Mr. Nice Guy

by Jennifer Miller

  “What is this? Where’s Mira?”

  “We’ve been getting the royal treatment these last few weeks, and I worried that Mira was feeling left out. So I asked whether she’d like a night out.” Lucas glanced at his watch. “Right about now, she and a gentleman caller are sitting down to dinner at Eleven Madison Park.”

  “You’re paying for that? Lucas, that’s like two hundred and fifty dollars. Per person.”

  “Not me,” he said, flashing a satisfied smile. “Empire. Mira and her friend are using our reservation. Don’t worry, I spoke to the maître d’. He knows what’s up.”

  “Th-that’s … th-this is…,” Carmen stammered. She walked farther into the apartment, looked up at the lights. “It’s gorgeous.”

  “Well, I figured there needed to be some element of romance for our non-date date.”

  “And you’re not even following me around with a camera!”

  “Oh,” Lucas said, clearly pleased with himself, “I took photos beforehand. Didn’t want to ruin the atmosphere once you arrived. And hey, at least I didn’t fill the place with rose petals and candles. I didn’t want you walking out on me.” Carmen turned to him. He’d never seen quite that look on her face before. For a moment, he wondered if she was going to cry. Then the buzzer sounded.

  “And here’s the best part!” Lucas exclaimed. “Dinner!” A moment later, a deliveryman appeared holding a large pizza box. Lucas carried it over to a side table. “Sausage and mushroom good?”

  Carmen nodded, still dumbstruck.

  Lucas busied himself opening the wine and serving them. When they were finally settled, Lucas offered a toast. “Here’s to a quiet night in,” he said.

  They clinked glasses. For a moment they ate in silence, enjoying the lights twinkling overhead and the hot, gooey cheese.

  “So,” she said when the silence began to stretch on a bit too long.

  “So,” he said.

  “First dates sure are awkward.”

  Lucas chewed. She was looking at him, waiting for him to say something. And so he might as well admit it, because at this point, why not? “This is my first-ever first date.”

  “No kidding.”

  She looked fascinated, so he began to tell her about Mel. They’d gone to the same high school but hadn’t really known each other until college, when they realized they lived a floor apart at UNC. Eventually, he rigged up a small basket on a piece of twine and would lower snacks and stupid notes down to her room from the window. Just before he left on winter break, he lowered down an envelope with a handful of rose petals and a card that said: “From L.”

  “That’s so adorable … and sappy.” Carmen was trying not to laugh.

  “Hey, cut me some slack,” he protested. “I was nineteen. I’d never been in a serious relationship before. I was a virgin.” Lucas paused to see how she would take this. But Carmen merely nodded for him to continue. “I knew Mel liked me and that we were both just really shy and one of us was going to have to make a move. But all around us, people were hooking up and having flings and it was impossible to know whether anything meant anything. I didn’t want her to spend all of winter break guessing and worrying.”

  “Your attempt at clarity was a note that said ‘From’?” Carmen was full-on laughing now. “And what did Mel do—no, wait, I know. She spent the entirety of break guessing and worrying?”

  “Pretty much. She was in Georgia at her grandparents’ house, so we didn’t see each other at all. But we came back to school early, just before rush started. And, well, it happened.”

  “You slept together?”

  Lucas shook his head. “We didn’t actually sleep together for another five months.”

  “Jesus Christ! You innocents.”

  “But we were together from then on. Until she dumped me last May.”

  “You were engaged, right?”

  Lucas nodded.

  “Did she get cold feet?”

  Lucas shook his head.

  “She fell in love with someone else?”

  “Nope.”

  “You cheated?”

  “No!”

  “Then what? She didn’t suddenly decide that she no longer believed in the institution of marriage?”

  Aside from Sam, Lucas had told no one about what precipitated the breakup. He’d been too embarrassed. But now he felt ready—a new-enough man to observe his old self with some distance. So he told Carmen: “I was a coward.”

  “Not what I was expecting to hear,” she said.

