“Ever played darts?” I ask, jerking my thumb at the boards.
“Not in years. Do you play?”
“My dad has a dartboard in his basement. I spent summers as a kid perfecting my game.” Staying downstairs was always preferable to heading upstairs and finding him with that month’s girlfriend.
“Then by all means, let’s go.”
I erase the chalk marks on the scoreboards, pick up the two sets of darts, and hand him one. We fall into an easy rhythm: my turn, his turn, retrieve the darts, chalk up our scores, banter back and forth, and repeat.
I like him, and not just because he’s off-limits. He’s gentlemanly, alluring, attentive, and a good listener. The conversation is easy—we’re not grasping for things to say and only coming up with small talk. The chemistry is palpable, hanging between us as plainly as the Skee-Ball machines and the darts do.
“So, what are you reading these days?” he asks. “I won’t be offended if it’s not my stuff.”
“Remind me again where you write?” This is a total lie. I know—I vetted him for Mindy.
“Esquire.”
“Riiight, right, right. You mentioned that. I’ll have to check that out.”
He screws up his mouth and hurls a dart. It misses the board entirely. Mine lands an inch from the bull’s-eye.
“Nah, you don’t have to read it. It’s mostly political news these days, but I get to do some long-form reporting every once in a while.”
“No, I’ll read it,” I say. It comes across a little too earnest. I retrieve the darts. “Bret Easton Ellis, by the way. I just finished American Psycho.”
“Oh, that’s fantastic. Patrick Bateman is almost as slimy as real-life investment bankers.”
I laugh, but it comes out like a cackle.
“Your ex worked in finance, didn’t he?” Adam asks, looking over with raised eyebrows.
“Every girl in New York has an ex who worked in finance,” I retort.
It’s his turn to retrieve the darts. He takes his sweet time pulling the needle out of the cork before he turns back to face me.
“I may have done a little Facebook stalking. It’s only fair, since I answered all your questions under this whole ‘matchmaking’ pretense before you asked me out.” He makes smug air quotes around the word “matchmaking.”
I know I’m turning pink. I like knowing he stalked me, too. I bite my lip and grin.
“Right. The ‘matchmaking’ thing was all an elaborate scheme to get you to go out with me.” I mimic his air quotes.
“You know, Mindy was cool, but you—Sasha, you’re something else. You’re stunning.”
It’s my turn to toss the darts, but Adam is right in front of me. I tilt my head back to look up at him and let my arms go slack against my body. There’s a nervous, crackling energy between us. I want him to kiss me so badly. He angles his head toward mine. Up close, I can see just how soft his lips are. And then, there’s a loud voice behind us.
“Are you using these dartboards?” asks a stocky guy in a Yankees hat.
Adam quickly steps back.
“Oh, go ahead, dude.”
“We were . . .”
“Just leaving,” Adam finishes. He slings an arm around my shoulders. “This girl is killing me so far. I’ll never catch up.”
He slips his hand into mine without hesitation, and leads me back to the front of the bar. I slide into the same booth we were sitting in earlier, and he sits down next to me. Our bodies are so close, I can feel the warmth radiating from his skin. I fumble for words.
“Um, right, uh, what were we talking about?”
“Something about how I stalked you. Please, let’s move on.” He pauses, slowly placing his hand on my knee. He glances at the door, then back at me, rubbing his shoulder. “Do you want to get out of here?”
I blush again and look down at his hand on my bare leg. It’s unbelievable how I ended up here. A half hour before my date, I was leaning into my bathroom mirror, mopping tear tracks, and repeating “I am fine; everything is fine” until my chest stopped quaking with sobs. I’m a mess. And yet, being around Adam is so simple and right. Talking to him lights me up from the inside in a way I haven’t felt in so long—not even when I was with Jonathan.
“That would be great,” I tell him.
Adam smiles and backs out of the booth. He extends a hand for me to grasp as I exit, which is totally unnecessary and yet exactly the type of gesture that makes me feel like a swooning heroine in an old movie. I rise and follow him out of the bar into the twinkling twilight of the East Village.
