Fifty First Times: A New Adult Anthology

by J. Lynn

  Ian mutters something under his breath and Corrie’s eyes are narrowed at me, but I don’t care. I’ll take the out.

  “Sure,” I say, probably a little too quickly. “No problem.”

  Before anyone can respond, I step my way around the knees and chip bags on my floor, and a second later, I close the door behind me.

  It’s quiet in the hall since it’s a Sunday, with only a handful of people’s doors open, and most of them are probably vegged out, watching TV.

  “Thanks,” I say quietly, leaning back against the wall, and feeling a little shy. I always feel shy around Zach. Probably because he’s ridiculously good-looking, funny, and, I should mention, really good at stats. “I’m not really a big fan of the whole spin-the-bottle thing. Especially with Chee-tos going around.”

  “Not crazy about it myself,” he says, leaning one shoulder on the wall next to me. There are a few inches between us. But not many. “I like those things to matter, you know?”

  My eyes fly to his. What things? Kissing?

  And now I want to know if he too is thinking about that moment a few weeks ago . . . that too-good-to-be-true moment when we’d almost kissed.

  After months of flirting and accidental touches, we’d been finally been alone in the laundry room (romantic, I know, but I’ve learned that in college, you have to take alone time where you can find it), and we’d been in one of those romantic comedy–worth positions, with me sitting on top of one of the washers, waiting for my clothes to dry, and him standing, a hand on either side of my hips . . .

  He’d leaned in . . .

  And then Corrie had barged in, demanding to know if I’d seen her green tank top.

  The moment was over, and the next morning I’d flown home to Arizona and him to Boston.

  But there was no Corrie now, and no plane to catch tomorrow.

  I lift my chin slightly, wishing I would have at least swiped on some mascara today, but he’s not looking at my eyes. His gaze is locked on my mouth.

  “Annie,” he says huskily, his eyes dark behind his glasses.

  “Yeah?” I whisper, my attention now devoted to his mouth.

  “I really want to kiss you . . .”

  There’s a but. I know there’s a but.

  “. . . but I don’t want it to be in a dirty dorm hallway where Corrie could interrupt at any moment, anymore than I want it to be in a dumb game of spin the bottle.”

  “Oh.” I don’t know whether I’m embarrassed, or relieved.

  “When I kiss you, I don’t want to be listening to Tammy’s cackle,” he says. “I want it to be special.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers lingering a little as I nod.

  “Okay,” I say.

  Okay? Okay, Annie?! That’s all you’ve got?

  “You wanna hang out? Kill some time until they’re done with their game?”

  “Nah, I actually need to call Danielle back,” I say, grasping at the first excuse that comes to mind. And really, it’s not a totally unreasonable one. Danielle is my best friend from high school, who I try to talk to once a week.

  He nods, looking as awkward as I feel. “Okay, well. Night?”

  “Night, Zach.”

  His eyes drop to my mouth again, and for a second I think he might change his mind. But then he’s backing away, and the heat in his eyes is replaced by his usual playfulness. “Thanks for the stats help.”

  I’m smiling as I scroll through my contacts and find Danielle’s number.

  She picks up immediately. “You better have an update on The Guy. I’m not keen on that Christmas break cliffhanger you left me with.”

  I grin, biting my lip. “I’ve got an update on the guy.”

  Two

  BY TUESDAY, MY good mood has declined.

  I saw Zach yesterday in class, but I was late for class, and by the time I’d gotten there, some gorgeous blond girl was in my usual seat. She has that perfect-skin, perfect-makeup, plus tiny-dainty-reading-glasses look going on that would have made me look like a little kid playing dress up, but on her, looked like Smart Barbie.

  And we don’t have any classes together on Tuesday, and on top of that I have my work shift at the president’s office today. Normally I don’t hate my job, but the past couple months have been hectic. There’s a President’s Gala on February 2, and the student workers have been assigned the majority of the boring, time-consuming tasks.

