Flirting with Forever

by Cara Bastone

  For a moment, John considered confiding in this stranger. Maybe it would be a relief to explain it to somebody. But what would he say? I’m a grown man who screwed up a date with a beautiful woman, and now I have a crush on her and I somehow orchestrated a situation where I get to watch her date someone else, when all I really want to do is go sit down in that chair across from her and start the hell over?

  It sounded dangerously transparent to his own ears, so he just shook his head and the bartender took the hint, sauntering away.

  But now John was thinking.

  He’d told himself, and her, that he was here, in this restaurant, playing bodyguard for Mary on a bad date because he wanted to know just how far his mother was willing to take this whole thing. But that wasn’t the truth. The truth was that he’d wanted to go to a restaurant with Mary. Have a reason to see her on a Friday night. She’d been the one who’d suggested that he be her wingman, but hadn’t he been moments away from asking it himself? Wasn’t this exact scenario always going to be the way he made sure it played out? John and Mary in a dark, sexy restaurant on a Friday night in June? Who was he trying to fool? His mother didn’t play into this one bit.

  He toggled his knee up and down and risked a glance at her. She was looking out the window of the restaurant, looking a little nervous herself, probably hoping like hell that Elijah Crawford wouldn’t show.

  Maybe, John thought, he was making this situation harder than it had to be. He pictured the names John, Mary, Elijah and Estrella all starkly blinking in a Word doc, black on white. He pictured highlighting and deleting Elijah and Estrella. Easy as pie. With a few decisive strokes, it could be just John and Mary. No subterfuge, no interferences.

  Maybe it was as simple as going to sit in that chair across from Mary, whether Elijah was really showing up or not. Maybe all he had to do was plunk his ass down and say, Mary, I’d really like to kiss you good night.

  His pulse beat woodenly at the hinge in his throat. For a man who was regularly brave in the courtroom, he honestly couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken a real chance with a woman.

  A few times a year, he’d start having sex dreams multiple nights in a row and he’d know it was time to find a hookup. When it was time, he did one of two things. Either he called up Stephanie Ortega, who he had an eighty percent chance of hooking up with—she’d been his three-quarter girlfriend about a decade ago and, if she wasn’t involved with anyone, was usually pretty receptive to a booty call. Or he went to the same dance club in Lower Manhattan that he’d been going to since law school. It was dark, a little grimy, and the only dancing that anyone really did there consisted of the sweaty grinding of soft parts against hard parts. All John had to do was knock a few drinks back at the bar and then slide onto the humid dance floor. There too he had about an eighty percent success rate of going home with someone.

  But that wasn’t what he was talking about here. No. This move, this sitting down in the chair across from Mary, was a whole different thing. He sipped at his beer, which was warm because he’d gotten here so early to try to make sure he got the right seat at the bar.

  He had two legs. He could stand up right now, walk over there and sit down. Mary, screw Elijah Crawford. I’d really like to kiss you good night.

  He could do it.

  He was going to do it.

  John reached into his back pocket, pulled out his wallet and threw cash on the bar. He took a deep breath that tasted metallic in his throat. Shiny with nerves, he was about to stand when his phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out and rolled his eyes when he read the text.

  Whatever. His mother could wait. Right now, he had a chair to sit down in, he had a beautiful woman to be crystal clear with. He was nervous and unsure, but he was doing this. He was—

  “Did she text you too?” A warm hand landed on John’s elbow and all thoughts of the chair across from Mary died an immediate death. Because Mary stood beside him at the bar and the hostess was already clearing away Mary’s used water glass from the table.

  “My mother?” he asked hoarsely, trying to catch up and clear the nerves from his throat all at once.

  Mary held up her phone to show him the text she’d just gotten at 8:00 p.m. on the button.

  Mary, dear, so sorry but Elijah won’t be making it tonight. Sorry you had to get all dolled up! Don’t walk home alone, love. I’ll see if John is still at work.

  The restaurant wasn’t actually far from John’s work and he laughed as he showed Mary the text he’d just gotten.

  Mary was just stood up by Elijah Crawford, she’s at that restaurant Mellow. I’m sure you’re still at work, so be a dear and head over there to see the poor girl home.

  John watched Mary mouth the words poor girl.

  “Your mother is ruthless!”

  He tucked in his smile. “I told you so.”

  “I know, but I just couldn’t picture it. She actually made sure I’d get stood up so that you would have a reason to walk me home. Either she’s the greatest wingman of all time or she should see a therapist.”

  John, still trying to contain his smile, raised his eyebrows. “Could be both.”

  “Wow. I mean wow. I can’t believe she went this far. For all she knows, I’m completely crushed right now.”

  “Well, in her defense, if you were crushed, she had just sent her charming, handsome son to pick up the pieces.”

  Mary laughed. “John, you’re many things, but charming isn’t quite one of them.”

  It was silly for his stomach to swoop at the fact that she hadn’t refuted the handsome part of his teasing statement. Was it possible that she thought of him as handsome?

  “You’re all paid up?” she asked.

  He nodded, all different strains of adrenaline racing and twisting through his system.

  “Shall we? No reason to stay if Elijah isn’t coming.”

