by Julia Kent
It meant nothing and it meant everything. Neither had said a word to anyone they had dated. Not a word to their friends or coworkers. Mike had quietly purchased the ski resort where he worked; it had been up for sale for a long time and was on the brink of financial collapse due, largely, to inept management and an owner who viewed it as a losing business. Mike would change that, Dylan knew. Having the money to buy the ski resort and one of the nicest cabins on the mountain had blown some life back into his partner. Too bad they didn’t have the third who would complete them, taking a dull dyad and turning it into a robust triad.
Maybe Laura would…ah, who knew?
“No, of course I’m not going to tell her about the money.” Dylan turned away from Mike and finished pulling on his sweater. “Can you imagine that scene? ‘Oh, hi, I’m Dylan and I am a billionaire.’” He choked on the word, his face flushing and going cold at once, the syllables so fake. So poseur. Like a little kid dressing up in Dad’s dress shoes, or a teen trying on personalities to find the right fit. Except he had no choice here. Jill had left them this fortune and it was theirs. No trying anything on for size. This was serious money and Dylan and Mike had been catapulted from working class stiffs to billionaire bachelors.
“Billionaire.” Mike lifted his chin, as if sniffing something. “It does roll off the tongue nicely.”
“Mike Pine, billionaire,” Dylan announced grandly, jumping on the bed and bouncing like a mad monkey. His hair flopped in his eyes and he watched Mike plant his hands on his hips, shaking his head, as if faced with a recalcitrant, hyperactive eight year old.
“You are such a child.”
“Yes, but I am a wealthy child!” Bounce bounce bounce – boom! Dylan jumped off the bed and bounded onto the floor next to Mike, like a superhero landing. Mike’s eyes went from amused to pained, then his shoulders slumped forward. Dylan rubbed the soft spot between his shoulder blades and they both stared at a spot on the wall that seemed to contain everything they yearned for.
“She left us all this money, Dyl. We had no idea.” Dylan shifted uncomfortably and said nothing. Mike picked up on his change, though, and turned to him with an accusing look. “You knew?”
Dylan dropped his hand from Mike’s back and sighed. “No. I didn’t know she was a billionaire! But I figured out pretty early on that she had money. We were in college, Mike. The dot com boom hadn’t happened, and she claimed to make money off ‘websites.’ How do you think she could afford to spot us on all those trips we took?”
“We camped and kept it cheap, Dylan,” Mike sputtered. “She didn’t live like a crazy-rich person.” Blinking hard, Mike started to say more but turned toward the dresser where Dylan kept a picture of Jill. The three of them on Cape Cod, at First Encounter Beach, the green marsh grasses so thick that hundreds of thousands of minnows lived in the shallow waters there, almost giving the water a viscosity of live, teeming fish. The ocean had been so perfect, the water warm though thrashing for the bay that day, and the three of them peered into the sun, some random stranger stopped and asked to take a pic.
A pic taken a month before they knew Jill had lymphoma. For the month after that trip she’d been fatigued. Not herself. Quiet. Waving away their concerns, she had trudged on, working on her “websites” and going for long runs that turned into long walks and that, finally, turned into a leisurely stroll during which she’d collapsed. Mike had been with her and carried her three city blocks to the emergency room of a hospital. The next few days were a blur Dylan couldn’t let himself resurrect.
Not now. Not as he prepared to go out with someone new. Someone vibrant.
Someone alive.
“Yeah, Jill kept a lot of secrets from us, Mike.” His partner bristled; the wound was still too fresh.
“So let’s continue her legacy, then, and keep the money a secret.”
“For now, sure. When the time’s right, we can talk about it.”
“Jesus.” Mike ran a shaking hand through his hair and stared out the window at the city below. “What a fucking curse.”
“And a blessing.”
Angry eyes met Dylan’s as Mike spun around. “Call it whatever you want.”
“It’s both,” Dylan conceded.
“It just is – you’re right. It’s both.”
