by Julie Kriss
The waitress didn’t hand us any menus, so I asked her, “What is the kitchen making right now?”
She shrugged. “Grilled cheese sandwich. Three bucks.”
My stomach growled so loud we all heard it.
“Done,” Nick said, and the waitress walked away.
I stared at the man across the booth from me. In keeping with the surreal nature of tonight, he was good-looking even in the fluorescent light of a diner at two a.m. Gray eyes with short dark lashes, high cheekbones, a sculpted mouth. Life was very fucking unfair. He wasn’t even trying to look that good. His hair was damp and mussed, his stubble an exact shade of hangover, and there was a hole just below the collar of his T-shirt. He looked like a model, if a model had rolled off the back of a truck or woken up in the drunk tank—or both. He stuck the straw in his ice water in the corner of his mouth and watched me back.
“Well, that was a scene,” I commented.
“Sorry,” he said. “I had to do it.”
I traced my finger down the side of my water glass. “How did you find me?” I asked. “I mean, you said how you found Josh. But how did you find me?”
“The internet.” He put down his water. “It wasn’t advanced detective work. I’m not that smart.”
I nodded. I was probably on Josh’s Facebook page, from the times he’d posted when we went out for dinner or with friends. Which we would never do again. “I’m sort of in shock,” I said. “I didn’t, um. I didn’t know. At all.”
“No?” Nick said. “I did. That is, I knew she was fucking someone. I didn’t know who.”
Fucking someone. So much coarser than cheating, but it meant the same thing. “Things were going so well,” I said. It hit me again, that punch in the gut of hurt. “I thought they were. But I guess not.” I closed my eyes as yet another detail occurred to me. “I have to work at the bank with him. Oh my god, I’m so humiliated.”
“You love him?” Nick asked.
I opened my eyes again and looked at him. “What? I don’t—I mean, I hadn’t really… It wasn’t…” Love? Had I even asked myself that? And why was I talking about it with this guy? “Do you always ask personal questions?”
“Just wondering if you’re going to cry, that’s all. If you do, I might bail.” He put down his water glass. “You want to talk about the weather right now, Evie?” he said. “For real?”
Intense. That was what he was. Intense. No one who worked at the bank—and I mean no one—was intense. Even Old Evie, in her wild days, hadn’t met a guy like this. If you were going to spill your guts to someone, it may as well be a gorgeous stranger in the middle of the night. But I didn’t say any more. Instead I said, “How long has it been going on?”
“A week? Two?” Nick picked up his spoon and spun it deftly over his fingers, then put it down again. “I could tell something was up. Jesus Christ, my girlfriend fucked a bank guy.” He rolled his eyes.
“Hey—I dated him,” I said, stung. “And I’m a bank… person. What does Miss Bare-Assed Gina do?”
“She’s a massage therapist.”
I thought of her long, slim legs, given to her by God and genetics. “She’s pretty,” I said self-pityingly.
“Not anymore,” Nick replied.
“She’s better-looking than me,” I said while our waitress put down our sandwiches. “Thinner. Obviously. I mean, Josh is better-looking than me. Everyone always wondered how I got such a good-looking guy. They all wondered what he was doing with me. I should have known.”
Nick took a bite of his sandwich. “You done?” he asked.
I looked down at the gooey cheese on my plate. Fuck, it looked delicious. I shouldn’t eat it. “Done what?”
“Pissing on yourself,” he said. “Whining.”
I looked up and froze, staring at him. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” he said. “You want to feel better, you should fuck someone. It’ll do a better job than wasting time running yourself down like that.”
For a second I couldn’t say anything. Then I found my voice. “Did you just say I should fuck someone?”
“You heard me. You should,” he said. “Hard. Get someone to fuck you until you can’t stand up.” His gaze went up and down me again, seeming to see through my clothes. “I’m gonna guess Bank Boy never fucked you like that.”
No. Josh had never fucked me like that. However Nick meant when he looked at me just that way… No. Another shiver happened low in my belly.
