by Lily Maxton
I shouldn’t have been surprised when Drew asked me out on a date, but I was. At the time I hadn’t realized he felt something for me, and I wasn’t sure I wanted a relationship anyway, but I liked Drew, liked being around him, and I didn’t want to lose that, so I said yes.
And for a few short months things had been good—for someone who’d reached twenty-two without dating anyone, it had been a whirlwind of new experiences—late nights and tentative gestures and walking around campus with his arm slung over my shoulder.
I missed it. I missed him.
When had everything changed?
“Hey,” I said, “we should do something this week. Will you be busy?”
“Probably,” he said. He paused to thank the teenage employee who brought us our food before turning back to me. “But I’ve been neglecting you, haven’t I? What should we do?”
I didn’t like the way he said that. Neglecting me. Like I was some sort of puppy he had to show affection to every now and then. I brushed it off, picking up my fork and spearing a tomato. “Alyssa has a date tomorrow night. You could come over and we could, I don’t know, order takeout and watch a movie, or do whatever. It’ll be fun.”
“Tomorrow night?” He frowned. “I don’t know if that’s—” but then he looked up from his phone. I didn’t want to know what he read in my expression—loneliness, desperation? His frown eased into a smile. “Yeah, I’ll make time for it.”
“Good,” I said, forcing a smile. As I leaned forward and took a sip of tea, I searched around for something to talk about before he whipped out his phone again. “I went to that Halloween contest with Alyssa.”
He groaned good-naturedly. “Where you dress up your pet?”
“Yeah that one. It wasn’t horrible. And Princess won second place.”
“She won a prize for that?”
“A ribbon. First place got a gift basket with pet products, I think.”
Drew laughed. “I can’t believe you actually went.” He took a big bite of his sandwich and chewed.
I didn’t have anything else to do. But that wasn’t what I said; I didn’t want him to think I was guilt-tripping him. Instead my shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I’m getting into the Halloween spirit.”
As I watched Drew devour his sandwich with a ravenousness that always amazed me, my mind reached back to Darth Vader, Hot Lips, and my Horrible Thong Experience, as I was starting to call it. I thought about telling Drew. It was something we could laugh over.
But I hesitated. And then the moment was gone and I couldn’t bring it back.
“Speaking of Halloween,” he said. “Do you want to watch some old horror movies on our date?”
“Sure. What should I pick up?”
And then, as Drew warmed to the subject, the conversation flowed more easily and nothing was left unsaid, and it felt like it had at the beginning. Like it had months ago, when we were just two people discovering each other and the whole world was in front of us.
*
The red thong rested atop all my other underwear in the drawer. I snatched my hand back as though it had been burned when my fingers grazed the fabric.
I’d bought it for Drew, but now it was tainted by Darth Shepherd and Hot Lips.
“I’m not wearing you,” I said, pulling out a more serviceable pair of black bikini bottoms instead. After a second of indecision, I pushed the thong to the bottom of the drawer, where I couldn’t see it.
After I shrugged into jeans and a T-shirt (I didn’t want to make it look like I was trying too hard), I brushed on some mascara, slicked my lips with gloss, and waited. I grabbed a collection of poetry and tried to distract myself from the minute hand on the clock steadily ticking past the time we’d set. My gaze kept fluttering in that direction anyway—it was one of those black-and-white cat clocks with the bulbous eyes and swishing tail. Alyssa had picked it out. The thing was sort of creepy, but I supposed I should have been thankful she hadn’t decorated the whole apartment with a cat theme.
Twenty minutes after Drew was supposed to arrive, the intercom beeped and I stood to answer it.
A minute later, he stepped into the apartment with wind-tousled hair, shrugging off his jacket and tossing it on the nearest chair. I noticed Princess’s shadow slinking along the wall to investigate and then slinking away again when she realized it was just Drew.
“Hi,” I said, standing on my tiptoes to kiss him. His mouth was cold and dry.