“You get to save the resort. You know Jill would have been happy.”
“So then why didn’t she save it? Why, Dylan, didn’t she tell us she had all this money? I mean, damn! It’s not something you casually forget to mention. ‘Oh! That’s right! I’m part of the richest point-whatever-oh-one percent in the world. While you were complaining about your ski mountain going under, did that slip my mind? Oops!’” The sneer in Mike’s voice was utterly uncharacteristic and made Dylan recoil. Dude was pissed.
The anger, Dylan knew, was really a form of mourning.
“Tell it to Jill, Mike.” The words took the winds out of the larger man’s sails, his body literally shrinking before Dylan’s eyes. Jill’s ashes were on that very mountain Mike had just bought – a big reason for his purchase. Now he could have her forever, safe and sound and secure.
But still dead.
Mike bit his upper lip and nodded. “Yeah. I will.” Dylan was running late for his date and slipped out the door quietly. He was ready to move forward, to move on, to continue past the past. Someday – soon – he hoped Mike could join him.
He looked at his smart phone. Shit, he was already running late. No way he was going to blow this by making her think he was standing her up. A quick look in the mirror again, a little bit more cologne. A final check of his smile in the mirror and he walked out of the apartment and into what he hoped would be a part of his future.
Mike could stew in the past.
***
Laura wasn’t quite sure what to make of this as she paced a safe distance from the restaurant, trying to leave herself an out if she needed to save face and just disappear. A sink hole might have been better, but she couldn’t conjure one at will. Running away in shame, though, she was familiar with – so she skulked three storefronts from the entrance. He had said 6:00 and it was 6:07. Seven minutes normally meant nothing in terms of the wheel of life. But right now each second felt like torture and 420 tortures were adding up to to one big ball of fear. And it all rested right in her gut where desire should be right now, where happiness should be right now, where joy and, well – not quite love, but at least lust should be residing. Not this pit of despair.
It’s only seven minutes Laura, it’s only seven minutes Laura, she said to herself. The seconds ticked on until her smart phone clicked over and now it was eight minutes. It’s only eight minutes Laura, it’s only eight minutes Laura, it’s only eight minutes. A thin bead of sweat burst under her lip, and on her cheeks, and in that valley between her breasts in a way that only the cold irrational anxiety of dating could bring out in her.
Oh, fuck this, she said to herself. I don’t think I can do this anymore, even Mr. Hotty Hot Hot Firefighter isn’t worth this. I’m just gonna go home and have a date with Ben and Jerry, that’s my comfort zone, right there baby. Maybe the most dependable men on Earth because this, this is bullsh –
Zzzz, the phone buzzed suddenly. She had it on vibrate and she startled and it fell out of her hands, clattering to the ground.
“Shit,” she shouted, reaching down, scrambling after it and hoping that the screen hadn’t broken. Luckily, she had a protective case on it, and grabbed it and slid her finger across the screen to answer the call.
“Hello? Hello?” she said, trying desperately to keep her eagerness out of her voice.
“Hello,” a deep man’s baritone greeted her, with a friendliness that he had no right to offer her right now – yet she was so glad he did. “Uh,” he hesitated, “is this Laura?”
“Yeah. Yeah, it is,” she answered brightly, her voice a little too high-pitched, her anxiety a little too intense right now, but she trudged on.
“Oh, yeah, really?” The voice
stammered. “Yeah, this is Dylan. I am so sorry,” he said, and she hoped that the sincerity was true. Hoped it was true, needed it to be true with a part of her that knew…that knew that there was no way of knowing.
“I’m so sorry. I’m running late. I am walking down Twelfth Avenue right now, and, in fact, I can see the entrance to the restaurant and, wait a minute, ooh, I don’t know.” A low wolf whistle. “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to make it.”
“What? What? What did you say?”
“Yeah, there is this gorgeous woman just standing out there and, and I don’t know, I mean, I think, let’s see, she’s wearing a fuzzy sweater and a damn fine gray pencil skirt and heels that make her legs go on forever. And, I don’t know, you know, Laura, I may have to date her tonight instead of you.”