I had to be rational here. And I didn’t even know this guy.
“I can’t—” I stuttered. “I can’t believe you just said that. You’re an asshole.”
“That right there.” He pointed at me, at my face. He wore two bracelets on his wrist, a leather one and a woven one that looked old and worn. Something significant. I wondered what it was. “That expression. That’s the one you didn’t have when you saw your boyfriend fucking another woman. I bet Bank Boy never saw that expression at all.”
I had no idea what my expression was, but I had to guess furious. Because that was how I suddenly felt. Fuck him and his stupid insights, anyway. “Fine,” I said, trying to piss him off in return. “I should just fuck someone. Are you volunteering?”
For a second, he actually considered it, his gaze taking me in, up and down. My overalls and sweater, my messy hair. My stomach went into freefall. Why had I said that? Because he was hot, and I’d assumed it wouldn’t happen? Or because I assumed it would? If he said no, or if he said yes—either was equally terrifying.
But Nick shook his head. “You’re not the kind of woman I fuck,” he said.
Now I was both offended and relieved at the same time. “Why not?” I asked.
“You’re nice. I’m too dirty for you.”
No one likes a girl who makes a fuss, my mother said in my head. Gina wasn’t nice. Gina was sexy. Dirty, maybe. Unlike me. Unlike the way I was now.
There were reasons I was like this. Being sexy and dirty, being that girl—it led nowhere. It was pointless. Worse, it led to pain and disappointment. No, even for Nick Mason and his stupid-gorgeous face and his stupid-hot body, I wasn’t going down that road ever again.
But suddenly I was purely, deeply enraged. I wanted to stand up, flip the table through the plate glass window, and scream that I was not nice.
I didn’t do that, of course. I sat with my hands gripping the table edge so hard my knuckles were white. If Nick noticed, he didn’t let on. “Well, you’re not my type either,” I snapped. “I like guys with a little politeness and self-respect. I also like guys who do laundry every once in a while.”
He put a hand over his heart. “You’re hurting me,” he said. “What are you, seventy? You look twenty-five at most. Loosen up, have some orgasms. You’re missing out.”
“You don’t know what I’m missing.”
“Yeah, redhead, I kind of do.”
Fuck. He was so calm. And he had sexy fucking arms. Sexy everything. I kept my voice snappish to keep my distance. “So, Dr. Freud, I should have orgasms, according to you. Is that right? But not with you.”
“Definitely not with me.”
“What is the matter with you?” I said, so loud the half-asleep waitress behind the front counter nearly woke all the way up.
“What’s the matter with me is that I’m an asshole,” Nick said. “We’ve established that. What’s the matter with you?”
“What’s the matter with me is that I wasted four months!” I said. “Four months on that jerk! Being nice! He was supposed to be the one! We were supposed to make plans! And he went off and banged some massage therapist with no pants, and you think I should just—should just—”
“Fuck someone,” Nick supplied.
“Is that what you’re going to do?” Oh, God. Suddenly, I had a vision: Nick Mason, naked, in bed. I looked at his perfect mouth, and the dip between his collarbones, which I could see past the neck of his T-shirt, and it was so easy to picture. All that taut, muscled skin. It was all mixed u
p with his muscles and his reddened knuckles and the gravel of his voice, and suddenly my girl parts woke up. I mean woke up. I didn’t even like him, and he’d just insulted me. It was exciting and horrifying at the same time.
“I might fuck someone,” he answered me, oblivious. “I’m still considering. I punched Bank Boy, and that felt pretty good. It’s you who has the anger problem.”
That startled me out of my lust. “I do not have an anger problem.”
“You do,” he corrected me patiently. “Your problem is that you don’t have enough of it. You need to get good and mad.”
“I am already good and mad,” I argued back. “At you.”
“Then take it out on me,” Nick said, immune to my insults. “I’m at a boxing gym every day at five.” He told me an address that I recognized in a not-so-nice part of town. “Come meet me if you want to work up a sweat.”
My reply was immediate. A boxing gym? With Nick Mason? “No way.”
