The Love Study

by Kris Ripper

  “You may kiss my hand,” they said, smirking.

  So I did. Heart fluttering, worried that my lips were oily, but not too fast. Kissing Sidney’s hand was not something to be rushed. I allowed my lips to press firmly against their skin, inhaling a little, then withdrawing.

  The act of doing it, of receiving permission and then taking my time, made me strangely bashful. I couldn’t quite look at them after. Though I also didn’t drop their hand, which was warm in both of mine.

  “Physical chemistry,” they said softly. “Indisputably a five.”

  Yes. “So um...my people will contact your people about our date.”

  “I look forward to it. Thank you for making broccoli.”

  “Totally my pleasure. I enjoy cooking.”

  “Even in a kitchen with pint-sized appliances and no food?”

  I polished my nails on my shirt. “Especially! The challenge is fun.”

  They smiled and I felt weirdly...not possessive, exactly. More like greedy. In a good way. Greedy for more time with them, for more smiles.

  Which is when I realized we’d made it to the doorway and I was awkwardly standing there. Staring at them. “This is weird now. I lingered too long and now it’s weird.”

  “It’s not that weird. See you soon, Declan.”

  “Yep, right, see you soon.” I waved, backing out, almost losing my footing. “Oops. Probably I should not fall down the stairs.”

  “That’d be good.”

  I waved. “Byyyyyye.”

  They laughed, still standing in their doorway. “Byyyyyye.”

  I managed to get myself to the car without any further fouls against my own person.

  And oh my god. I was going on a date. With Sidney. Yaaaaaaaaaaay.

  Chapter Twelve

  Sidney texted me on drinks night to say they were staying home this week. I hoped it wasn’t because of me, but on the other hand, I knew my friends were going to be ridiculous, so not forcing Sidney to witness that was potentially advantageous to our future. Friendship. Whatever.

  I got to the Hole a little late, but through some magic (or just good timing), the Motherfuckers had snagged our first favorite table.

  That was an omen, right?

  “Three cheers for Mr. Big Shot!” Mason called when he saw me.

  To my instant and utter mortification, my terrible, awful, very fucked-up friends cried out three actual choruses of “Hip-hip hooray!”

  “You guys are the worst,” I muttered, attempting to bury my entire body behind Oscar.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he said, way too innocently. “You’re a celebrity now, right? Shouldn’t you have on a fake mustache? Aren’t you worried about getting recognized?”

  I slugged him hard in the arm. At least he had the decency to yelp.

  “Okay, okay, let’s be civil about this.” Ronnie paused. “What’s it like, banging a YouTube star? Is it different than banging a normal person, or—”

  “Shut up, we aren’t, and seriously, shut up.”

  “You’re not?” She pulled a shocked face. “And if not, why not?”

  I pulled myself up to my full seated height. “A gentleman never tells.”

  Mason pushed a Coke toward me. “So spill, since you’re no gentleman.”

  “I am affronted, I say affronted by your manner, sir! Weehawken!”

  “At dawn!” the others called.

  Which had all of us laughing, both out of habit and from a sense that things were righted. It was always a little odd when one of us acquired a new...person. That they’d seen it kind of happen over YouTube was a little odder than usual. And I hadn’t really shared details. But there weren’t many to share.

  Well. Maybe a few.

  “You kissed their hand,” Mason said flatly. He turned to Mia. “Did he ever kiss my hand the entire time we were together? No, he did not.”

  She patted his arm—there, there—but looked at me. “Aww, Dec, that sounds super romantic.”

  “I don’t know. I thought about doing it and asked if I could and they said yes and...it seemed like the thing to do at the time?”

  Ronnie leaned into Mia. “He asked if he could! How freaking sweet is that?”

  “Consent is so freaking sweet.”

  “Okay, quit being such big lesbians about it.” Mason poked me. “I’ve actually seen your sweet side and that was an all right show, but it’s you making dinner that cinches it for me. Who can resist a man who makes dinner?”

  “I threw some broccoli in a toaster oven.”

  Oscar shook his head. “I find Sidney’s living situation depressing. You always see big YouTubers in these gorgeous houses. Not with a kitchenette and a toaster oven.”

  Mia reached for Ronnie’s hand, holding it on top of the table. “They’re not that famous or we wouldn’t have ever met them. Famous YouTubers don’t work the early stocking shift at the store.”

  The idea that I could have somehow missed meeting Sidney made my whole body contract, like I was physically pulling away from the idea. “I’m so glad I met them. Even if most of our relationship has been conducted in embarrassing YouTube segments.”

  “Until now, but Mase is right, you made them dinner. That’s huge.”

  “You guys have very low expectations of me. I brought them chocolates the week before.”

  My friends all goggled around at one another.

  “What?”

  Mason sucked in a breath, waving one hand around in an oh no she didn’t. “How many times did this man bring me chocolates when we were dating? Once! One time! And he mostly bought them for himself!”

  “Sweetheart,” Ronnie said, leaning across the table. “I think maybe he just wasn’t that into you.”

  “Hey!” both Mason and I yelled at the same time.