She nearly dropped her phone again. Oh, my God, her brain burned, her internal voice screaming like a rat stuck in a cage with Napalm all over it and lit on fire.
And then she got it, calming down instantly. Oh, oh, he was complimenting her. He was joking. He liked her. Who was this guy?
Now she could see him. Deep breaths, Laura, she told herself. He was joking around. Being playful. Not mean. He was a block and a half away, walking toward her with a swagger, with a confidence she didn’t see in many men. One hand in his pocket, just marching down the street like he had all the time in the world. And boy, were his eyes eating her up. She could feel it from a block and a half, a block and a quarter away.
And she was giving it right back.
Her heart was beating a million times a minute from the fear about his joke, and the anxiety that the joke had triggered. But now – but now it was like the electrons were playing between them. Molecules were flying millions and millions of miles a second between the two of them. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do when they actually stood two feet from each other, because she was ready to take him right there, right then on the street, public indecency be damned.
Pretty soon, just seconds later, he was down to a block, half a block, and he took his hand out of his pocket, giving her a wave. Then she realized that he had been talking to her the entire time and she had no idea what he was saying.
***
“Laura? Laura? Hello, hello – are you there? I can see you and you’re just standing there. I am waving at you right now… Laura, have I mistaken you for a human being or are you a really hot store mannequin?” He heard her laugh. Aha. Keep going, Dylan told himself. Recover from the terrible joke.
“Or part of some performance art thing like that guys like me don’t understand? Were you Andy Warhol’s protégé? Or is this some sort of flash mob set-up and nineteen naked members of the Pirate Party are about to appear and don Mickey Mouse masks in some geopolitical protest?” She suddenly folded and bent over laughing. He breathed a sigh of relief. Sweet!
That was it – she was forcing him to use every remaining brain cell in his body to process basic bodily functions as every red blood cell rushed to his groin. He couldn’t stop raking her body with his eyes. He couldn’t stop eating her with his retinas. She was some kind of Dylan magnet. Her entire appearance was luscious and her eyes – as he got closer he saw the kindness, the sweetness in them and there was a beauty, a full body, full-fledged gorgeousness about her that made him hard instantly.
“Stupid business casual,” he muttered to himself, mouth tilted away from his phone. He was wearing the kind of pants where his arousal could become very obvious.
Now that he stood in front of her, no more than a foot and a half separating them, he felt like the biggest idiot on the planet for even joking about not dating her. She was stunning, all curves and woman and he wanted to smell her, bury his face in that sweet neck, feel her in his arms and listen to her breath as he made her happy.
What did her cries of ecstasy sound like? Would she turn her face away? Bite the pillow? Rake lines of ownership into his back with those glossy nails?
Later. Later, he would find out. The same confidence that had always been there for him told him so. Like a second person living in his head, it just knew. She was his, and she didn’t know it yet. But she would, and he had all the time in the world to teach her that.
With his tongue.
He just stood there and stared at her and didn’t know what to say; he couldn’t recite what went through his head as his eyes roamed over the perfect topography of her body. She stood there and stared back and didn’t seem to know what to say, either. This silent dance needed a better beat.
One he could drive home with his –
Finally, she said, pointing to the door, “That is a great restaurant you picked,” her voice as breathless as he felt. Except she was actually talking and he was standing there looking like a fish out of water, his mouth opening and closing as he tried desperately to get something like a linear thought going. Where the hell was that confidence now? He wasn’t awkward or worried or any of those namby-pamby feelings Mike always described having. It was more that his brain had gone blank at the sight of her and everything but his arousal went into hibernate mode. She smiled and seemed to expect something intelligible to come out of his mouth, but first he had to dig his way out of the enormous, gaping hole of lust he’d just tripped into.
How in the hell was she still single? Why hadn’t someone snatched her up?