He leads me a few feet down the block. I back up to the brick wall and drape my arms over his shoulders. I fit precisely into his arms, like he was made to hold me. He leans down to give me the sweetest kiss, but soon it deepens. I arch into him. It feels so easy to keep kissing him, keep reaching for the curve of his neck and the hard line of his jaw. I don’t want him to pull away, but he does eventually.
“I don’t mean to sound too forward, but I want to invite you back to my place.” He runs his hand appreciatively over the curve from my waist to my hip.
Part of me wants to be coy and say no. Make him work for me, so that when I finally have him, he’s truly mine. Good girls don’t go home with guys on the first date. But I spent so long following the rules with Jonathan, trying to be the right kind of girl, and that ended up not being much fun. Spilling secrets, throwing drinks—now that’s fun. And I bet going home with Adam will be even better.
“Lead the way.”
“Really?”
He seems surprised; I feel like some sort of sultry minx. The sensation is intoxicating. He hails a cab and directs it crosstown to Chelsea. The cab barely has a chance to turn the corner before our fingers are tangled in each other’s hair and his lips are hot on my throat. I kiss a trail from his ear to below his collar and he groans. Ten minutes later, we come up for air just long enough for him to pay the driver. I can’t believe this is really happening. I lean against his building to wait. He grabs me for another long kiss, then fishes for the key in his pocket and fumbles the door open.
“It’s a fourth-floor walkup,” he explains. “Sorry.”
Adam has trouble keeping his hands off me while we climb. I playfully turn him around and push him up the flight. Inside, his apartment is decorated with an IKEA bookshelf and a ratty couch that looks a lot like mine. A video game controller lies atop a messy stack of Esquires and New Yorkers on the antique black leather trunk he uses as a coffee table. The focal point of the living room isn’t the television, but rather a console table with an old record player and stacks of vintage records.
“What do you listen to?” he asks.
I freeze up, trying to determine what would impress him. I go with an honest answer instead.
“Mostly pop. Or stuff like Lana Del Rey, Lorde, Adele.”
“Let’s do Lana,” he says. He squats down to the bottom of the stack and pulls out a new record, the kind that’s designed to look old. “I love this one.”
I watch him cue up the record precisely. He chose my favorite album.
“Not too pretentious?” he asks, wincing.
“No, this is perfect.”
Adam moves to the nook with a fridge and two bar stools, the kind of space that counts for a whole kitchen in Manhattan, and grabs two cold craft beers. He snaps off the caps with a bottle opener on his keychain and hands me one. We each take a sip, but I’m far more interested in him than I am in the beer. I think he feels the same way, since he wraps a hand around my waist and pulls me close. His finger grazes the underside of my chin, lifting my face up to his. When he finally kisses me again, it feels like a lightning bolt. We end up in his bed, kissing and peeling off each other’s clothing. His skin is golden brown, like a toasted marshmallow, and his arms go on forever, from sinewy shoulder to toned bicep to lanky forearm. His fingers skim the edge of my black lace bikini briefs and linger there. I silently thank whatever higher power compelled me t
o accidentally wear non-fugly underwear without any weird period stains today.
A nagging feeling tugs at the back of my brain. I want this to last. I want Adam to still like me just as much tomorrow, if not even more, and I want to see him again. This can’t be it. I wish there were a way I could tell him that and not sound like a stage-five clinger, but I don’t know how to string the words so they sound neat and easy. I just—
“Are you okay?” he asks, pulling back just an inch.
I hadn’t realized it, but maybe my lips slowed down or my grasps at his torso became less insistent.
“If you want to slow down, that’s cool. We can just talk or hang out or go to sleep,” he offers.
“I . . .” My voice catches in my throat. “I just like you, that’s all. I hope you know that.”
He breaks into an authentic smile. “I like you, too, Sasha.”
He strokes my arm, and right there, it clicks into place. He’s not going to leave me. He’s not going to stop talking to me tomorrow. He’s a good guy.
I move his hand back to my hip and let his finger curl around the lace there.
“Go ahead.”