“Hi. Sorry I’m late. I wanted to run home and change.”
I stepped back from him, my hands sliding from his shoulders. “It’s fine.”
“What did you want to order?”
I lifted the takeout menu from the kitchen counter and handed it over. “Does Chinese sound good?”
“Sure.” He took his phone out and glanced at the menu. “Forty-five minutes,” he said once he’d placed the order.
“Oh, I didn’t think it would be that long,” I said. I was pretty hungry.
He grinned, his eyebrows lifting suggestively. “What should we do?”
“What do you want to do?” A nervous fluttering began in my stomach that had nothing to do with emptiness.
“Do you even have to ask?” he said, moving toward me. “It’s been too long.” He took my face in his hands and pressed his lips to mine.
I felt a slow stirring of desire. After three weeks with only a few kisses here and there, having sex on the couch sounded way more appealing than it usually did. My hands fisted in his shirt as we stumbled toward the sofa blindly. His fingers trailed across my stomach, and I had to stifle laughter—they were still cold from being outside.
He unbuttoned my pants and together we shimmied them off; more clothes gathered on the floor beside us.
His mouth latched onto my nipple and sucked as I ran my hands through his dark hair. Something quickened inside me and my breathing came in little gasps. He covered me with his long, lean body, pushing my legs farther apart to accommodate him. And then I felt a dull pressure.
He pushed into me.
I wasn’t ready. When Drew said it had been too long, that worked both ways. Though I was aroused, I wasn’t wet enough, and his invasion (because that’s exactly what it felt like) pinched and stung.
Drew tilted his hips, moving back and forth. Gradually, I opened for him, and it wasn’t quite so uncomfortable. But just as I was beginning to like the friction, he stilled, breathing hard.
I blinked up at the ceiling, noticing a spiderweb in the corner—I’d have to get a broom to get it down. I moved my lower body a little bit and moaned. I didn’t even sound convincing to myself, but I think Drew was too focused on his own orgasm to notice.
His forehead fell against my shoulder, his chest rising and falling. “You’re still on the pill, right?”
“Yeah,” I said; my voice was oddly tight.
He laid against me for a few moments more. Then he dropped a kiss on my mouth before he withdrew. “That was nice,” he said, pulling on his boxers.
Nice—that sounded lackluster. Good weather was nice. Watching an interesting movie was nice. Sex was either more or less. “Very nice,” I agreed, reaching down to collect my own clothes. Except the best word to describe it would have been “underwhelming.”
But I was being selfish. We were together, which was what really mattered. Every couple probably had boring sex sometimes. It was no big deal.
I glanced at the clock on the living room wall. Fifteen minutes had passed—it would still be half an hour before the food arrived.
I leaned against Drew’s side, smelling his familiar spicy aftershave. It was nice just to have him here, really. I should have been happy about that, not hung up on an unreached climax. I kissed the underside of his jaw.
“Did you check the job openings?” he asked, wrapping his arm around my shoulders.
“There was a job in the Analytics Department, and it didn’t require experience.”
The official job title on the listing was clerical suppo
rt specialist—which I was pretty sure was just SLQ’s way of making a low-level job seem prestigious. From the description it sounded like mostly data entry, plus a few miscellaneous tasks, like sending out mail.
But it would be a lot better than working at a fast-food place, which was where I was seriously starting to worry I would end up.
“I can give your name to human resources.”
“Okay,” I said. I pressed my face against his neck; it had the smooth, just-shaved feeling that I liked. “I ended up renting four movies,” I said with a smile. My habit was to pick out more than one and then let him decide. When I was by myself I usually stood in the aisle staring at the selection until another library patron jostled me out of the way.
His chuckle trembled against my skin. “Great. Let’s see them.”
