t really feel like talking about my own siblings, even as much as I loved them. I wanted to know more about what his life was like, and who he was now, and recover the conversation in the wake of the mess that was and always had been Louis and Jen.
“I have a favor to ask you.” He hadn’t stopped looking at me and when I met his eyes, I had that familiar feeling of being the prey.
“What?” I asked, licking small remnants of the pastry’s flakey layers from my lips.
“Well first, I need you to forgive me for running out of your house like a burglar the other night.” He stopped for a minute and looked at me pointedly, like he was not only apologizing, but apologizing again for taking so long to address it in the first place. “And second, I want you to come with me next Saturday to this thing.” He reached over and grabbed my hand where it rested next to my coffee mug. I felt my pulse quicken and my mind fog at his touch.
“Thing?” I asked.
“It’s kind of a hassle, but it would be doing me a favor. If you could come. Which you don’t have to do. But it would be great if you could. But it’ll probably be boring.” His speech was stunted, starting and stopping. He squeezed my hand and then his slid back across the table, and his thumb and pinky drummed back and forth while he watched me.
He was nervous asking me. So far, he’d been calm and confident as usual, but here was a breech in his front. He was as close to babbling as I’d ever heard him, and I couldn’t say I wasn’t charmed.
“What kind of thing are we talking about? You’ve made it sound totally amazing, so I can’t see myself saying no, but…” I trailed off and waited for him to fill in the blanks. He shook his head at my sarcasm.
“It’s a military ball.” He said it quietly, just loud enough for me to hear, almost like an apology.
“A ball?”
“Yeah.” He grimaced as he confirmed, like the reality of a ball would s
uddenly make me run screaming from the room.
Did he not realize that women—at least this one—loved the idea of going to a ball?
“What does that mean?”
“Uh, well it’s formal? So I wear my blues uniform and you would wear a dress, if you come, which you don’t have to, and we’d go. They serve dinner and there’s some ceremonial stuff that happens, and then we’d leave as early as possible because there’s always a weird combination of tedious slide shows and drunken lieutenants attempting to dance to hip hop.” He rattled this off and sat, waiting for my response, his hands now clasped tight around his mug in front of him.
“A dress? Like I wear a ball gown?” Naturally my biggest concern was what I would wear because I had to choose not to focus on the already intimidating reality of going on a very formal date as Luke’s not-really-date to a military anything. Holy crap.
“Yes?” he asked with a wince, like each question I asked was taking me closer to saying no.
I sat back and crossed my arms. Of course I was going to say yes, but I was enjoying this very brief moment of his nervousness. I was constantly feeling the effects of him and all that did for me was make me sweat and hyperventilate. I needed to savor this moment for just a minute.
“Ok,” I said, staring at him without a smile.
“Ok?” he asked.
“Ok,” I said again with a nod.
“Ok, you’ll go with me?” he asked again, leaning forward over the table.
I leaned forward too, and now our heads were about six inches apart. “Yes, of course I’ll go with you. Do you think my social calendar is already full after being here for five days?”
“No, but… I don’t know. It is a hassle. You’ll have to get a dress, unless you have one. And I mean it can be fun, don’t get me wrong, and going with you will definitely make it bearable, but—”
“Bearable. Yes. That’s what every woman wants to hear—”
“Of course it’ll be more than bearable with you. But it is work for me, so I appreciate you doing this.” His expression was serious, and I realized he was dreading the event, so I softened my face.
“I’m happy to.”
Chapter Eight
Luke was going to pick me up at five. The cocktail hour started then, and he said he wanted to be a little late. I had no idea what I was in for with this whole event, but like any good modern woman, I’d done some researching. I discovered I needed an actual, floor-length gown, not just a cocktail dress, unless I wanted the scorn and judgment of all the seasoned military wives and girlfriends in the room to reign down on me. Noted.
Also? Terrifying.
I found something at a mall in town, and in the end, I felt good in it.
Well, that was a lie.
I felt damn good in it.
The dress was a deep navy silk lined with gold silk on the inside. It had a high scoop neck front and then a low back that draped down to just below my natural waist. The front smoothed over my curves and then was cut on the bias so the skirt swirled around my hips. The silk was heavy enough that it felt comfortable instead of like it was accentuating every very real bump and lump (see: croissants). On the left there was a slit to my mid-thigh so when I walked you could see the gold lining. I wore sparkly, dangly earrings, my hair long and down pulled over to one side of my head so it hung in curls over one shoulder. My make-up was a bit more intense than I’d normally do, but if you couldn’t do it up for a ball, then when could you?
Aside from my general excitement, I thought about how strange it was to be attending an event like this. For the last four or more years of my life, I’d been on the other side of things, managing events. I always wore a black suit and low heels or flats, depending on the event. I was always saddled with a walkie-talkie and at least one extra cell phone as well as a belt that had a fanny-pack like pocket on it for my arsenal of fix-it items to stave off small disasters. I so loved the rush of keeping things together and pulling off an event. I couldn’t wait to see this place where we were going, a space I’d likely encounter in my working life in a very different way in the coming months.
I was trying to calm myself down and convince myself I’d be fine and know what to do when I heard the doorbell. I swung open the door and didn’t look up right away as I fumbled with my purse, making sure I had gum, lip gloss, phone, etc.