— Chapter 16 —
I’m still half asleep when I roll toward a warm, broad chest and rest my thigh across a pair of legs. I’m cozy and comfortable for exactly three whole seconds. Then my eyes fly open. Instead of Jonathan’s tawny blond hair, I see a head full of dark curls. Holy shit. I’m in Adam’s bedroom, naked, skin pressed to bare skin. I pull my limbs back to my side of the bed and stare wide-eyed up at the ceiling, praying I didn’t disturb him. We are not yet intimate enough for the Early Morning Thigh Drape. That comes after . . . what, date five at least? I’m not familiar enough with the rhythms and regulations of new relationships to know, which is cruelly ironic when you consider that I’m paid to advise other people on these exact matters.
I try to fall back asleep so I can wake up later, when Adam does, but my heart is pounding too hard to let that happen. My chest is tight and I have to breathe, but I’m worried that he’ll hear every inhale and exhale. I force myself to relax, but it’s impossible with Adam just inches away. He feels like a furnace—if furnaces had toned limbs and a smattering of chest hair.
Time to employ strategy number two, which is to slip quietly out of bed. I creep over to the desk by the bedroom door, where I apparently flung my purse last night, and dig my phone out of it. I skim the emails Penelope sent me last night. I already know that being here with Adam is wrong; the glut of Bliss emails just makes me feel worse.
Adam stirs. “Morning,” he says, voice mussed with sleep. “You look amazing.”
I’m butt naked. Sunlight streams in from the window above his bed and hits me like a spotlight. I run a self-conscious hand through my hair, and discover it’s been transformed into a messy lion’s mane of curls. I say good morning and squat down to snatch yesterday’s bra and underwear from the floor.
“Oh, don’t get dressed right away. Come here.”
“I can’t, I have a . . . a thing.”
“You have to go so soon? I don’t have to be at work for another . . .” He checks his phone on the nightstand. “Hour and a half.”
I don’t have anywhere to be for hours, and god, the gravitational force between me and his bed is intense. I drop my bra and underwear, suck in my stomach, and slink back to bed. He nuzzles a kiss into my neck. I want to conjure up something smart and sassy to say, but all I can think about is that this is the first morning since the breakup that I’ve woken up and not been shattered by the lack of a good-morning text from Jonathan.
“I had a really nice time last night,” I say, daring myself to look him in the eye. “Thank you for inviting me over.”
“You don’t have to thank me. I’m glad you came.”
He pulls me into his arms and asks about my plans for the day. Good taste probably dictates that I avoid telling him that I need to schedule another date for Mindy, but it’s like when someone tells you not to think of a pink elephant: it’s now the only thing on my mind.
“I’m setting up Mindy with my ex’s brother-in-law’s friend,” I blurt out. “Sorry, that must be weird for you to hear.”
He actually laughs. “Really, it’s fine. I don’t mind. It’s funny, actually.” He kisses my neck and tells me about the story he’s working on at Esquire.
If every day could start this way, I would probably drink less. (Smoke less, too.) Conversation falls away when he starts to kiss me. He’s tender at first, then his lips move more urgently over mine. Half an hour later, I untangle my limbs from his. I dress facing the wall to hide exactly how moronically wide I’m smiling when he asks if he can see me again soon.
When my phone lights up with a call from Penelope an hour later at my apartment, my stomach drops. For a terrifying second, I’m certain she knows about me and Adam. Matchmakers know everything. The good ones, anyway. But she doesn’t bring up his name once. She’s calling to give me the scoop on my new client Gretchen, who signed up two days ago and asked to be transferred to a new matchmaker almost immediately because Allison had taken a whole seven hours to respond to her initial email. Never mind that Allison is in D.C. for a former client’s wedding. Gretchen only tolerates people who are prompt. And Penelope has reassigned her to me. Oy, Gretchen sends me clipped instructions to meet at a wine bar near her home in Carroll Gardens this afternoon.
I make a point of showing up ten minutes early to ensure she won’t hate me. She’s there when I walk in, of course, perched primly atop a bar stool near the entrance. She’s wearing pristine white pants, an item I haven’t owned since high school bullies splattered my only pair with tomato sauce. A ruby solitaire stone set in gold sits heavily on her ring finger, like she’s daring you to ask if it’s an engagement ring.