  Today’s riveting assignment? Name tags. And not the easy, print-a-billion-at-a-time-on-a-sticky-sheet name tags. No, these are fancy-have-to-be-printed-indidviually-on-card-stock-and-cut-by-hand name tags. Then they need to be put into these plastic things, which won’t go with anybody’s gala outfit, but I guess that isn’t my problem about.

  My problem to worry about had just walked in the door.

  I groan at the familiar face. “I thought you had a different shift this trimester.”

  Garrett Reed tosses his bag onto the table and drops into the seat across from me. “Anners. You think I’d miss out on our bonding?”

  I ignore the nickname. I’ve learned from experience that letting Garrett Reed know you don’t like something is a surefire way to ensure he’ll do it for life. “We’ve been back for over a week. Where were you last Tuesday and Thursday, waxing your chest?”

  He sticks a finger in the collar of his striped button-down and glances at his chest. “Wanna see?”

  In response, I shove a stack of paper toward him. “We got more RSVPs. Your turn to update the list.”

  “I thought the RSVPs were due in November.”

  “They were. Which is why this is so fun.” I give him a big, shit-eating grin.

  He gives one right back, his teeth all white and perfect. The perfect teeth go perfectly with the perfectly groomed black hair and perfectly proportioned brown eyes. In high school, Garrett Reed was prom king, golden boy quarterback. I know, because he tells me. Frequently.

  By some bitchy twist of fate, we got stuck on the same work shift in fall trimester, and we hit it off like two really strong magnets facing the wrong way.

  “I thought you said you were going to talk to someone about taking the Monday-Wednesday shift?” I ask.

  “And by talk to someone, you mean . . . my dad?”

  Garrett’s dad the dean of the graduate business school, and from what I’d gleaned from Garrett, was one of those old-school no-free-lunch kind of fathers that had insisted Garrett “earn his way” even though he was getting free tuition. How I’d gotten lucky enough for this to be his way, I’ll never know.

  “Yeah, him,” I say. “Or Jesus, or anyone who might ensure we don’t have to spend two hours with each other twice a week?”

  “You wound me,” he says as he picks up a red pen and begins cross-referencing the list of RSVP cards with the master list. “And I did try to switch, because oddly enough, I was hoping to work with someone who’s not a smartass shrew, but it didn’t work with my class schedule.”

  I shrug, not about to apologize for the fact that he’s possibly the only person in my world who doesn’t like me. I don’t know what it is, but Garrett brings out every possible flaw in me. Most of the time I’m fairly biddable. Pretty easy to get along with. Maybe even a little funny. But this guy activates every cynical and smartass bone in my body.

  “How’s Lena?” I ask, referring to his high school girlfriend. They’d been dating since their sophomore year, and they’d been doing the long-distance thing now that she was at Brown and he at Fordham.

  He doesn’t answer, and I glance at him curiously over the top of my cutting project. Garrett loves to talk about Lena. It’d be cute if it wasn’t so annoying.

  “Hello?” I say. “Is this a new silent game? Because I’m down.”

  Still nothing. Slowly I lower my hands and lean forward a little, my voice hushed. “Psst. Garrett.”

  He ignores me.

  “Garrett, did Leah . . . dump you?”

  Very slowly he moves the papers upward so I can’t see
his face, still saying nothing.

  A giggle escapes, and I clamp a hand over my mouth to stifle it, even though he’s already heard it. It’s horrible of me, I know, laughing at someone’s breakup with their longtime girlfriend. It’s just . . . you’d have to know Garrett. He’s so damn smug about everything.

  He drops the papers on the table with a sigh and leans forward. “Despite what you’d have everyone believe, you, Annie Gilmore, are not a nice girl.”

  “I am!” I protest. But my laughter betrays me. “You got dumped.”

  He looks at me for several seconds, and for a tiny moment I think I’m going to have to apologize—no, I should apologize—but then the corner of his mouth quirks up and he slumps back in his chair. “You’re a bitch.”

  “What happened?” I ask, resuming my thrilling work with the name tags. “Did she get tired of you doing that thing you do with your shoulders? Because it’s super annoying.”

  “What thing?” he asks, the pen he’d been twirling over his fingers pausing for a second before resuming its usual cocky pace.