He licked cheese from his thumb, pulled some bills from his wallet, and stood up. “Whatever. See you later, redhead.” Then he turned and walked for the door.
I stared after him, stunned. And I couldn’t help it. I watched his ass as he walked.
It was amazing.
I stared for a long time after he was gone, still picturing it.
Then I ate my damned sandwich.
Three
Nick
A redhead in overalls. Overalls. What the hell?
She wasn’t my type of woman at all. I didn’t really have a type, except maybe “willing to put up with my shit” and “too self-involved to ask questions.” Evie Bates was neither. I shouldn’t have paid any attention to her. I should have just punched Bank Boy, dumped Gina, and moved on.
But I hadn’t. Oh, I’d punched him all right—Gina and I may not have been Romeo and Juliet, but no guy can stay calm at the idea of his girlfriend taking another guy’s dick. And as for dumping her, I suppose I’d made it pretty clear that Gina and I were done.
But then Evie Bates had walked in.
She had brown-reddish hair, brown eyes, clear skin, and a nice, rounded body. She didn’t look like a lingerie model or a party girl, but she didn’t have to. She was very fucking hot in a way I could appreciate, even with Gina’s bare, cheating ass on display.
But I was right when I said she was nice. It came off her like a smell—a nice smell, but still a smell. She was a nice girl, with a nice boyfriend, who was obviously keeping her chin up through the shock and hurt when she caught him fucking someone else. That look on her face when she came through the door made me want to punch Bank Boy all over again.
And again, in the diner, her feelings had been right there. She’d practically put them on the table between us. Feelings were not something I was familiar with. Feelings were not how I roll. Except anger. And when Evie stopped looking hurt and started getting angry, I decided to see if she would agree to come hit me.
So sue me, I was curious. But that’s all it was. I wasn’t about to mess around with a girl that nice.
It was four o’clock in the morning now, and as I let myself into my loft apartment I heard the unmistakable clicking of dog toenails on my hardwood floor. Gina’s fucking dog. Her name was Scout, she was a Chihuahua, and Gina had given her to me because her landlord had implemented a no-pets policy. I didn’t want a dog, but Gina had begged me. There was no one else to take the thing, and it would get put to sleep. So now Scout lived with me.
I opened the door, and she came running, her tiny body wiggling in excitement, her tongue lolling. She stood on her hind legs—she only came to my knee like that—and scrabbled her tiny paws, which I could barely feel through the cloth of my jeans. This meant she wanted to be let out.
“I can’t believe this,” I grumbled at her as I grabbed the leash from the hook, which made her nearly explode with excitement. “Gina cheats on me, and I’m stuck with her stupid dog.” I looked Scout over as I clipped the leash to her pink collar. “Are you even a real dog, anyway? I’m not sure.”
Scout took my insults happily, trying to lick my face before I could stand up again. I dodged her—I knew where she put that tongue. We went outside and she did her business, her happy as fuck, me shivering in the drizzle and tired now as the events of the night set in. A few early-shift people were setting off to work, giving me curious looks as I waited for my Chihuahua with her pink collar to finish peeing. I wished I had a sign saying She’s not my dog, I’m just stuck with her.
I wasn’t a dog person. I wasn’t an anything person. I took Scout back upstairs, gave her some of her kibble, stripped down to nothing but a pair of sweatpants, and lay on my sofa, staring at the ceiling.
I had a loft apartment in downtown Millwood. It had been some kind of industrial building once upon a time, but it had been made over into artsy lofts that were right downtown and overly expensive. My neighbors were mostly lawyers and such.
I wasn’t a lawyer. I wasn’t anything. In fact, I was one hundred percent unemployed. And the loft was all mine, because of my trust fund. Sounds great, and it was, but my family was ten kinds of fucked up, plus my girlfriend had just banged a bank guy. Money buys a lot of things, but not everything.
It wasn’t my usual thing, to follow my girlfriend around, hoping to catch her cheating. I wasn’t a suspicious guy by nature, and as far as I’m concerned, when we’re not together and we’re not fucking, what a woman does with her time is her business. Just like what I do with my time is mine.