  “Second semester of our senior year, Mel decided that we should break up. She said we obviously weren’t getting married anytime soon, but we’d survived, as most relationships around us hadn’t. Which, by default, put us on the marriage track. So, before we started developing our real, post-college lives, she thought we should take the opportunity to explore new things. And, like, other people. She said if we still loved each other a year out of college, we’d pick things up again.”

  “I am superimpressed with Mel right now,” Carmen said. “I mean, sorry, you know I’m on Team Lucas all the way, but it takes a strong and smart woman to propose something like that. What did you do?”

  “I said OK. And honestly, it wasn’t an especially difficult decision. That should have been the red flag.”

  Carmen nodded thoughtfully.

  “But then our parents stepped in. It didn’t make sense to them—deciding to temporarily dissolve a relationship like that. They thought we were perfect together. Our mothers, in particular, were practically planning our wedding. They had our lives mapped out. Law school for me. Then I’d go to work for Mel’s dad. And Mel studied art history, so she’d open a gallery in Charlotte and host society parties. And both of our parents just kept working at us—‘you’re making a mistake; you’re so happy together.’ And we freaked out a little. Because what if we were making a huge mistake? What if our relationship was the best relationship either of us would ever have? What if there was nothing better out there?”

  “That’s exactly how people feel when they’re stuck.”

  Lucas nodded. “We were both cowards, I guess. It was just easier. It was comfortable. So we didn’t break up, which of course thrilled our families. We moved in together. And then, honestly, it was like sleepwalking toward the inevitable. We would get engaged. Only it took me a long time to do it. I kept putting it off and we’d get into these horrible fights and she’d be crying and eventually I told myself that enough was enough.”

  “You broke things off?”

  “No, I bought a ring and proposed.”

  Carmen just shook her head. “Were you even a little bit happy?”

  “I mean, yes? But I wasn’t giddy. I was like, I’ve done the right thing.”

  “Shit, Lucas, those are like the worst five words in the world. Nobody ever wants to be proposed to because it’s ‘the right thing.’”

  “God, I know. But I told myself that I was going to have a good life. And how could anyone not want that—a good life? My brother, he has a good life.”

  “But good isn’t necessarily right—like, actually right.”

  “I figured that out.” Lucas said that before long he grew annoyed with dumb things, like how Mel teased her bangs and shredded her napkin and insisted that they always go to bed at the same time even though nothing much ever happened in the dark. New things bothered him, too. Like how Mel told nearly every person she encountered that she’d been forced to explain precisely what kind of engagement ring she wanted, down to the cut, clarity, and color, to prevent Lucas from fucking it up. She threw herself into the wedding planning with a fervor that drove him nuts. It was just a dress, just dinner, just a band! Why did she care so much? Looking back, Lucas understood that his attitude was born out of resentment—the (mistaken) belief that Mel had forced him into all this. And so, Lucas checked out. He made plans with his friends and didn’t tell Mel. He was late returning her texts. He made halfhearted apologies, blamed his crappy phone battery. He
forgot to do the small errands and favors that he’d always been meticulous about in the past. He’d come too far to walk away from the relationship, but it seemed he was begging to be pushed out of it.

  It all erupted the night of their engagement party on Memorial Day weekend. Mel’s aunt and uncle hosted what seemed like half of Charlotte on the deck of a new upscale BBQ restaurant. All night, Lucas had been aloof and laconic. He’d tried to be amenable, but he couldn’t muster the energy. He felt claustrophobic.

  Toward the end of the night, when a few of his buddies said they were heading to a bar, Lucas decided to go with them, even though the party wasn’t exactly over—just dwindling. He’d announced his decision to Mel, kissed her on the cheek, and left before she could yell at him. Later that night, he arrived home to find her waiting up, red-eyed and furious. She ended things promptly, employing a level of fortitude and decisiveness that both surprised and terrified him. The next day, Lucas moved out of their apartment and back into his childhood bedroom. He refused to talk about what had happened, and Mel, driven by familial propriety, was similarly tight-lipped. Nevertheless, it was assumed that Lucas was to blame. His mother was beside herself, his grandmother mortified, his father furious. Their friends flocked to Mel’s side. Everyone hated Lucas, and yet he’d never felt so relieved.

