Not the Girl You Marry

by ANDIE J. CHRISTOPHER

  “And why does that matter?” Hannah dropped her robe and pulled on the dress her friend had chosen. “This isn’t about enjoying myself. It’s about getting the job I want.”

  “Don’t do that.” Sasha’s voice had a firmness it didn’t often have.

  “Do what?”

  “Pretend like you don’t like him.”

  “I don’t know him.”

  “You know enough to smile when he texts you.”

  Jesus. She thought she’d been smooth. “That’s just chemistry.”

  “Which feels great.” Sasha sounded so wistful. “Chemistry is rare.”

  Her friend had a point. She’d missed feeling like that since Noah had dumped her. The dopamine hit to her brain that she got every time she heard from Jack was nothing compared to how she’d felt when he’d kissed her. She’d been blown apart in those three minutes waiting for a car service, and she hadn’t quite put herself back together again.

  As she turned around for Sasha to zip her up, she said, “I can’t afford to think about how good it feels. If I do that, I’ll fall down with my legs open and his penis between them. Then he’ll never call me again and I’ll never get promoted to VP.” As her colorful grandfather used to say, men paid attention to women who “turned up their tails and ran a little.”

  “That’s quite a leap.” Sasha walked into the bathroom and rifled around in her makeup bag. “At least wear pink lipstick. More kissable. Less angry.”

  “I shouldn’t be kissing him if I want him to call again.”

  “You kissed him last week.”

  “But I wasn’t trying to make him my boyfriend last week.”

  Sasha held out a light pink shade. “What do you think you do with a guy you want to be your boyfriend?”

  “Like I would know.” Hannah spread the lipstick on, liking the effect. Immediately, her face looked more inviting than it usually did.

  “You kiss him.” Her best friend’s words were slow and clearly enunciated, like she was talking to a toddler or a poorly trained puppy.

  Taking Sasha’s advice wouldn’t be a hardship, if her memory served. “I can do that.” She grabbed the glass with the remaining vodka soda and melting ice cubes.

  “Just, whatever you do, don’t sleep with him on the first date.”

  “Considering the precautions I’ve taken against that happening, I think we’re safe.”

  Sasha stopped in her tracks. “Precautions?”

  She considered whether or not to enlighten her best friend and roommate on the truly drastic measures she’d taken to ensure that—no matter how much she might not want them to—Jack’s hands and his sinful mouth would remain completely out of her knickers. “You’re not going to want to hear this.”

  She walked into the bathroom to retouch her makeup and Sasha followed her. “Hear what?”

  “I don’t think your delicate ears could take it.”

  “Take what?” She moved to sit on the closed toilet and stared at her. If the Catholic Church ever decided to allow women priests, Sasha would be the one who got all the juicy confessions, even though she’d be utterly scandalized on a daily basis. No one could withstand the stare. “Think back to how long it’s been since I’ve had sex.”

  “There was that one guy right after Noah dumped you—” She paused to do some internal calculations, and then her eyes grew as large as Magnum-sized condom packets.

  “The urologist who was—ironically—sort of a twat.”

  “It’s been two years!?” Sasha shook her head. “I knew it’d been a while, but I didn’t think it had been that long.”

  “Yup.” She hadn’t made a big deal out of the fact that she wasn’t having sex, and it wasn’t that she didn’t want sex. She just didn’t want just sex with anyone who’d offered it—for the past two years. Thank goodness for the advances in sex-toy tech.

  “How are you going to keep yourself from sleeping with Jack?”

  That was a good question that Hannah had thought long and hard about, amid all of the things she was hoping were long and hard about Jack. “I haven’t waxed my hoo-ha since the last time I had sex.”

  “So you think the power of your great seventies bush is going to keep your legs closed? I don’t think it works that way.”

  “That’s precisely how it’s going to work.”

  “I mean, you said just him kissing you had you all hot and bothered. And it’s been two years. How are you going to stop yourself from doing the nasty if he puts on the moves?”

  Hannah loved her friend because she said things like “hot and bothered” and “puts on the moves,” her whole old-fashioned way of encouraging her to live a little. But Sasha’s brain clearly hadn’t stopped shorting out over the whole two years thing because her friend just stared at her, wide-eyed, in the mirror as she applied a dusting of highlighter on her cheekbones.

  “It’s not like you’ve never gone through a dry spell.” Hannah shrugged, hoping she wouldn’t have to explain herself further. She’d been on dates in the past two years, though not many. But she hadn’t wanted to get naked with any of them. “I’ll just keep reminding myself that self-service is speedy and satisfying service.”

  She said it as much to convince herself as to convince Sasha. All the other guys had lacked that essential zing, the chemistry that she’d felt right away with Jack. And without the zing, it was hard to justify opening up her body to someone else. Even if her heart would stay resolutely safe. Especially if he couldn’t touch it.

  “I’m just kind of surprised.” Sasha handed over the eyelash glue. “You sort of have this whole jaded-red-light-district-prostitute thing going on.”

