Mr. Right-Swipe

by Ricki Schultz

  But I just felt like everything needed to be perfect. That if we watched the wrong thing, it would be a reflection on me and my tastes, a reflection on our overall compatibility. And I realized, halfway through all my clicking, that what we chose to watch was likely going to matter very little because he was probably just trying to sleep with me anyway.

  Which made me even tenser and sweatier.

  So, ultimately, I decided Fuck it, and I got my buzz on. And he did indeed try to sleep with me. And I was just so relieved not to have to worry about talking or making a fool of myself or, yanno, connecting, that I let it happen.

  And I vowed never to Netflix and chill again.

  Yet here I am, frantically surface-cleaning my whole apartment like the goddamn Flash; throwing my pile o’ worn work clothes that’s morphed into an unwieldy mess into my laundry room and shutting the door on it; dusting the tables, the mantel, my nightstands, around all the tchotchkes; cleaning the toilets; making my bed (do I even remember how?).

  Adulting at its finest.

  But I don’t let myself feel bad; I’ve seen plenty a meme on the Interwebs to know I’m not the only slob in America. I’m average in terms of filth at the very least.

  I’m putting the finishing touches on my outfit—cropped jeans and a top, since we decided it’s going to be a low-key kind of night—when I head over to my liquor cabinet. All just half-empty bottles of things I should probably throw away because they’re Lord Knows How Old, when I come across a mini bottle of Malibu.

  Done.

  I toss back half of it, and the sweet coconut flavor lingers on my lips. They tingle. I feel my half a swig burn its way into my stomach like a flame traveling down a long wick.

  I scrunch my nose at the bottle.

  Finish it?

  But before I can once again unscrew the cap on my baby-sized beverage, a knock at the door makes me jump. Billie’s bark is muffled beneath a blanket on the couch in a way I know means she was dead asleep. Burrrrr!

  As I make my way to the door, I say a quick prayer to the heavens above that this dude’s going to be okay with my dog. Because if he’s not, I will hate him. Instantly. And there will be no recovery.

  One time I had a date over for the first time, and he wouldn’t even pet her. She kept wiggling and wiggling. Looking up at him with desperate eyes. What am I doing wrong, mister?

  Because, of course, she’d be polite enough to call him mister.

  And after my third, increasingly annoyed request that he just Pet the dog. Pet her, and she’ll leave you alone, Dude’s response was See, I like dogs and everything, but—I pet them when I want to pet them. Not when they want me to pet them.

  *cue the tire screech*

  I had never heard anyone say anything so bizarre or, let’s face it, repulsive before, and, quite frankly, I saw the writing on the wall right there.

  Valerie and Quinn even admitted, after their initial protestations that this remark was Not a Big Deal and I Was Being Too Picky, that someone who not only feels that way but says something like that to a dog owner he’s trying to date is probably a jerk and probably has some control issues that go beyond when to pet and when not to pet animals.

  Regardless, that was our final date—and the reason how a guy treats Billie is a big deal to me.

  Here’s hoping, James!

  I fluff my hair one last time and open the front door.

  “Damn,” he says, a six-pack of fancy-looking beer under one arm. “I was about to turn back.”

  “You were not.” I give an eye roll, but my smile and the flush in my cheeks I’m already sporting like a fourteen-year-old give me away. “Come on in,” I say, holding Billie off with my right foot while he steps inside.

  “Come here.” He wraps me up in his free arm and plants one on me that almost puts last night to shame. It makes me remember why I put myself out there over and over (and over) again.

  Billie’s beside herself, her little legs pawing away at James’s dark jeans, and he chuckles, mid kiss, and breaks away.

  My stomach lurches. The time of reckoning is upon us.

  “Aww, who’s this little sweetie?” He bends down to greet her, seemingly unfazed by her lack of obedience training, and he gives her a scratch behind the ears.

  And she’s fine. Just like I told that other jackhole she would be.

  When she disappears into the living room, I know she’s about to bring him every smelly old toy in her basket, so I usher James into the kitchen and give him a mini tour.

