“How’d you like the surfing?” Gus unzipped his wet suit to his navel and pulled down the hood, smiling triumphantly.
How did she like it? “Oh, it was great. You looked great out there. I guess. I mean, to be honest, I wouldn’t know.”
Zac shot her yet another amused look. She hated him. He should not be standing there enjoying her misery.
“Yeah, it’s the best. I’m good. You can trust me on that. Right, bro?” He reached to high-five Zac again.
God give her strength.
“So, Chris.” Gus beamed at her, water dripping off his bangs, teeth shining, bare chest gleaming through the unzipped wet suit. Okay, she was still pissed, but because he was physically perfect, he could still save the evening if he suggested right now that they do something romantic and wonderful. “How about driving to San Luis Obispo to shoot some pool?”
Nope. That was not romantic. At least not to her. “I don’t play pool.”
“Excellent!” Once again, her total lack of enthusiasm didn’t faze him at all. “I can teach you.”
“No.” She bared her teeth in a vicious smile. “I mean I don’t...play...pool. Like, ever.”
“Oh.” He blew out a quick breath, glanced back and forth between her and Zac a few times, rocking on his heels. “Awkward!”
Zac decided this was a good time to crouch and pack up his bag. He was undoubtedly right.
Chris closed her eyes. Okay. She needed to behave better. Her current mood was not all Gus’s fault. She’d agreed to “hang out” with him, that was all. They’d both come to this in good faith, just with radically different expectations.
“Pool’s not my thing, Gus. Why don’t we do something else? Have dinner, catch a movie or a concert...”
“Oh.” Gus’s brows drew down. “See, some of my friends are meeting us at this place to shoot pool. I told them we’d be there.”
“Ah.” Chris smiled sweetly, already out of renewed patience.
“Listen, you guys have fun. I gotta get going.” Zac nodded to Gus and gave Chris a smirk that made her want to slug him. His smirk turned into a full grin, which meant he could probably tell she wanted to slug him, which made her want to slug him even harder.
He turned and started off, broad shoulders swinging, long legs eating up the sand even with his slow stride. Chris suffered a quick and unwelcome pang of panic, as if her lifeline to civilization as she knew it was being slowly stretched until it frayed and severed.
She turned to Gus, unnerved and exhausted. “Maybe you should just drive me home and we can make plans another night.”
“Yeah. So.” Gus tapped his sports watch, grimacing apologetically. “That’s kind of the opposite direction. We’re going to be late already.”
Chris stood frozen, blinking at him. Okay. So far she’d been willing to admit that part of this disaster was her fault.
Not that part.
She glanced at Zac’s back. For God’s sake, now she’d have to ask him a favor. “Maybe Zac will take me home.”
“Listen, Chris.” Gus touched her arm, his fingers still chilled from the water. “I’m sorry. I messed this up. See, you kind of intimidate me, being classier and everything. I guess surfing and friends felt safer. But it was sort of a dumb idea for a date with someone like you. You’re not my usual type. But I think you’re amazing. I really do.”
Chris turned from preparing to launch herself into a sprint after Zac. Gus was standing with his head hanging down, that gorgeous body molded in the wet suit, the sun setting behind him. He looked like something out of a catalog.
Her frosty mood thawed. “Aw, Gus. It’s okay. Really. We just had different ideas about tonight.”
“So it’s okay if I call you again?” He lifted his head hopefully. “It might be awhile. I’ve got a surf competition down in Huntington Beach in a few days.”
“Sure.” She put her hand on his solid forearm and squeezed, then glanced anxiously after Zac again.
“Yo, Zac!” Gus’s voice nearly burst her eardrums. Way up the beach, Zac turned.
“Okay, you’re good.” Gus gave her a gentle shove. “We’ll talk soon.”
She sent one more smile into his Greek-god face and ran off to catch her ride from the irritating titan.