Luke made a sound I didn’t recognize, and I looked up to see him standing there, mouth open, hand frozen as if he was still reaching for the door knob though the door had swung all the way open and away from him.
I smiled at him and stepped closer, then gave him a kiss on the cheek, my hands resting on the center of his suit jacket where brass buttons glinted. His head turned toward me and he kept watching me, still frozen at the door.
“Do you want to come in for a sec, or should we go?” I asked him, trying to convince myself the look in his eyes wasn’t regret. He hadn’t spoken or made another sound.
“I think we have a minute,” he said, his voice raspy and low. He stepped in and closed the door. “I don’t mind being a few minutes late…” his voice faded out and he didn’t finish his thought, so I turned back around to face him. I’d walked to the counter to take one last drink of water from my glass. I turned to find him frozen again, mouth agape yet again, looking utterly bewildered.
“You ok?” I asked.
“Your dress. The back… there’s no back,” he said, almost accusatorially, except his tone was more stunned. His hand was still jutting unnaturally out to the side, like he hadn’t yet realized there was no door handle in his grip.
I felt myself flush with self-consciousness. “Oh, yeah, kind of not. I put it on and it was so comfortable I thought it’d be ok, but if you think it’s inappropriate, please just say so and I’ll change.” I twisted my purse’s strap in my fingers and felt a familiar heat on my cheeks. I continued, the urge to ramble away my explanation completely unavoidable. “I searched online and it said I needed a long dress, not a cocktail dress, and nothing was quite right but then I saw this…” I said quickly, trying to explain. I smoothed one hand from my waist, over my hip. His eyes followed the movement of my hand.
“Is it too…” I trailed off, not sure what to say. The dress could have been risqué, sure. The back was open to my lower back, but it fit so well, and the rest of it was pretty modest—the slit to the mid-thigh, not the hip or anything too crazy. It felt like a sophisticated way to show some skin. But I felt significantly less sure about it as I waited for his response.
“No! No. No. No. No,” he chanted, looking hazy and irritable.
“No, what?” I was anxious for him to clarify.
He took the two steps toward me and grabbed my hand with his free one as he shook his head. His palm against mine felt like a shock, his hand warm against my nervous, cool one. I realized other than briefly toughing my knee and grabbing my hand the weekend before, he hadn’t touched me since he kissed me the day he helped me move in. My cheeks turned a deeper red with that awareness.
“You look absolutely stunning. Did you see me? I was literally stunned just now,” and he gulped and let himself look me over once more before returning to my eyes. “The only problem with the dress is that everyone is going to be staring at you all night, and I will have to not beat them up when they do,” he said with a smile and a kind of wince.
I felt panic rising. “I’m not sure that’s what I—”
“Because you are painfully beautiful. Not for any other reason. The dress is perfect. You are perfect. And I am an idiot for not clarifying that because holy shit Alex… ah, sorry. Crap. Please don’t worry.” He was pleading with me, and I realized he was as nervous as I was.
“Ok!” I laughed nervously and let his hand go, still feeling awkward and totally unable to ingest what he’d just said. If I sat there and let his words fully register, I’d probably swoon or at least get a little drunk on their potency. I moved toward the door and gave him a look I hoped wasn’t too embarrassed or ov
erwhelmed. “Ok. I’m not worried. Let’s just go.”
In the car we sat quietly, music too quiet to hear in the background. He drove with fierce concentration, and I tried not to watch him. He was shaking his head, a smile playing on his lips.
“What?” I finally asked, unable to pretend I hadn’t noticed.
“I was just thinking about what an idiot I am,” he said, still shaking his head, eyes on the road.
“How so?” I asked, glad he was talking and not just staring and driving.
“What I said when I saw you—I think I implied people would be looking at you because of the dress. And it’s a good dress,” he glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, then quickly turned his attention back to the road. “But people would be looking at you if you were wearing an old bathrobe. I hope you realize I’m not suggesting the dress is what makes you… you know.” I watched as a red flush crept up his neck and into his cheeks. As though Luke wasn’t good looking enough already, he was blushing. It was adorable. I looked the other way, out the window, and I smiled to myself.
“Well thank you. You certainly look handsome in your uniform.”
“They say ladies love a man in uniform,” he said with a laugh, not moving his eyes from the road now.
“Fact,” I stated.
And it was. Because seriously. If this man was any more handsome, he’d need to be fined. Or charge a subscription fee for monthly views. Or something. The shining brass buttons of his dress coat and the weighty looking medals and ribbons decorating different spaces on his chest made him even more alluring. Knowing each one of those things meant something, signaled some accomplishment or effort, was fascinating. I couldn’t wait to ask him about them.
We arrived at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel, a hulking white face with a parking lot that stretched for what felt like miles, and once we found our way through the maze of a hotel to the conference center area, we entered the ballroom. The place was a mixture of resort and hotel—it smelled a little like Las Vegas, and something about it reminded me of it too, but it lacked the camp and glare of Vegas. It felt strange and delightful as we walked through the indoor gardens. The ballrooms weren’t as unique as the hotel itself, but they were full-sized, and I felt a little rush of pleasure at seeing the space and knowing I could definitely use it well for the right event.