  “Nice of you to bring beer,” I say, making room for it in the fridge.

  “Well…I’m a nice guy.” He shrugs, but it’s not douchey; it’s matter of fact. And he’s right—he is a nice guy.

  “Are you hungry?” I ask.

  “Starving.” At once, he’s attached himself to me again, and I get lost for a second.

  His kisses are slow. Sweet. He’s not jamming his tongue down my throat. Not grabbing all over me. It’s a nice change of pace. He follows it up with a little squeeze and then we part, his hands still affixed to either side of my waist like we’re in a tableau from a Cary Grant movie.

  #sigh

  “I was thinking we might go to that little pizza place around the corner. Is that okay?” His light brown eyes smile down into mine.

  “Pizza is great,” I say.

  And not twenty minutes later, I’m sitting across from him at a black-and-white checkered table and shoving garlic bread in my face. I can’t help but giggle.

  “What?” he wants to know.

  “Nothing.” I can’t fight the grin, but it’s not nothing.

  I want to tell him that I’m usually freaked out about eating spicy or garlicky things on dates, anything that’s messy, anything that shows I eat like a human person (or, let’s face it, the carbohydrate-scarfing monster I am). But I feel at ease.

  I want to tell him, and so…I do tell him. This is unusual too.

  And when I say it, he just laughs like it’s adorable and I’m adorable and I’m sure our fellow pizza eaters are somewhat disgusted by how dreamily I look at him, but I can’t help but melt in his general direction, much less care about what they think.

  “You don’t have to worry about that stuff with me,” he says. “Besides, we’re both having garlic. That negates it.”

  “Is that right?” I shovel more in and just bask in awe because he’s like a goddamn food genius. I beam at him over our pepperoni, sausage, and mushroom masterpiece.

  When we get back to my place, my nerves begin to Irish line dance, as now it’s time to pick something to watch. I hand him the remote and excuse myself to the bathroom—hopefully he’ll have chosen something by the time I return and—poof—the pressure will be off me. Way to deal with things!

  I look at myself in the mirror, and this is how I know I’m sliiiiightly tipsy, because whenever I’m a scooch inebriated, I make faces at myself in the bathroom mirror. Like every upstanding American.

  But this time, while I do stick out my tongue, I also say a pseudo prayer.

  If this guy is not a waste of my time, then please don’t have him try to sleep with me tonight.

  I scrunch my face at myself a moment. Purse my lips.

  Not that sleeping with him wouldn’t probably be fun and not that I’m not attracted to him, but please. If that’s all he’s after, then let me know now.

  I ball both my fists to seal the deal—that’s how one prays, right?—and venture back out into the wild.

  When I return to the living room, James is still flipping channels. Dammit. Billie has her head on his knee, and she’s holding a stuffed hedgehog that’s seen better days.

  “Billie.” I laugh and snatch it from her unsuspecting jaws. Toss it down the hall.

  “Come by me.” James grins and pats the cushion next to him.

  After a surprisingly painless few minutes, he suggests The Bachelor, and it’s perfect. We can snark at it (and we do); it’s got cheesy romance (and we totes seem to be he
aded toward that stage); and, most important, we cuddle and it doesn’t feel weird (which, in turn, feels very weird). Billie has made herself at home next to us too, and she’s peacefully snoring by our feet.

  I relish in this idyllic scene, beer making me comfortably bubbly. James has got an arm around me and the fingers of his free hand are threaded through mine, his thumb absently making slow circles on my skin.

  Somehow I’m not stiff or sweaty. The conversation comes easily, and the only time it’s awkward at all—and it’s probably just awkward for me—is when one of the Bachelor girls is trying to get the rose on the one-on-one date, and she starts talking about falling in love right away and if that’s possible. Neither of us says a word or makes fun of her the way I normally would have, and so I wonder what he’s thinking and I simultaneously hate myself for wondering what he’s thinking. It makes me wish someone could eject-button me out of his arms and away from the couch entirely—but I realize that’s just because I’m feeling ooey-gooey about him and I didn’t expect it.