7
AMES AVOIDED NYESPRESSO on his way home from a meeting with a potential client restaurateur and chef. He was in a terrible mood, and not stopping in to get a cup of coffee made him even crankier. The meeting hadn’t gone as well as it should have. The restaurant owner had been stringing Ames along for weeks, and the chef was one of those massive egos Ames could usually work around, but today he wasn’t in the mood. Yes, he got that the chef’s reputation was on the line when a new place opened; yes, he got that some people dealt with anxiety by becoming giant buttheads. Zee world, she is not always going to be your escargot, monsieur. Get over it.
Bottom line, Ames sold excellent wine at reasonable prices from a house with decades of a spotless high-end reputation. The stuff should sell itself, and usually it did.
The worst part?
He couldn’t stop thinking about Eva.
Again.
Still.
This was not supposed to happen! More to the point, this never did happen. He either fell in love with women early on and violently, or he didn’t. Nice and simple. If he did fall, he’d pursue and/or date her for a week, a month, a year or several years, until the problems became obvious and the relationship dissolved. Then he’d grieve and move on. One-night stands didn’t bother him if they didn’t bother whoever. Short relationships, long relationships, he’d had them all, and prided himself on pretty much every one ending pleasantly. Yes, he’d like to have something work out forever, get himself settled down and have a family. But that hadn’t happened yet, and he was fine waiting until he found the right woman.
Then along came Eva. He hadn’t fallen in love with her early on and violently. In fact, he’d found her pretty exasperating, slightly embarrassing, utterly charming, but not someone he could ever see himself falling for or dating seriously. After she’d shown up naked in his shower—an image he had not been able to get out of his mind—he figured being up-front about that early on was the smartest thing he could do for both of them.
One night, then draw the line, because what was the point of going further?
The problem was that their one night had only left him feeling as if something was missing, that there was more he wanted, more of her to explore, a lot of unfinished business still between them. Not to mention he’d been walking around half-hard for the past four days thinking about her.
His phone rang. He dug it out of his pocket and checked the display. His brother, Mike. “Hey, Mickey.”
“S’up? Where are you?”
“On my way home. Where are you?”
“Walking down Park Avenue.”
Ames rolled his eyes, battling a jolt of annoyance. His brother did this all the time. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming into town?”
“I did tell you. I sent you an email last week. Got any plans tonight?”
Mike was notorious for this, too. He’d meant to email Ames last week, and in his brain that probably counted. But okay, Ames wasn’t doing anything, and seeing his younger brother would cheer him up. Or at least keep him from more useless mooning over a woman totally wrong for him. “I’m free. What are you thinking?”
“I’m meeting Josh for dinner later, but I’m having drinks with you first at that bar we went to last time—Old Town, near Union Square.”
“What time?” He already knew the answer. Now.
“Now. I’m turning onto Eighteenth Street. Get here soon.”
“All right. Be there in twenty.”
Twenty-five minutes later, he was hugging and backslapping his younger brother, Mike, in town on a school break to see friends from college. He’d stayed in New Jersey teaching middle-school science in Hopewell, a pretty little town near Princeton. Ames admired his brother’s
dedication and patience, especially given that Mike had grown up with neither, but Ames would rather clean bathrooms for a living than face a class of adolescents every day.
They found stools at the long, elegant bar and ordered draft beers and French fries to share, their favorite snack from childhood—back then substituting Cokes for beer.
“How’s school going?”
Mike broke into a grin. “It’s crazed. These kids are so high on hormones it’s all I can do to keep them sitting still. I’m like their teacher-policeman. At the same time, when they click in, when they get what I’m teaching, what I’m trying to communicate about their bodies, about the earth and how things work, it’s the best.”
“Excellent.” Ames toasted him. “You are braver than I am. Speaking of brave, how is Julie feeling?”
“Much better, or I wouldn’t be here now. She had a terrible first trimester. I can’t believe she managed on a full teaching load. She’ll be a great mom.”
He spoke with adoring pride. Julie was indomitable, the only force known to man who could have gotten Ames’s brother to settle down after a turbulent childhood of self-destructive rebellion. Married four years, they were absolutely crazy about each other and expecting their first child in early March.