*
Less than two weeks later I started the job at SLQ. I’d gone in for an interview, dressed in slacks and a button-down business jacket, possible answers and possible questions running through my mind, and hadn’t been interviewed. Instead they’d sat me down and talked to me about what I’d be doing and when I could start. I guess if Drew/Drew’s father gave someone’s name to human resources, they were pretty much in. If I felt bad for the nepotism, which I did, I assuaged my guilt by telling myself I was overqualified for the job—it didn’t even require a college degree.
But that was depressing in its own way. I’d spent four years in college and I was overqualified for a job I’d only managed to get because my boyfriend’s father owned a third of the company.
At least I had a paycheck now.
The first couple of days went well; the guy who was leaving the position stuck around to train me. He was friendly and patient and I caught on quickly enough, feeling competent and adult. I brightened up my cubicle with little touches. On my desk, I set out a framed picture of my mom and sister and a glass vase with a carnation I’d picked out from the floral department of the grocery store. I stuck a calendar of Berthe Morisot paintings on the cubicle wall.
A picture of Drew was nowhere to be found though—I’d thought about putting one out, but I didn’t want my coworkers to know we were dating.
I never encountered Drew during the workday. SLQ was a big company and his office was in another department. The job itself was fine. Typing data into a computer for most of the day was monotonous and there wasn’t anything remotely creative about it, but it didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. If there was no creativity, there was also no pressure, nothing to live up to. My chest didn’t feel tight when my fingers flexed over the keyboard, not like it did when they grasped a paintbrush.
Those first couple of days, I was content in the monotony and I looked forward to my first paycheck, even though it wouldn’t be a lot. Maybe things were looking up.
But I never should have thought anything so hopeful. I jinxed myself.
Because on my third day of gainful employment, I saw him.
Chapter Two
It was Hot Lips. And not casual jean-and-T-shirt Hot Lips but slacks-and-button-shirt-with-a-tie Hot Lips. No sports jacket. They went for a look somewhere between business casual and formal at SLQ.
He walked toward an office across from the cubicles, one I’d noticed had been empty the first two days I was at work. He must have taken some time off. And lulled me into a false sense of security.
I ducked my head as my cheeks heated; I prayed he wouldn’t notice me.
“Hi,” a voice said.
Either there wasn’t a God or He liked to laugh at me—I would have known that voice anywhere; it was smooth as velvet, richly timbered. The kind of voice I normally liked to listen to in audiobooks. But this one was associated with public exposure.
I pretended I was really busy, slowly tearing my eyes from the computer screen to look at him like he was distracting me from a really important task. Hopefully he didn’t glance too closely at the blue screen; I’d just turned the computer on and it was still running through updates.
“You look familiar. Have we met before?”
“Uh …” Why was I hesitating? If he didn’t remember me, I wasn’t going to remind him. But how could he not remember the girl who’d flashed her ass at him? My mouth went dry as the seconds ticked by; I could hear them as loudly as if I’d had a clock on my desk. Was it possible he remembered and was being nice by pretending nothing happened? Or was this amusing to him?
The silence stretched on. A smile quirked the corner of his lips. God, just answer the question! It’s not like he saw you stark naked. Butts were nudity lite, anyway; you could show five of them in a movie and still get a PG-13, right?
At least that’s what I told myself; it didn’t make me feel any less exposed.
“No,” I said. I managed a lame little smile. “I mean, I don’t think so.”
He reached out his hand. “I’m Evan.”
Like a skittish animal, I tentatively raised my arm and placed my hand in his. His fingers wrapped around me, strong, warm, imprisoning. “Danielle,” I said. “But my friends call me Dani.”
I didn’t breathe until he released his grip.
“Can I call you Dani?”
“If you want,” I said, keeping my voice neutral. I lowered my hand to my lap and flexed my palm against my thigh. The skin where he’d touched me felt overly sensitive.
“You just started here?” he asked.
“A couple of days ago.”
“Let me know if you need any help with anything, all right?”
“Sure, thanks.”
“Hey, nice flower,” he said before he turned away, his eyes on the desk, “I like that shade of red on you.”
I frowned, my head snapping toward the carnation.