  “You know. That kind of shoulder roll thing you do when nobody’s looking.”

  He stares at me. “I don’t do that.”

  I tilt my head a little to admire my handiwork. “Yeah you do. It’s like how you reset yourself after you’ve just tried to charm the pants of someone. Usually a female someone.”

  His eyebrows lift. “Haven’t charmed the pants off you.”

  “Because I see through you,” I say, snipping the scissors in his direction. “And I’ve seen the shoulder roll.”

  He stares at me for several seconds before sticking the pen between his teeth and shaking his head. He turns back to his checklist. “You’re weird.”

  “But I’m right.”

  He doesn’t bother responding.

  We work in semi-companionable silence for several minutes.

  “It was the usual long-distance stuff,” he says out of nowhere.

  “Huh?”

  “Me and Leah. We broke up because of the usual long-distance stuff.”

  My cutting hand pauses, a little thrown off. The usual snappy retort is on the tip of my tongue. We having a moment here, Reed?

  But for some reason, I hear myself say something else entirely. “Sorry, Garrett. Seriously. That sucks. But at least you get a rebound opportunity now, right?”

  “You’re not going to ask me what long-distance stuff?”

  I frown in confusion. “Doesn’t feel like my business . . . But if you want to talk about it . . . ?”

  He gnaws on the end of his pen for a minute, watching me. Gross. He looks away. “Nah.”

  I shrug as though it’s no big deal, but seriously, now I’m a little curious. Garrett may drive me crazy, but he’s a “catch” as my mother would say. He’s good-looking, funny, gets good grades . . . maybe a little bit of a jerk, but some girls like that. I wonder what he did that made Princess Leah dumped him.

  There’s a knock at the small side office where we students work and our eyes snap to each other in a wide oh-no moment.

  “Hey kids!”

  “Hi Mrs. Ramirez,” we say in cheerful unison. Becky Ramirez is executive assistant to Fordham’s president, and in the interview, I’d been lulled by her five-foot-nothin’, strawberry blond pixie appearance into thinking she’d be a sweet, easygoing boss. And while she is nice enough, she also has ridiculous expectations about what her student employees can get done in the span of two hours.

  Helping each other survive Becky’s sometimes ridiculous demands is the only way Garrett and I had bonded over the past few months, and she’d been way worse this past week now that we were T-minus a month away from the big gala.

  “Which one of you wants to go for a coffee run?” she asks in her deceptively sweet-as-sugar voice, waggling her work-expense Starbucks card at us. My eyes flick to the window. It’s pouring outside, and of course I’ve forgotten my umbrella. But still, as far as Mrs. Ramirez’s requests go, this one’s pretty tame.

  “I’ve got it,” Garrett says, already pushing his chair back.

  I look at him in surprise. We keep a tally of these kinds of things, and I’m pretty sure it’s my turn. “Thanks Garrett,” she says, handing him the card. “It’s for Father Rosetti and myself today, so if you get a drink carrier, you can probably carry back drinks for you and Annie. Our treat.”

  Don’t have to twist my arm. “I’d love a—”

  “Double tall, nonfat mocha, no whip. I got it,” Garrett says, shrugging on his jacket and slipping out the door. Becky disappears, and I stare after them for a second.

  He knows my coffee order by heart?

  That’s twice in five minutes that Garrett Reed has caught me off guard. This has to stop. He’s so not the type of guy you let get the jump on you.

  An hour later, Garrett and I have barely made a dent in the amount of tedious tasks that need to be done, but our shift is over, so we at least have a reprieve until Thursday.

  “Where you off to?” he asks, slinging his bag over his shoulder as I button my coat.

  “French,” I say, as he holds open the office door for me. “You?”

  “Nothing. My schedule ended up pretty heavy on Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays, but Tuesday and Thursday afternoons are open.”

  “Lucky,” I mutter as I glare out at the nasty New York weather. I guess I should be lucky it’s not snowy, but it might as well be. The Phoenix native in me hasn’t adjusted to the cold, much less the wet that is the East Coast winter.