But I would have had to be a blind man not to see that Gina was screwing someone. Calling off dates, lying about where she was going, having her friends lie for her—she may as well have worn a neon sign. It’s one thing to get dumped—you won’t let us get serious, you’re too closed off, you have no feelings, I’ve heard them all—and another to be cheated on behind your back. First it made me suspicious, and then it made me mad. And I got even madder when I saw the guy she’d cheated with.
Seriously? That guy? With his carefully crafted stubble and his tighty whities? Maybe I’m not much of a boyfriend, but I have to be better than that guy. I don’t call much and I don’t tell the women I date anything important about myself, but at least I’m not high on myself and I know how to fuck.
Again, I saw the hurt cross Evie’s face, clear as day. Like someone had punched her in the stomach. Bank Boy had done that—hurt her like that. And again, lying on my couch and staring at the ceiling, that still bothered me.
Shit.
I drifted off on the sofa, my mind wandering to pleasant daydreams of Evie’s soft cherry lips on my dick, which was half-hard in my sweatpants because I’m an asshole. I woke up three hours later with a kink in my neck and Scout buried firmly in my armpit, curled tight into a ball and sound asleep. And damn it, I was still thinking about Evie Bates.
This wasn’t over yet. I had a feeling.
But first, I had to go visiting.
Four
Evie
Josh called in sick to work the next day. I wanted to think it was because he was sorry, but deep down I knew it was because his face was probably bruised to a pulp, and he didn’t want to show up. Well, that was too bad. Unless he wanted to take the whole week off, he was going to have to show up sometime.
But I had today free of him. I had Nick Mason to thank for that.
Hey, where’s Josh? people said to me in the hallway at the bank branch I worked at in downtown Millwood. The central branch of this particular bank, in fact. The most important branch. The branch where the best people worked, because here they could get promoted.
These were nice people, well-dressed and pleasant, and they could recommend me when the next promotion came up. So I couldn’t just tell everyone to please, please fuck off.
Sick, huh? You see him? He okay?
I’d always liked it before, that everyone knew Josh was my boyfriend. It was a badge. A New Evie badge. Now it was like water torture, gritting my teeth and smiling at people, shrugging, shakin
g my head. I don’t know. I’m sure he’s fine. By lunchtime I felt like an overinflated balloon that might pop if you poked it.
I sat in my little bank teller cubicle and took customers one by one, while my stomach churned and I wondered what was wrong with me that Josh would cheat. Did I not pay attention to him? Did I do something wrong? Was a too boring, too fat? Then I hated myself for thinking like that. It was like someone had set a toxic thought chain off inside my head that wouldn’t stop.
But I didn’t make a fuss. I kept calm. I needed this job. I’d made a mess of high school and dropped out of college, and now, at twenty-five, I needed to do something with my life. Something that involved pencil skirts and low heels and regular paychecks. Something I could get promoted at. Something that made sense.
Josh had been part of that. I’d wanted—needed—someone stable, acceptable. Except either he’d been a very good liar, or I hadn’t seen what I didn’t want to see.
Okay, so my relationship had turned into a dumpster fire, but I would deal. Dumpster fires could be contained. I still needed the rest of my life to work.
By the end of the day, my jaw hurt like I’d had it in a vise, and the back of my neck was so tense it felt like glass. I had a throbbing headache and my feet hurt—but I’d made it. I was powering down the computer in my cubicle when one of my coworkers, Dar, came over, pulling on her coat. “Hey,” she said. “A bunch of us are going for a drink. Want to come?”
I pretended to think it over, though today of all days I’d rather put my eye out. “I don’t think so,” I said. “I’m tired.” Translation: I wanted to go home, put on my baggy pajamas, and curl up in bed, listening to my roommate Heather blare the Pet Shop Boys in her room. Heather’s musical taste was stuck in the eighties, but except for the REO Speedwagon, I didn’t really mind.