“It’s this whole Asian fusion thing. My friend told me it would be a good idea to bring a first date here and it might be a place to impress somebody.” And the food is supposed to be amazing, but that’s secondary. She seemed so nervous, those glittering eyes wary, already on guard from his lame attempt at humor on the phone.
He felt like an ass, could sense he was losing her, and his charm system went into overdrive, not the shallow Dylan so used to getting a woman to step out of her pants within an hour of their first drink in a bar, but the slower burning Dylan who stumbled across Jill in college years ago and who felt sucker punched and euphoric all at once.
“So impressing me is more important than the food?” Laura laughed and looked at him with an uncertain caution in her eyes, a caution that he actually did not like but that spoke of something he couldn’t put his finger on.
“Yeah,” he said, a slow grin stretching over his face, the word more a promise than an answer.
“I don’t think you have to worry about someone like me,” she replied, looking away with a bashful smile, her blond ponytail sliding down the side of her creamy neck as if guarding her, creating a safe barrier and holding her in place.
He cocked his head, looked her over again and wondered what on earth was she was talking about. Standing outside the restaurant babbling like an idiot wasn’t exactly his idea of a good date, though, so he just motioned her toward the door and said “Shall we?”
As she walked past him impulse took over and he put one hand on the small of her back as the maitre d’ held the door open. The feeling was so electrifying, his hand on her body, that he grew harder, which he didn’t think was possible. This was already more promising than he had ever expected.
Even if this dinner was going to cost him half of an entire paycheck, he did not care. Oh – that’s right. He was not really relying on his paycheck anyhow these days, he reminded himself. Finances had changed radically months ago, a surprise that he and Mike still tried to assimilate. Stop it, Dylan. Stop thinking about Jill, he told himself. None of that should enter into the calculation of the emotional side of this. Tonight is about Laura.
As they were led to their table in a smoky-grey environment, with a giant twenty-foot golden Buddha lit up in the corner and a small fountain bubbling at its feet, all he could do was stare at her ass, trying to to figure out how not to sound like another one of those guys who is desperate enough to go on an online dating site and find somebody to fuck.
Neither one of them seemed to know what to say, so he figured, being the guy, he would take the lead. That’s how it would work in bed…and then his mind went blank at the flash of a vision
of his face buried between Laura’s soft thighs. He practically threw the folded napkin in his lap to hide what he thought must be the tallest raging hard-on ever.
He coughed. “Your profile said you’re from Los Angeles, but you moved here to the east coast. Who do you work for?” Just then, the waitress interrupted as if on cue and asked them if they wanted a drink. Laura ordered a sake.
“Make it two,” he added. If she was going to go for the harder stuff, so would he. Boy, this could end up being a much more interesting date than he ever expected.
***
She felt like she had lost her entire vocabulary all in the past three minutes. This guy was incredible. He had taken her to the hottest place in town. Granted, his friend had recommended it, but who cared if that was the main reason why?
Dylan seemed to care, to take the time to make a good first impression, and she loved his sense of humor even if it did nearly lead to her early demise from a heart attack via misunderstanding. She had never been taken anywhere so nice. Of course she could never tell him that. Most of the guys who dated her took her to a restaurant that had 50-inch plasma televisions blasting five different sporting events all at once, and the most gourmet item on the menu was fried mozzarella sticks.
She blanked when the waitress asked her what she wanted to drink, so she blurted out sake, because it was the one drink she had ever had in an Asian restaurant years ago, when her mother had taken her to a Hibachi place for her twenty-first birthday. Well, hey, sake it was. She figured one shot would loosen her up and then she could show more of herself. With Dylan joining her, she knew she’d ordered appropriately for this type of restaurant and began to let herself unclench a little.
She glanced at the table and saw that she was revealing more of herself already. Her sweater had dipped down a little too much to show the black lace of her bra and when she looked up, she found that she did not meet Dylan’s eyes with her own, but that he, in fact, was staring at the same spot she had just been looking at.