  Garrett pulls out a sleek black umbrella and waggles at me. “I’ll walk you.”

  I stare at the umbrella. Then at him. “Why?”

  He rolls his eyes and gives a little laugh before taking my arm and tugging me outside even as he pops open the umbrella and holds it over our heads.

  It’s weird, walking huddled under an umbrella all cozy-like with Garrett Reed, but oddly not unpleasant.

  “So I never asked, how was your holiday break?” he asks, as we dodge a huge puddle and make our way across campus.

  “Not bad. Pretty uneventful.”

  “So no progress on Operation Get-a-Boyfriend?” he asks, glancing down at me.

  Weirdly enough, Garrett is the only person at school that knows that I’ve never had a serious boyfriend. I think Corrie suspects as much, but I’ve always been a little vague about my past romantic encounters. Probably because I didn’t have any specifics to talk about. A first kiss at summer camp after sophomore year, a couple movie dates with a guy from my all-girls high school’s “brother school,” and of course the decidedly unromantic prom excursions with Danny Arnstadt.

  But no boyfriend. Not really.

  “I never should have told you that,” I mutter. It had been a moment of weakness last December. He’d been asking me for advice on what to get Leah for Christmas by asking about my favorite gift from a boyfriend.

  I’d slipped and told him I’d never had one, but that I was working on it.

  Mercifully, he hadn’t teased me about it. Much.

  “It’s not an operation,” I mutter as we come to a stop outside the building of my French class.

  “Annie wants a boyfriend, Annie wants a boyfriend . . .” he taunts like a second grader.

  I punch him in the gut and he grunts. “Knock it off. I am not talking about this with you.”

  I start to walk away when he grabs my arm. I glance down at his hand in surprise, and he drops it quickly. “There’s a party at my house this weekend. You should come.”

  “You need help scouting out your next girlfriend,” I say.

  “Yeah, because your goody-goody perspective is sure to bring in a winner,” he shoots back. “But seriously, come to the party.”

  I admit I’m a little surprised by the invitation, and although I don’t think I want to go . . . not really, a part of me is intrigued. Instead of living in a dormitory like the rest of us peons, Garrett lives in some fancy brownstone off campus with a bunch of other
guys. And from the way he talks about it, they’re always having parties.

  “Why would I want to do that?” I ask, stalling for time.

  He shrugs. “There’ll be a bunch of people. Maybe you’ll meet a guy.”

  “Maybe I have met a guy.”

  He looks at me steadily. “Have you?”

  Maybe. Possibly. But because I’ll die if I’m proven wrong about Zach, I just shrug instead of telling Garrett about him. “Not really.”

  Garrett nods once. “So then come to the party. I’ll give you the details on Thursday.”

  He moves away before I can protest, taking the shelter of the umbrella with him, so I’m forced to dart up the stairs to get under cover. “Such a gentleman,” I mutter.

  I glance over my shoulder all the same, just for a second, but he’s already joined the maze of other students and umbrellas.

  I shake off the rain, as well as any weird vibes I might have been getting from Garrett all day.

  And then my phone buzzes, and I make myself forget about Garrett altogether, because it’s a message from Zach.

  Ice cream tonight? Just the two of us? I know a place.

  I smile happily and respond yes. Maybe next time Garrett asks, I’ll have a boyfriend after all.

  Three

  “ZACH, TELL ME again how you weaseled an invitation to this party?” Corrie asks, as she; her twin sister, Haley; and Zach and I make our way to the address Zach indicated the following Friday.

  “I didn’t weasel,” he says, exasperated. “Some guy in my econ glass invited me and told me to bring some hot girls.”

  I can’t hide the quick grin at being described as hot. It’s probably old hat for Corrie and Haley, who are the epitome of hot girls, especially in their tight dresses and high heels. But for me, it’s a nice break from adorable.

  I’d resisted Corrie’s insistence to borrow one of her shrink-wrap dresses and instead stuck with something that felt more me, not to mention more practical for the twentysomething degree weather: jeans, a sweater, and boots. But the jeans and sweater are tight, and the boots have a bit of a heel, so maybe I do look hot. Sort of.