  Hannah narrowed her gaze on her friend. Although they’d been through a lot, she thought Sasha knew that she was a lot more tenderhearted about her friends than she was about dudes.

  Luckily, her friend got that she’d toed over a line. “I don’t mean that you were ever promiscuous.”

  That was a lie. Hannah had tried not to be free with her affections, but she’d gone through dudes like tissues for a while when she’d first moved to Chicago. She’d just gotten dumped by Miguel and blown up her whole life, so she’d indulged in male attention. Until she’d met Noah and grokked the idea that he wanted her to at the very least pretend that she was a longtime resident of Stepford.

  Her ability to pretend—for a while at least—spoke to the fact that she could put on a show when necessary. And Jack seemed to like her without the show, so this would be much easier than trying to learn how to make an adequate potato salad for Noah’s mother, only to have her sneer from beneath her church hat.

  “I think the good news is that I have a lot of practice in turning sex down.” She winked at Sasha, who took a sip of wine and somehow managed to look skeptical at the same time. “And I’m not about to ask a guy I want to ask me out again to contend with my Debbie Does Dallas–style bush.”

  Sasha simply pressed her lips together, as though she wanted to say something inappropriate but was afraid her mother would pop her head into the bathroom. It was usually an endearing habit, but it was kind of annoying right now.

  “Out with it.”

  “Well.” She took another sip of her wine, as though she was bracing herself. “Some guys like the bush.”

  “Do I want to know how you know this?”

  “Not really.”

  Hannah turned and smirked at her friend, who had turned as red as her favorite lip gloss. “Oh, but I think I do.”

  “Mitch wanted me to grow mine out.”

  “He was really trying to bring back the whole put-your-keys-in-a-bowl thing from the late seventies, wasn’t he?”

  Sasha crossed her arms over her chest, apparently done sharing. “I think the moral of the story is that you need to have good boundaries in case he’s all for what you have going on down there.” Sas
ha gestured toward her crotch.

  Being unable to erect boundaries against whatever Jack offered her was exactly what she was afraid of.

  CHAPTER SIX

  TO LOSE A GIRL, you have to know how to get a girl in the first place.” Throughout the duration of their friendship, it was the one smart thing that prodigious idiot Chris Dooley had ever told him about dating.

  It was an ever-vexing mystery to Jack how his friend had gotten through law school. His best guess was that his sister, Chris’s ex-girlfriend, had pulled him through by her teeth. And pulling all 185 pounds of Chris Dooley through anything would be a challenge. He knew from the experience of fireman-carrying him three blocks after he passed out during the St. Patrick’s Day parade.

  He didn’t know why he was friends with the guy, other than their long shared history, but he was going to take his one TED Talk–worthy bit of advice and put it to good use.

  Being good at dating is simple. Make a plan and follow it. Communicate. Pay attention to your date and be clear about how you feel about her without jumping the gun and ruining it by seeming too eager. Treat women like they are actual people because—news flash—they are.

  That was so good, he took out his phone and jotted it down in his notes app.

  Jack pulled up in a Lyft precisely on time. He never showed up early, because it interrupted makeup and hair time. He didn’t care if she came out in sweatpants, but most girls liked makeup and hair time. And he never showed up late, because that could make a woman feel as though she wasn’t important—and even if he was dating her for a story, Hannah should get to feel important tonight.

  He’d have to learn to resist it—being the perfect-boyfriend candidate—after tonight.

  The thrill he’d felt when Hannah had said yes to his invitation warred with his practical need to sabotage the nascent thing going on. He’d fully expected her to tell him to shove it, so he’d planned ahead and called in some favors to get reservations at the best restaurant in the country. He thought that he’d maybe have to couch it as an assignment, a culture piece, and the date as a “favor” to keep him from having to eat many courses of exquisite food—and wine pairings—all alone.

  In truth, the sous chef had owed him a favor for introducing him to his girlfriend on the set of his viral How to Do Molecular Gastronomy without Being a Douche video. Regardless, the meal would go on an expense account and impress Hannah, the second thing being much more important.

  If he was starting his campaign to lose a girl—to lose Hannah—though, he would have texted her to come down. But in order to lose her, he needed to have her to lose—to have her like him enough to put up with the ensuing two weeks of bullshit.

  If he had thought about this—at all—he never would have picked Hannah for this bullshit stunt. He’d have gone out to another bar, hit on another girl, and found a more amenable lady to jerk around. The idea of adding to Hannah’s already low opinion of men sat like noxious acid on his skin.

  But he couldn’t stomach the idea of dating anyone else right now. Didn’t want to contemplate anyone else’s lips over dessert. Maybe some part of him thought he could save the thing they had after all this was over. A very foolish part of him—the part of him that maybe wasn’t fit to be a hard-hitting journalist. The part that still believed that people—some of the politicians even—could actually live up to their ideals.

  He pressed the buzzer for Hannah’s apartment. After a few moments, Hannah’s voice sounded through the intercom. Even her staticky “Jack?” hit him below the belt.