  And the last time I felt ooey-gooey about someone—

  James kisses me. He does it right then as if he knows he’s shutting up my internal turmoil, and it’s much appreciated on my end.

  He kisses me during commercials and every once in a while, but he never takes it any further than that. A hand to my face. Fingers sifting through my hair. But he’s never reaching for the button on my jeans. And while I know I’d asked in my tipsy-pseudo-mirror prayer for him not to do so if he’s worth it, this disappoints some stupid part of me.

  Is he rejecting me?

  While Bachelor Ben, or whatever his dumb name is, looks at the portraits of his sixteen beloveds and decides their fates, I internally yell at myself for even thinking some dude not trying to bed me right away is a rejection. I hate the world.

  When James is gone, the sense of peace that has blanketed me all evening remains. I clear away the beer bottles, and it’s kinda therapeutic.

  James is kinda therapeutic.

  And he’s from Spark and everything! #ugh

  I didn’t want Quinn and Valerie to be right, but doesn’t it feel good that they might be?

  As I finish straightening up, I rack my brain for the last time I felt anything like this. It stops me cold when I come upon it, my chest splits in two, and a chasm of memory consumes me.

  * * *

  We’re the last two patrons and the last two of our group. All the others have early sessions tomorrow, early flights, and so it’s just Jesse and me left telling our tales against the neon backlighting of the hotel bar.

  “I guess the rest of these so-called writers can’t hold their liquor like we can.” Jesse toasts me with his Jack and Coke.

  I take a demure swig of mine, a demure smile curling its way across my lips. “I’m not so sure we should be proud of that.”

  He laughs. One loud guffaw that makes me wonder at an instant just how strong he is. If I can get him to make that sound again. What exactly is happening here?

  Sure, I can hold a decent amount of alcohol, but that’s not why I’m still at the bar.

  And that’s not why he is either.

  Most of the rest of the party filed out a good forty-five minutes ago, and we barely noticed as we exchanged stories of our writing processes. Oxford comma or no Oxford comma? (Oxford comma, obviously.) Things that Normal People wouldn’t find interesting at all, but things that make me smolder at him at the mere suggestion that he even knows what they are. That he even thinks about them at all.

  “I’m glad we ran into each other today,” he says. “I was hoping I’d get another chance to serenade you after last night.” A flick of his dark brow.

  “Oh gawd.” I snort. “Unless you promise never to sing to me again, let’s consider this the last time we run into each other.”

  “Booooo. That would be a shame.” He finishes his drink and puts an index finger up to the bartender for another. Wipes his lips. Swivels toward me. Scoots closer. “So how is it that your husband lets you out of his sight for one second? If you were mine…”

  The four words hang there, electrifying.

  He lets the thought trail off in a way that’s knowing. He knows of the fireworks he’s set off beneath my rib cage. I can tell. His stare is like a goddamn x-ray. And he’s loving every minute of it. But he cloaks it in the trailing off since he doesn’t know my situation and probably isn’t sure if I’m about to throw my drink in his face or what.

  My gaze drops to my ring. “I guess this is a little misleading,” I say, still looking at it sparkling back up at me. “But I’m separated. Like the divorce-isn’t-quite-final-but-it’s-getting-there separated. Separated for almost a year. Separated by more than a thousand miles. Separated.” I shrug. “He isn’t a bad guy; he just isn’t the guy for me.”

  I feel raw at the spewing of all this detail, so I take another sip of my drink. It’s such a matter-of-fact way to account for five years of your life. For a marriage.

  And a way to sound like a crazy person!

  But something that looks like amusement rounds out his chiseled jaw. The corners of his eyes crinkle.

  “Why are you still wearing this, then?” He takes the white gold circle between his fingers, and his hands are warm against mine, ever frozen.

  “I don’t know.” I look up at him. And I contemplate that for a second because I haven’t really thought about it. My throat goes dry and the words scrape as they come out. “I’m just so used to it, I guess. I haven’t been without it in years and it seems like I’d feel naked. Empty.”

  He’s still holding my ring finger in his grasp, the heat still emanating from him to me. Connecting us.