For the first time Ames’s usual pleasure over Mike’s happiness was tainted with a new emotion, a darker one—irritation or...envy?
An image of Eva came into his mind, her lips parted, her body held tight, seconds before it released into orgasm. Then Eva again, smiling into his eyes as he stroked her belly, swelling with their unborn—
Good God, what had they put in his beer? He’d had that fantasy once before, about six months into a promising relationship, which had ended abruptly when—
“Yo, Ames. What is up?”
“Huh?” He started, coming back to the bar and to his brother, embarrassed to be caught daydreaming. “What? What are you talking about?”
Mike stared at him suspiciously. “You got this really goofy look on your face.”
“I did not.”
“Dude. Big-time. What’s that about? You seeing someone? That woman I met last time is history, right? The icy brunette—what was her name?”
“Taylor.” He shoved in a handful of French fries, washed it down with beer. Yeah, Taylor was brilliant, unbearably sexy, but icy was a good word. Mike had uncanny instincts. Kind of like Eva. “No, I’m not seeing her anymore. There’s no one.”
“There is someone. C’mon, I know you better than that. What’s up with her? Trouble?”
Ames sighed. His brother wouldn’t give up, and he might as well talk these weird feelings out with someone he trusted.
“I met this woman. Eva. She’s...I don’t know, a little crazy. Not in a bad way—maybe unusual is a better word. Certainly she’s not like any woman I’ve ever dated. Not that I’m dating her.” He laughed, then realized there was nothing funny about what he was saying; he was just babbling like a nervous dork, so he shut up. “She seems to get that I’m not interested, but she keeps showing up and getting me to do things I have no intention of doing, like playing mini golf in a bar where there were these huge plastic zoo animals everywhere. Can you imagine me doing that?”
“Nope.” Mike was smirking. Ames hated it when Mike smirked. “If you told me any of your women demanded dinner in Paris, yes, but mini golf with zoo animals? Nope. Tell me more.”
“First of all, she’s not my woman. But anyway, she shows up at my condo with dinner one night—uninvited, this is, like, the third time I’ve ever seen her—and then she just walks in while I’m taking a shower, and...well, you know.” He shoved in more French fries, feeling guilty, as if he’d betrayed Eva by talking about it, which annoyed him, because he owed her nothing. Not as if they were dating.
“Ooh.” Mike’s eyebrows rose over his smirk. “A naked, willing woman in the shower. What a nightmare.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Ames gulped more beer. Somehow this was not coming out the way he’d intended. “Well, it was weird. So I told her that was it, it was just that night.”
“And she’s been stalking you?”
“No.” More French fries. More beer. And another fry. Or two. “She was fine with it.”
“So...you meet a woman who isn’t your type, you tell her to go away, she does, and...” Mike held out his hand. “I don’t get it. What’s the problem?”
Ames gritted his teeth. “I can’t stop thinking about her.”
“Sorry?” Mike put a hand to his ear, speaking too loudly, enjoying himself hugely. “I’m sorry, what was that? You can’t what? Can’t stop thinking about her? Was that what you said? You weren’t quite clear.”
Ames forced his jaw to relax. “You heard me.”
“Ooh.” Mike was having way too much fun. “It sounds like this woman has you a little off balance, maybe? A little confused? Don’t know which way is up? Eating French fries uncontrollably?”
Ames took back his hand, which had been reaching for more. “It’s not a big deal.”
“No, no, of course not.” Mike nodded with exaggerated slowness. Still smirking. “I have a theory, but it will piss you off.”
“Then I don’t want to hear it.”
“Okay. Then I’ll be kind and simply say go with your feelings, Ames. You feel like seeing her? See her. You don’t? Don’t. You’ve been honest with her. Keep doing that, but also be honest with yourself and you can’t mess up.”
Ames squinted at him. “That was way too easy.”
“I’m serious. That’s all there is. You just gotta wait and it will all figure itself out.” He slapped Ames on the back. “I have to say, man, this is great to see, however.”