  Ronnie grinned.

  “Also, let it be noted, Mase, that I ate most of Sidney’s, too.”

  He let his head drop into his arms. “What are we going to do with you, man?”

  “Um. Buy me chocolates?”

  “Naw, you owe me chocolates. Forever.”

  “This is why they couldn’t get married,” Oscar said to no one in particular. “Poor communication skills and too much sugar.”

  Both of us reached out to shake him at the same time.

  “Okay, okay, okay! Quit it!”

  “Listen.” Mia waited until we’d stopped giggling like mad men. “This seems really good, Dec. And I’m happy for you.”

  Ronnie raised her glass. “Me too.”

  The others followed and I reluctantly raised my Coke as well.

  “To Declan!”

  “To Declan!”

  “You guysssss...”

  Mason reached over to pat me on the back. “All joking aside, I like them, and I like you two together. You got this.”

  “I really don’t.”

  “We have your back,” Ronnie added. “Anything you need.”

  “Um, no.” Oscar looked down his nose at me. “You lucky asshole.”

  At least two people kicked him simultaneously.

  He sighed. “Fine. I have your back too. Even though I don’t know why you need anyone to have your back since you’ve seriously been dating for five minutes and already found someone you want to see more than—Ow!”

  Ronnie smiled pleasantly. “All he needed to hear was the first part, darling.”

  After that topics mostly shifted to the usual orders of business—work, wedding stuff, family of origin updates, wedding stuff—and away from me, which was nice. But it left me with too much time to think. Was I really trying to do this? Date someone? Was I really trying to bill myself as a person who could...do that?

  I’d barely dated in college. Barely. If this job required experience, I’d be distinctly unqualified. Plus,
I’d left my last (literal) engagement at the last (literal) moment without any warning. No, I guess I could have walked up to the altar and then turned and run for it.

  But that was why I couldn’t get out of the limo. Because if I started walking, that would be it, I’d go through with it, even though in that moment I knew it was a bad idea.

  I hadn’t known it until that moment. And Mase didn’t realize that until later. A long time later.

  So how was I supposed to go into anything with that kind of track record? This whole thing was made of bubble gum and toothpicks. What was I thinking?

  * * *

  The nice thing about your ex being your best friend is that they don’t hold back. That’s also the worst thing.

  “You got scared so you’re trying to justify backing out. Get your shit together, Swick-Smith.”

  I leaned into him as we walked to our cars. “Remember when we were thinking about hyphenating our names?”

  “Declan and Mason Swick-Smith-Ertz-Scott.” I could hear the grin in his voice. “Sometimes I wish we’d gotten married just so we could introduce ourselves as the Swick-Smith-Ertz-Scotts.”

  “And send Christmas cards. ‘From the home of the Swick-Smith-Ertz-Scotts.’ It’d be us in front of a fire holding up our phones with cute puppy photos.”

  “Ha, like we wouldn’t actually get puppies, we’d just have pictures of puppies? Nice touch.”

  “I don’t think we’re responsible enough for puppies, Mase.”

  “Truth.”

  It was nice, walking arm in arm with someone. Would Sidney be into that? I’d have to ask.

  “Don’t get scared,” he said more seriously. “Have fun. You obviously have fun together, focus on that.”

  “Yeah, but...” I wasn’t sure how to phrase the thing that kept niggling at me. “But like...what if I fuck it up again?”

  He exhaled, breath white in the cold air. “Honey, you didn’t fuck it up last time.”

  “I left you at the altar.”

  “I was there. Yeah, okay, you definitely fucked it up. With regards to the wedding, not the relationship.”

  “Uh, and the difference is what?”

  He patted my arm. “Look, I wanted to be married. A lot. I thought you did too.”

  “I mean... I thought I did? But then I guess it scared me more than I wanted it.” It still made me sad. Some part of me never stopped wishing I’d...wanted to be married as much as Mase had? Or maybe that I’d figured out I didn’t sooner? “I still don’t know how I could have not fucked that up.”

  “Well. You could have, you know, told me before our families were all assembled and we’d paid for the catering.” Arm squeeze. “Before the invitations went out, even. Or, like, in that first conversation when both of us were all ‘Should we?’ you could have been like ‘Maybe not.’ Just spitballing here.”

  “I didn’t know at that point, though.” It was simultaneously hard to remember that moment and impossible to ever forget it. “I was so excited. And you were excited. And it seemed like we could...do anything, be anything. Our future was this big open door and we just had to climb through.”

  He smiled as if he was remembering that too. “Yeah. It really did feel that way. But what I worked out later, sometime after I’d stopped fantasizing about kicking your butt and before I casually asked Mia how you were doing like I didn’t actually care?”

  I bit my lip. Giggling right now would be wrong. But I could so picture that. “I badgered all of them incessantly to tell me if you were okay.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “Yeah, then I badgered them about how I could help until Ronnie got super mean and was like ‘This is all your fault, leave him alone!’ Which, you know, fair.”