  “We have more in common than you know,” he says, and he drops my finger. Takes my face in his hands. Glances from one eye to the other in just a hitch of a moment, and then…he dives forth.

  Jesse kisses me like he’s under water and I’m his one source of oxygen. His tongue searches mine like he’s searching for answers to all the world’s questions and I’m the only one who holds them.

  I’m all at once overwhelmed with a longing for him unlike any longing I’ve ever known.

  Somehow, we’ve settled our bill—I think?—and he’s crushing me against the wall just outside his room, his strength I’d wondered about earlier greater than I imagined. The way he lifts me onto the bed like I’m an itty-bitty thing. It’s magic.

  We miss the morning sessions the next day and the panel just before lunch. But I’ve never felt calmer, more relaxed, more at ease, than I do in his smooth, inked arms. Listening to him breathing. Feeling his chest rise and fall against my back.

  Wishing the moment never had to end.

  * * *

  Chapter 16

  Where is Hot Sub Guy? And what’s going on with that?” Sarah asks during her afternoon visit. She sits atop one of the desks at the front of the classroom and swings her long legs.

  “I don’t know—all our coworkers are in suspiciously good health.” I snort. “And nothing is going on with that.” I give her a glare.

  But I’m relieved I’ve somehow managed to eke by with another Nickless day at school. No one’s in need of a sub, apparently, and so I take this as a sign that the moons are aligning just as they should be: No Nick. James.

  “Right.” She hooks a perfectly penciled brow my way.

  “I woke up to a When can I see you again? message from James. Yanno, I’m really digging his total disregard for subtlety. It matches my inability to be subtle.”

  “That it does.”

  I smack her in the gut with a stack of worksheets.

  “Ow! And where are Valerie and Quinn? I haven’t seen them at all this week yet and they’re usually attached to your hips.”

  “I don’t know that either.” I put the papers in the color-coded homework tray and don’t meet Sarah’s eye.

  I haven’t told her about the weekend and I don’t intend to, but I’m keeping so many damn secrets—Nick the Stripper
, Valerie’s Stripper Sex, Quinn’s Stolen Car, Nick Driving Us Home—that I’m likely to have an aneurism by three.

  “Oh, you’re holding out on me.” Her eyes sparkle, and she starts grabbing at my arm. “Tell me something. Tell me one little thing.”

  I chew the inside of my cheek. “I think I might actually like James.”

  “Who’s James?”

  #headdesk

  “You know, if you had the attention span of even a gnat or a squirrel, our conversations might go better.”

  “Oh, right—the house flipper. Has he flipped you yet?”

  I laugh. “Not yet.”

  “Hey, I like this one.” Her tone more serious: “He’s not a Halloween costume. Usually you go for Halloween costumes. Firefighter, dentist—”

  “Ax murderer. Hey, I think you’re right!”

  She just smiles and shakes her head. “So are you going to see James tonight? Flip, flip!” She raises her eyebrows on each flip.

  “Naw, I think I’ll opt to take the night off. Everything in moderation, right? I want to savor this positive feeling and stave off the inevitable disappointment that comes with getting to know each other better. I’m happy right now, so I’m sure it will end horribly.”

  “Aw, be positive,” she says, a pout to her bottom lip.

  “Okay, I’m positive it’ll end horribly.”

  We both laugh until the bell rings and ruins everything because #work.

  * * *

  Once Thursday rolls around, I have nearly forgotten Nick exists, except for the fact that we have rehearsal again, and I’m pretty sure he’ll be there.

  I still haven’t responded to his messages and it still twists my insides—he did do us a solid by driving us home in the midst of a crisis, after all.

  So I can’t wait to see how awkward this will be…

  I’m just glad all this Jamesing is keeping me occupied and Eyes on the Prize because, if not for him, I’d definitely be writing Nick back and probably getting myself into a world of trouble. Or at least a compromising work situation.

  #dramaqueen

  James and I spent another dreamy, yet sex-free, evening together—this time at his place—and we made plans for Friday before I even left, so I have basically been floating around my classroom all day.