“What is?” Ames was pretty sure he didn’t want to know.
“A woman who’s got you totally messed up.” He chuckled madly. “I am loving it. Nothing messes you up. Nothing ever has messed you up. And now this woman has messed...you...up!”
“Very funny.” Okay, so Ames had always been the predictable straight guy in the family. It was serious business being the oldest son, especially when your brother had majored in falling apart. “What kind of season you think the Browns will end up with this year?”
The tactic worked, same way it always did. Once his brother got talking football, that was it. In fact, usually Ames tried to hold the subject off until he got a sense of how his brother was doing. This time, he needed the intervention.
They chatted pleasantly until Mike had to leave for his dinner appointment. Ames considered having another beer, but though he generally didn’t mind having a drink on his own, tonight it didn’t feel right.
He paid the tab and stepped out of the restaurant. The temperature had dropped; the air had become damp and penetrating, smelling of approaching rain. He was nearly to the Union Square subway station when his phone rang.
Eva.
Now what? His attempt at righteous exasperation was hijacked by a thrill of pleasure seeing her name. Which irritated the hell out of him.
“Hey, Eva.” He kept his voice curt. “What’s up?”
“Hi. Um...are you home right now?” She didn’t sound like herself. Her voice was low, dispirited. Ames went on immediate alert.
“I’m on my way back, why?”
“Oh, then, never mind.”
“No, I’ll be there in twenty minutes. What’s going on?” His heart was beating faster. He sped his steps toward the subway entrance.
“Look, it’s nothing, really. This guy came into the café about half an hour ago, drunk off his ass. He gave me the creeps. I just closed the store, and I think I see him outside. I don’t want to call the police, I mean, he hasn’t done anything, but I also don’t want to—”
“Stay in the café.” He broke into a jog. “Wait for me. Don’t go out or try anything, okay?”
“No, no. Jeez, now I feel stupid, I’m probably totally overreacting.”
“You’re not overreacting. You’re being smart. Stay there. I’m on my way.
”
“Thank you. Really.” Her relief made him feel like superman.
Miraculously a train was just arriving when he got to the platform. He was first out of the car at Forty-Second Street and half ran the half mile to Tenth Avenue, thinking if this was another of Eva’s tricks to spend time with him, he’d be able to indulge his righteous exasperation genuinely, and then some.
She wasn’t kidding. A guy was pacing unsteadily back and forth opposite NYEspresso, watching the shop intently. He was around forty, short, skinny, hair wild, clothes baggy and mismatched, and not warm enough for the chilly evening.
Ames turned hot with anger. Taking a deep breath, he walked up to the guy, not sure if he was being brave or stupid. Probably both. “Hey, you waiting for someone?”
“None of your business.”
“I’m Ames.” He offered to shake. “What’s your name?”
“Stan.” The guy glared his hand. “Stanley.”
“Hi, Stanley.” Ames put his hand back in his coat pocket. “You see the woman in the coffee shop there?”
Stanley turned to stare suspiciously.
“Yeah, not sure if you were hoping for a chance there, but she’s with me.”
“I don’t give a flying—”
“Right. Well, good, then.” He kept his tone friendly. “But if she calls me again and tells me you’re harassing her, we’re putting police on speed dial, okay?”
The guy’s face crumpled with anger and embarrassment. “Hey, man, screw you.”
“Okay, good. We’re good, then.” Ames held up his hands. “Just a misunderstanding.”
Stanley sent him a withering glare. “Man, she deserves a jerk like you.”
“Yeah, she probably does.” Ames nodded pleasantly. “Nice talking to you.”
Stanley walked off in disgust. When he turned the corner onto Forty-Fourth Street without looking back or slowing, Ames’s body started to relax, adrenaline slacking off.
He crossed the street to NYEspresso, catching Eva’s worried face peeking through the front window of the dim shop. He gave her a thumbs-up, feeling like a hero returning home victorious after an epic battle, aware since his fight-or-flight instinct had calmed down that confronting a drunk, hostile guy had probably been really stupid.
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