  “I needed some space. For sure. But what I realized was that it felt like this big open door, but if we’d actually walked through it the whole thing would have collapsed. And I don’t think it would have taken years, either. I think we would have hated each other real damn fast, Dec. If we’d gotten married we probably wouldn’t still be friends.”

  I stopped walking to look at him. “Oh my god, don’t even say that.”

  “It’s true. We were twenty-three. And stupid. We wanted to hold a big party and almost ruined our friendship.” He shrugged and pulled me against him to continue walking. “Anyway, you’re not marrying Sidney.”

  “I don’t want to marry anyone, honestly. No offense to you and the rest of the marriage people.”

  “We’ll try to get over our collective disappointment.”

  “Oh burn. Hey, I’m quite a catch, I’ll have you know! I make broccoli!”

  He giggled. “I just imagined you with a magic wand, like transfiguring a pencil into a head of broccoli.”

  “I always had a problem with the fact that they’d transfigure things into totally different masses. Isn’t there some physics rule about matter or something that makes that impossible?”

  “I won’t read Harry Potter because: physics by Declan Swick-Smith.”

  I elbowed him. “I saw the movies!”

  “You are an uncultured travesty.”

  “GASP.”

  He laughed. “I most regret our lack of marriage when you speak aloud things normally typed into a messenger window.”

  “Middle finger emoji. But the black one, you know, I’d want to be culturally sensitive while flipping you off. Wait, hang on, would that be fucked up? Since it wouldn’t really be your hand flipping you off? Shit, now I’m super confused.”

  “Your attempt at sensitivity which is actually worse than not attempting sensitivity is noted and appreciated, o white man,” he intoned. “Where would my people be without the dark-skinned emojis so generously granted by your people, the people of the default emoji skin color?”

  Both of us giggled.

  “I’ll want to know pretty much every millisecond of the date, by the way. Take good notes.”

  “Maybe Sidney will record it for posterity.”

  Mason’s eyes lit up as if that was a real thing.

  “No!” I said quickly.

  “But—”

  “No!”

  “For the children!”

  “Absolutely not.”

  He made kissing faces at me. “I bet you’d let them record if they wanted to.”

  “They do not want to record our date.”

  “You should at least post a date selfie on Instagram.”

  I rolled my eyes before realizing that might be a thing. “Is that a thing?”

  “Do you even look at my social media accounts? It’s like we’re not even friends!”

  I let that sit until the echo of his shriek died away, then said, “But seriously.”

  “You’re a terrible human being.” He pushed me toward my car. “Take your lack of Instagram hashtag knowledge and go home.”

  “Hey, is that what those pictures of you looking all ‘Smooth Criminal’ are?” I called. “Date selfies?”

  “Go home, cave man!”

  “Aww, you watch my program! Mase, d’you want me to set you up with the conventionally handsome chivalrous guy? I bet I could!”

  “You monster!” He blew me a kiss. “Love you, text me everything. Real time is acceptable.”

  “I will be busy!”

  “Hell yeah you will!”

  We waved one last time before ducking into our cars and driving away.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Since neither of us were interested in a fancy dinner date, I figured we’d do something different and get breakfast instead. Except I hadn’t reckoned on Sidney’s work schedule. They worked all early morning shifts stocking, which they said they preferred because for the first half of their shift the store was closed, and after that there weren’t too many customers. But it did mean they weren’t available on Saturda
y or Sunday until after noon.

  So I proposed lunch instead. Watch me roll with change.

  “Oh, going traditional, very daring,” they said when I explained.

  “What? Not traditional! Hello, traditional is dinner. I’m thinking outside the box! Breaking the mold!”

  “Breaking the mold, yes, clearly.” I could tell they were smiling even though we were on the phone. (Yes, the actual phone again, like it was the fifties or something. Sidney was editing video and said they could talk briefly on the phone, but couldn’t really text.) “Lunch sounds good. Do you have a place picked out?”

  “Have you been to The Diner in La Vista?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then it’s time you went! Should I pick you up or do you want to meet there or what?”

  “I’ll be just out of work, so either we should meet there or I should pick you up.”

  “Oh, good point.” I calculated distances from the store to my place to the restaurant. “I’m totally not on your way. I’ll meet you there.”

  “Sounds good. See you Saturday afternoon.”

  That sounded very final. Obviously they were working, so I just said, “Yep, see you then!” and “Bye!”

  The second we hung up I was wracked with doubt. Maybe this hadn’t been the right thing? Should I have offered to make dinner (or lunch or brunch)? Should I have skipped meals altogether? Despite Sidney knowing a whole lot about me, I felt like I knew virtually nothing about them. Which wasn’t totally accurate, but wasn’t totally inaccurate either, especially when it came to dating.

  All of that could be addressed on our actual date, which we were actually going on. Saturday afternoon. At The Diner. I ignored the butterflies in my stomach and reminded myself I was being very unconventional because: lunch. No big deal. Right? Right.

  * * *

  I’d forgotten how crowded The Diner could get. We ended up waiting twenty minutes for a tiny table in a corner next to the kitchen, but at least that gave me time to text Mason a super freaked-out-looking date selfie.