“How sweet of you to come out here to my neighborhood!” she says, gripping my hand in a firm shake. Not that I had a choice. She forms each syllable delicately, perfectly, precisely. I get the impression she hasn’t mumbled once in her entire life. “You must live in Manhattan, right? Girls always like to go there when they first move to the city.”
“Oh, I’ve actually lived here for four years,” I begin to explain. I’d hate for her to think I’m some trust-fund baby brand new to the city who throws back Cosmos at some overpriced bar every Saturday night.
But she’s already turned around, not listening, and she’s leading me to the back of the bar. She pushes open a creaky screen door onto an open-air patio. We sit at a lacquered wood table underneath a wide umbrella. A waiter in a rumpled white shirt comes by to drop off two wine lists printed in an antique-looking font. None of the wines are old enough to warrant that kind of font, but we’re in gentrified Brooklyn, so. Gretchen orders a glass of rosé from the south of France, and I indicate that I’ll have the same.
“Now, I’m sure you spend all day long asking other people about their lives. So before we get to me, I want to hear about you,” she chirps. “You’re a matchmaker—that must be fascinating.”
I smile wanly. There are so many things I can’t tell her: that I’ve been on the job for just a month; that my only relationship ended in a spectacular blow out in the gourmet nut aisle at Dean & DeLuca after my boyfriend cheated on me with an Instagram celebrity; that I’m only twenty-two and don’t have a speck of advice for how a forty-year-old should date; that I’ve never actually seen a happy, stable, monogamous relationship up close. Where to begin?
“Oh, you know. Well. Dating has always fascinated me, so here I am. It’s the greatest job in the world.” That line has flown out of my mouth so many times now that it’s part of a perfect script. I don’t even know if it’s true.
She pries a little further. Where am I from? Where did I go to school? Do I have any exciting summer vacation plans? The waiter delivers our rosé and I prolong my time between answers with healthy gulps of wine.
“I’m not that interesting,” I say. What I mean is this: none of my answers will impress you. �
�But let’s talk about you!”
Gretchen’s eyes sparkle. She pulls a crisp manila folder from her purse, removes the two packets inside, and hands me one.
“I did a little prep work to ensure we wouldn’t forget to cover any topic during this discussion,” she explains.
Inside is the most fastidiously organized document I’ve ever seen. Your Master Guide to Finding Gretchen Phelps’s Perfect Match! spans eight pages. A highlighted section on the first page lists a series of nonnegotiable starting points: men ages 35 to 50 who are in good health, registered as Democrats, and live anywhere along the Amtrak corridor (“Willing to travel!” she chimes in). A series of underlined headings designate separate checklists, each more rigorous than the last: there’s one for his physical appearance, including potential celebrity look-alikes; another for his personality traits; a third for his lifestyle preferences; and so on. A footnote at the bottom of page two explains that the points typed in larger fonts are more critical than the points typed in smaller ones.
The document is punctuated with cheery exclamation points. “Avoid anyone currently working through emotional baggage, but my ideal match is someone who has enjoyed the benefits of therapy!” she wrote on page three. “My partner should be highly successful ($250K per year, though more would be fine, of course), but not driven by financial goals or industry praise. Rather, he should find motivation from within!” she explained on page four. A subheading on page five introduces “Causes and charities I’d love for him to support!”
She included an addendum (“See Figure A”) for a list of thirty-eight potential hobbies they could enjoy together, including gluten-free cooking, meditative yoga retreats, and collecting antique coins. Figure B consists of profiles of her past three ex-boyfriends, complete with headshots and screenshots of their social media profiles. The most recent one, she noted, “is a decorated veteran who has served in three (3) presidential administrations and still has time to hand-carve custom wooden furniture as a creative outlet.” The packet culminates in Figure C, a page-long biography of herself written in the third person. By the time I skim the last page, I’ve remembered to close my mouth, which has fallen open in horror. Gretchen clicks open a pen.
Playing with Matches Page 16