  No reason. No reason. No reason.

  Give her a reason! he internally shouted at himself. There was an empty stool next to him. Getting her to sit on the stool was just as good as sitting down at the table across from her, which was no longer an option. But...wait, was it as good? Buying her a drink and telling her he wanted to kiss her somehow seemed sleazier and less romantic than physically and metaphorically taking Elijah’s seat.

  Besides, she was already walking across the restaurant toward the door. Was he really going to sit there and watch Mary Trace walk out of a restaurant again? Hell no.

  He nodded at the bartender, left the second half of his beer and hurtled after her.

  “Which train are you catching?” she asked as they fell into step down the sidewalk.

  “Oh.” He cleared his throat, nerves and adrenaline playing his heart like an accordion. Every other beat talked him into and out of saying what he wanted to say. “I’ll walk you home. I can catch the train from there.”

  Mary grinned up at him. “Estrella would be so proud.”

  He frowned playfully. “We can never tell Estrella her plan worked.”

  “Actually, I think it was technically our plan.”

  “Well, either way, she got exactly what she wanted. We can’t reward bad behavior, Mary.”

  She laughed that sparkly laugh, but after a moment of strolling, it kind of rolled into a gusty sigh. “What a way to spend a Friday night.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked carefully.

  “Fake stood up by a former elementary school bully, no dinner, and now I’m getting pity-walked home by a man who’s already been crossed off the list. It’s enough to make a girl feel a little pathetic.”

  Despite the balmy evening, John felt the blood prick coldly out of his face, his fingertips tingling in his pockets. His heart was no longer an accordion. It was simply a kicked-in shoebox vibrating idiotically in the empty hole of his chest.

  Crossed off the list.
<
br />   Ouch.

  Welp, it wasn’t going to get much clearer than that.

  * * *

  “IT’S NOT A pity walk,” John said stiffly, glaring down at Mary. She internally sighed.

  Apparently, they were back to the surliness. He’d already been a little bit aloof, his manner a bit distant and his eyes refusing to settle on her. But now that V between his eyebrows was back, his mouth turning down. Had she offended him? Was he bored with this whole thing? Was he resenting the obligation to walk her home?

  Deciding she was not going to make decoding the complicated manner of John Modesto-Whitford her full-time job, Mary merely took his statement at face value and decided not to dwell. If he wanted to stew, he could stew. He was a grown man.

  “Okay.”

  Mary’s phone gave a short little bark in her purse, making her glance quickly up at John, hoping he hadn’t heard it.

  “Did your phone just woof?”

  No such luck.

  “Yes,” she admitted, a little embarrassed. “It’s a bark. I think it’s supposed to sound like a fox. It’s a notification for an app I just started using.”

  “Do foxes bark?” he asked, squinting seriously down at her as she played with the zipper of her purse, refusing to check her phone.

  “Beats me.”

  Her phone barked again into the silence that had fallen between them.

  “What’s the app?” he asked after a minute, as if determined to keep the conversation going. She wasn’t sure why things were so stilted between them right now. Maybe he really, truly hadn’t wanted to come tonight.

  “It’s called Silver Fox.” She blushed profusely. “It’s for meeting older men.”

  She felt those alarmingly blue eyes on the side of her face. He didn’t say anything for a beat. Maybe he was thinking about how great it was that she’d started dating in her own age bracket. Maybe he was thinking how pathetic it was to date through an app.

  “You know,” he said after a minute, a strange twist in his two-toned voice, “I never got into the dating app thing. Although, now that I’m thinking about it, that might be the explanation for my oh-so-stellar track record with women.”

  “Never?” She gaped at him, glossing over the track-record comment. They could come back to that later. “You live in New York City and you’ve never used a dating app? How do you meet women?”

  “Apparently through my mother,” John answered drily. “If the last few months are anything to go by.”

  “Has she set you up with a lot of women?”

  “Just you and Tilli.”

  “The cup of weak tea?”

  “The very one.”

  “And nary a love connection.” Mary shook her head in mock sadness. “For all her conniving plans, I’m starting to think your mother isn’t very good at this.”

  “She’s not,” John said with a cold laugh that didn’t reach his eyes. “She doesn’t have so great a track record herself, except for Cormac. And she’s kept the poor guy in no-man’s-land for twenty-five years. I don’t think either of us should be taking dating advice from Estrella.”

  Mary and John’s pace had slowed just a bit, going from a brisk stride to a medium-paced stroll. His shoulders were still tight, she could see, and his eyes were on the ground. But the silences weren’t quite so stifling. “Why won’t she marry Cormac? Is it really because she doesn’t believe in second marriages?”

  “Yeah. And the divorce from my father definitely hit my mother hard. But there’s more to it than that.” John glanced at her, as if mulling something over in his mind. “I guess there’s no reason to put my best foot forward anymore, huh?”

  “Your best foot—What do you mean?” She was confused. In her mind there was always a reason to put your best foot forward. She had no idea what he was talking about.