I’d bought a red carnation, unwittingly selecting the same bright hue as the thong I’d worn to the park.
He’d been toying with me the whole time.
*
Lucy, the woman who occupied the office next to Evan, stopped by my desk that afternoon. She was older than me, in her midthirties maybe, with a round face and blond hair that she usually kept in an efficient bun. I was sort of jealous, since my own hair was boring mousey brown and too thin to look very good in a bun. “Dani, I wanted to let you know a few of us are going to Sadie’s Tavern after work. Feel free to come along.”
“Thanks, I’ll think about it,” I said. My eyes darted to the office across the hall and I wondered if Evan would be going to the bar.
The best thing would be to just go home and avoid potential embarrassment. But it was Friday night, and I didn’t have anything to go home to. Unless you counted made-for-TV movies and babysitting Princess.
The weekend dragged out ahead of me, endless and empty, like the weekends before. Just because Drew was busy tonight didn’t mean I had to stay at the apartment. I’d never really been into the bar scene in college, but it might be fun to try something different.
I decided right then I’d go, and that I’d enjoy myself, Hot Lips or not.
*
I sidled up to the bar to take the stool next to Lucy. Like most bars, it was dimly lit, blaring with loud music from a jukebox, and smelled faintly of smoke from the days when it hadn’t been illegal to smoke indoors. Two pool tables occupied one side of the room; round tables for eating were scattered on the other. Above the bartender’s area hung a handwritten sign on orange paperboard, advertising two-dollar shots and other Friday drink specials.
My fingers traced a groove in the countertop. The surface wasn’t smooth but instead etched with everything from hairline scratches to deep wedges. It was a well-worn bar, like an old pair of boots that weren’t in the best shape but were too comfortable to throw away.
Lucy was sipping an amber-colored beer from a tall glass. She smiled when she noticed me. “I’m glad you could make it.”
“Thanks.”
“What’ll it be?” the bartender said, glancing at me as he removed some empty glasses from the counter.
I eyed the dri
nk specials uncertainly. If I drank anything alcoholic I preferred a sweet wine every now and then. And a place like this didn’t seem to cater to the wine-drinking crowd; it was all beer and hard liquor.
“Jack and Coke,” I said after a long hesitation. I wondered if it would be weird to ask that he go light on the Jack. Or maybe I should have ordered a Coke instead.
“Are you liking SLQ?” Lucy asked, turning toward me slightly.
“Yeah; everyone’s been nice so far.” The bartender slid me my drink and I took a sip. The Jack was way stronger than the soda. I had to fight back a shudder.
“Good, I’m glad to hear it.”
I glanced around; more and more people came into the bar, causing the heat and the volume level to skyrocket. It must have been a popular place to relax after work. I saw a few people from SLQ come in through the doorway—including a tall figure I recognized instantly—I turned back to my drink before he had a chance to notice me.
But then, from right next to me … “Hey, Evan!” Lucy called.
Damn it, Lucy!
I wanted to shrink down into my chair. I felt a sudden irrational longing to be the size of a Borrower—then I could hurl my tiny body into my Jack and Coke and drown myself.
“Hey,” Evan said, from right behind me.
I swiveled on my bar stool to face him, hoping to appear nonchalant. Like any confident twentysomething swigging liquor at a bar, talking to a guy she barely knew who’d already seen underneath her skirt.
Except I had the feeling I wasn’t that confident and I wasn’t very good at faking it.
“You’ve met Dani, haven’t you?” Lucy asked.
“Yeah,” he said, grinning at me like we were friends or something. “We met before she started working at SLQ, actually.”
What? He wouldn’t.
Would he?
Lucy looked a little too curious. “Really? How did you meet?”
“It was one of those Halloween contests for pets.” He glanced at me. “It was fun. Interesting.”
My heart started doing an odd tripping beat. “Fun” and “interesting” weren’t the words I’d used to describe it. Unless those were synonyms for mortifying.