  “I let it get further than it ever should have,” he told Carmen now. “I was a coward for not standing up for myself and a real asshole for putting Mel through the humiliation of that engagement. Sure, she wanted us to test the waters before settling down. But she was in love with me and I knew it—and I let her believe that I was in love with her. It was the worst thing I could have done.”

  “It was a betrayal,” Carmen said.

  “Yes,” he said. “It was. Did the same thing happen with Jays?”

  Carmen sighed. “I think at one point, for the briefest moment, he was in love with me. But it frightened him. And instead of letting me go, he kept up the charade of love. And I was so in love with him, and so certain that I was different—more special than all of the other people whom Jays mistreated and manipulated—that I didn’t notice. And Jays knew that. He kept me around, by giving me just enough of himself to satisfy me.”

  “But why would he go through the trouble? Why not just break things off?” As soon as Lucas asked, he realized Mel’s friends had probably asked her the same questions.

  “I think that kind of manipulation is second nature to him. He probably didn’t think much about it. But I did start to see past the fog. I started to realize that he was stringing me along. And that’s when Jays broke it off. I’m sure he was afraid I’d leave him, so he did it first. He’s never rejected if he can help it.”

  “Do you think you would have left him?”

  Carmen considered the question for a long, silent moment. “Having someone want you is intoxicating,” she said, “and Jays is an addict for validation. I think that’s why he pretended for so long. But that’s also why I stayed. I wanted so badly to be wanted, Lucas. And when that security started to slip, I just held on. Tighter and tighter.”

  She was gripping the table, staring past him. There were tears in her eyes. “I know that I should let go,” she continued. “But I can’t. The more I struggle, the tighter the grip. Lucas, I—”

  She stopped and looked down at her hands. She began to rub the feeling back into her fingers. Lucas suddenly understood that she’d never shared any of this before. Not even with Mira.

  “Hey,” he said. “It’s all right.” He rose from his seat and knelt beside her chair. “If you want to tell me, I’m listening.” He took her hand.

  Carmen blinked a couple of times. She kept her gaze fixed on their hands, his on top of hers. “I felt out of control,” she said. “Like I’d allowed Jays to gut a basic part of me. All that was left was this terrible wanting. I swore I’d never let that happen again.”

  And there it was. All of Carmen’s judging and criticizing and dissecting was a buffer against her own wanting. It was really about control, but it was so much more complicated than Lucas could have imagined.

  “But you have to let yourself want things at some point, Carmen. You’ll miss so much. If I’ve learned anything through Mel, it’s that. Chase the things you really do want.”

  He was desperate to kiss her then, to show her how much she was wanted. He was still holding her hand. But at that moment, the sound of a key turning in the lock startled them both. The front door swung open and there was Mira, bedecked with beads and holding a small bag of complimentary chocolates. Lucas sprang backward and Carmen sat up, stiff and straight in her chair.

  “Well, isn’t this a chaste sight,” Mira said, and gave her granddaughter a not-so-subtle wink. Lucas was surprised by how deeply Carmen blushed.

  * * *

  After Mira described her fabulous dinner and wished them good night, Lucas walked Carmen home, their arms linked, their bodies pressed close for warmth. They were alone on the street, the city quiet in a way unique to winter nights. He pressed closer to Carmen and she pressed back. He felt, simply, happy.

  At the steps of her building they stopped. “I guess this is where I’m supposed to kiss you,” he said.

  “It seems a little silly, doesn’t it?”

  “I guess.” Lucas shrugged, glanced at his feet.

  “You want a real good-night kiss!” she exclaimed. “You’re taking this seriously!”

  “Oh please.”

  “No, no. I admire your conscientiousness with this assignment.”

  He was about to ask whether she was serious or joking when she kissed him. The sudden warmth of her mouth sent a rush of heat through his body, straight down into his toes. He could feel the cold, like fingers, trying to pry them apart. But the chill couldn’t get a grip. He leaned into her. She leaned into him, and she sighed.