  “I just mean that I’m not trying to impress you or anything, so there’s no reason to hide it, I guess.” He scowled, his frowny eyebrows and turned-down mouth back in full force. “My father isn’t exactly a stand-up guy. He’s a sleazeball. He left my mom right after she gave birth to me. Got another woman pregnant before he and Estrella were even officially divorced. Maddox is only my little brother by eleven months.”

  “Wow.”

  John was telling this story like it was someone else’s, like it didn’t have a hugely personal effect on him, his hands in his pockets, his strides long and easy. But Mary looked at the lines on his face. The same way she’d once seen the lives of his clients in the surly lines of his expression, now she saw the weight of his father’s betrayal there as well. Estrella’s inevitable pain at having been left.

  “Yeah. He married Maddox’s mother and by all accounts was a pretty active father. At least in the public eye. And I think that my mother always just kind of thought that getting remarried herself would sort of put an all’s-forgiven stamp on what he did, how he left us like that. I think she wears her single status with a sort of pride. That he left and she carried on as a single mom just fine. Even though she paired up with Cormac when I was a kid.”

  “What do you mean ‘in the public eye’?”

  John grimaced. “Yeah. He’s, uh, John Whitford.”

  Mary stopped walking. “Your father is John Whitford, the mayoral candidate?”

  “The former mayoral candidate.”

  “Oh, my gosh. I’m such a dummy. You even have his name. John Modesto-Whitford. I never put two and two together.”

  “The Modesto tends to throw people off the scent. If it were up to me, I would have just gone by John Modesto, but my mother hyphenated it, out of defiance, I think. She wanted to remind my father, in some small way, that he had a responsibility to me.”

  She thought of the airbrushed subway ads she’d been subjected to for months during Whitford’s mayoral run. His smarmy expression and light brown hair. He looked like the exact person who would show up for a newscaster casting call in some B-level movie. His teeth were too white, his jaw too sharp, his smile ever present and dishonest. “Gosh. The two of you don’t really look much alike at all.”

  “And therein lies the problem.”

  “What problem?”

  “It’s why he left my mother.”

  “Because you don’t look like him?”

  “Bingo.”

  Mary stopped walking, her hands covering her mouth. “He thought she’d cheated?” Oh, Estrella. She could only imagine how devastating that must have been.

  “Yeah. I have blue eyes. Both my parents have brown eyes. He thought it was clear that she’d cheated.”

  “I didn’t think that brown-eyed people could have a blue-eyed baby.”

  “It’s rare, but it depends on your genetics. I’ve got family members on both sides of my family tree with blue eyes. It was a pretty slim chance that I’d end up the family Sinatra. But here I am. John Whitford’s blue-eyed son.”

  “That’s awful,” she whispered.

  “It’s not quite as dramatic as it sounds, at least not anymore. He and I reconnected a while ago. Laid a lot of it to rest. That’s when I met Maddox.”

  “How did you reconnect?”

  John groaned and pushed heavy fingers to his forehead, like he was kneading away a headache. “Can’t believe I’m telling you my whole sad story.”

  “You don’t have to if it’s too private or something.”

  “No. It’s not that. It’s just...usually something I ease people into as they get to know me. But yeah, it’s not a secret. We reconnected after I had dug into our family tree when I was eighteen and showed up at his office one day, prepared to bully my way inside.”

  “You wanted to prove you were his son?”

  “More than anything I wanted to prove that my mother hadn’t cheated on him. I’d convinced myself that I didn’t care that he’d left me. I was just royally pissed that h
e’d besmirched Estrella’s name like that.”

  “So, what happened?”

  “I stormed in without an appointment, all the paperwork in my hand, ready to make some big courtroom-style scene.” He smiled, an unexpectedly sweet mixture of wry self-deprecation and bashfulness. “I even practiced my speech. The way I was going to pace back and forth, the exact moment I was going to point my finger at the genealogy paperwork that proved that it was perfectly genetically possible to be his blue-eyed kid. That Estrella hadn’t cheated or lied.”

  John laughed, knee-deep in the memory at that point. “Turns out, all that practice was a waste. Because I walked into his office, introduced myself, and he about fell out of his chair. I’ll never forget how big his eyes were. The size of Ritz crackers. Turns out his father had died the week before, and then in I walked, looking and sounding a hell of a lot like the deceased. My father’s campaign website might have had him listed as a Presbyterian like his wife, but he was raised as Catholic as my mother was and that man can hold on to a superstition. Apparently, it was like his father was communicating from beyond the grave. Either way, he stopped ignoring my existence.”

  John cleared his throat, obviously embarrassed that he’d just unloaded that much onto Mary. “Anyway. Tell me about the app.”

  Mary took a few more steps, still wading through John’s story in her mind. She could think of a million and two questions for John. What was his relationship with his brother like? How often did he see his father? Hell, she wanted to know whether or not John had voted for him in the last mayoral election. But she looked up at the lines in John’s face, surly, tired and...sad? She felt the curiosity leech out of her. For some reason, he’d popped the cork and let her in on this part of himself. And now he was looking a little bit like he regretted it? She couldn’t tell. There was a defeated tilt to his mouth that Mary hated to see. Not wanting to push him too far, Mary allowed him to change the subject.

  “The dating app?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You want to talk about the dating app?”