  Lucas had heard Carmen make many sounds. He’d known her to moan, yelp, pant, murmur, and laugh. And yet he’d never heard her make a sound like this: at once breathless and substantial, the audible turned physical. It sounded like she had finally yielded some deeper part of herself.

  Neither of them noticed the photographer in the shadows, snapping away.

  CHAPTER 40

  The next afternoon, they went skating at Rockefeller Center. Afterward, as Lucas bought them hot chocolates, two young women approached Carmen. They wore pom-pommed knit hats and overlarge puffy coats and a surfeit of foundation. “That looked so hot last night,” one of them said to her.

  Carmen looked up from tying her boots. “Excuse me?” she said.

  “The kiss at the end of the night,” the other one explained. “Tell us everything.”

  “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  The women’s faces started to sour. “What, you think you’re too good to talk to us?” the first one said.

  “Nooo,” Carmen began, slowly, unsure of where this was going but instantly familiar with the women’s expectations. Hers was a terrible kind of fame. She wasn’t Peter Dinklage out walking his dog, or Maggie Gyllenhaal buying her adorable children ice cream, or any other at-a-distance New York celebrity people recognized but didn’t feel they truly knew. Internet-famous people like Carmen gained fame by exploiting their personal lives, which led the public to feel a sense of ownership over them. “If you’ll excuse me—”

  “God, you really are rude,” the second woman said. “It’s all over TMZ and you play dumb?”

  And with that, the two women left, no doubt off to tweet or Snapchat the encounter. Carmen immediately pulled up TMZ to find pictures of her and Lucas kissing. His hand was on her ass. The headline: “Nice Guy’s Naughty Good Night.” She ran over to Lucas at the snack bar and handed him the phone.

  “Whoa!” he said. “Paparazzi!”

  “Don’t sound so excited. You realize that Jays sent someone to stalk us.”

  Lucas led her away from the rink. “So what if he did? It’s not like the public hasn’t seen us kiss before
. A million times now.”

  “That was in public. That was intentional.”

  “I’m not sure I see the difference,” Lucas said. “This was intentional, too.”

  “The bridge was a show. We were performing.”

  “OK—and this time we were ‘performing’ the assignment. Like Jays said.”

  “It’s not the same thing.”

  “Why not?” But Lucas was already answering his own question. It’s not the same, because this time you felt something. Something new.

  “It’s an invasion of privacy,” Carmen answered.

  “You have to admit that it’s pretty smart of Jays,” he said. “Drumming up this buzz.”

  “What’s up with you defending Jays all of a sudden?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you have no problem with him sending paparazzi after us. You’ve been totally into this whole dating thing.”

  “I just think they’re good ideas. What’s the problem?”

  Carmen stopped walking and folded her arms like a schoolteacher about to scold a child. “Lucas, listen,” she said. “You, me—we’re a team. Jays is not on the team. You may think he’s doing something smart today, but tomorrow he’ll do something smart at your expense, and you won’t like it as much. And I’m not going to be here for much longer—”

  “You think I can’t take care of myself?” Lucas said.

  “That has nothing to do with it,” Carmen said. “All I’m saying is, he tried to screw you once already.”

  “What, by killing my Spragg story?” Lucas said. “I outmaneuvered him. Here we are.”

  “You think you outmaneuvered him.”

  Lucas looked hurt, and Carmen realized she’d made her point as best she could. “Of course you can take care of yourself,” she said. “Just don’t forget who you’re dealing with.”

  * * *

  The realization, when it came, was part of a simple mental exercise. It was the middle of the night on Wednesday, only midway through what was supposed to be a relatively chaste week of theatrical romance. The prior day’s ice-skating date had led to museum tours and dinner at a lovely restaurant along the East River. Wednesday featured an afternoon helicopter ride, a move so knowingly ripped from The Bachelor that Lucas and Carmen felt genuinely embarrassed by it, though the views of the city from above were worth the fuss. Then they’d eaten dinner at a hidden gem in Queens. Finally, they dispensed with Jays’ silly rules and returned to Carmen’s place. “We only have two weeks left together,” Carmen had said, “so let’s make the most of it.”