  “Expecting someone else?” He anticipated a little bit of laughter, but he got silence and a buzzer. Definitely should have chosen someone more amenable.

  When he got to the top of the aged wooden staircase, Hannah stood on the landing outside the closed door to her apartment.

  He must have given her a skeptical look, because she said, “Believe me, it’s for your own good. My roommate might look like a cream puff, but she’d have you crying for your mother in no time.”

  For some reason, he wanted to tell her that his mother never would have responded to his crying, so he didn’t do it—not even before his parents divorced—but he kept his mouth shut.

  This wasn’t about showing her his heart. This was about charming her enough to string her along for two weeks or five thousand words, whichever came first.

  She was gorgeous. Dressed in a black lacy dress that worshipped the tops of her thighs, heels that his sister would likely covet, and a black trench that hid away the tantalizing skin below her collarbone. Still, she shifted from foot to foot.

  Her lips, the ones that had left a streak of red across his cheek the night they’d met, were painted a dainty pink, like brand-new ballet slippers. Against the honey of her skin, the color spoke of innocence but promised sin.

  Maybe she expected him to say something more, but he didn’t. Couldn’t find words.

  So he offered her his arm and led her down the stairs, quaking a little inside from the feel of her soft palm through the arm of his jacket.

  They got in the car, and she stayed silent for a long moment. He still didn’t have his full capacities back. Just the flash of thigh that he’d gotten when she’d bent to get in the car had diverted blood flow from his brain. Sweat gathered on his upper lip.

  He’d never been nervous on a date before. Even with Maggie—at fourteen—he hadn’t felt like this. He’d gone after her with all the idiot gusto of youth, never expected her to say no. He’d known, down to his marrow, that they would fall in love.

  But Hannah surprised him at every turn. Flipping him off, then kissing him. Telling him no to coffee, then agreeing to a full-on dinner date. Maybe that was why he could scarcely bear looking at her.

  But he had to risk it if he wanted this gambit to work. And he did, only to find the corner of her gaze on him.

  “What made you say yes?”

  She bit her lip and smirked at him, and he could feel a little bit of her cynical armor slip into place over the lace and gabardine of her clothes. “Well, I always wanted to eat at Alinea, and your videos don’t make you seem like a serial killer.”

  “What do they make me seem like?” God, what a dumb question. Where had he misplaced his balls?

  “Different.” He wanted to probe that, but they pulled up to the restaurant, and it would have to wait.

  Maybe forever, because he couldn’t plumb her depths and hurt her—really hurt her—and live with himself.

  * * *

  —

  HANNAH HAD NEVER BEEN on a date like this. This golden retriever of a man had actually shown up at her door. She’d never had that happen before. Scratch that. Before tonight, no one had even driven a car really slow outside of her condo so she could jump in. It was too much for a first date, and she hadn’t helped matters with her dumb joke about him maybe, possibly, being a serial killer.

  She had to get her shit together—this was about the promotion, not hoping that this guy liked the real her.

  When they entered the restaurant, they were in what looked like a long corridor. His hand on her lower back made her feel slightly less creeped out when a bit of wall that had been concealing the entrance opened to their left side.

  He’d picked her up and then he’d brought her to a restaurant she hadn’t ever been able to justify a trip to. Part of her had wanted to come here when she finally secured a promotion to VP, and it was poetic that her ticket to that promotion brought her to the midwestern temple of molecular gastronomy for their first date.

  She’d wanted to argue that it was way too fancy, that they were just getting to know each other, but she didn’t want to be argumentative. According to Noah, she didn’t know when to shut her mouth and be polite—when to go along to get along—and that was why she hadn’t asked about how he could afford this place. Journalists didn’t make that much money and were in constant da
nger of getting laid off. Once a week, there was news on social media about an outlet closing down.

  Curiosity gnawed at her as she took her seat across from Jack in the stark white dining room. But the need to have answers for the questions haunting her and her delight at finally getting to eat here warred with sharp lust for the man sitting across from her. She’d thought he was infuriatingly handsome the night they’d met, but she must have forgotten how sexy he was. He was cute, but there was a little bit of the devil that danced in his stupid green eyes. His gaze was sharp with something that said he was thinking all sorts of filthy things, and those telepathically expressed ideas wound their way up her spine and implanted pictures in her head of hot kisses and lots of his naked, golden skin.

  Thankfully, the server arrived at the table before drool hit her lips and slipped down her chin. Jack confirmed they wanted to have the wine pairings, and that raised Hannah’s hackles a little bit.

  It must have shown up on her face, and he must be astonishingly perceptive, because he laid a smile on her that had probably magically disappeared panties all over town for years. She couldn’t stop the smirk that hit her lips at thinking about Jack and what she wanted him to do inside her panties—after at least three dates, of course. And if he didn’t stop looking at her like that, she wouldn’t last the full three. At this point, she would be lucky to make it through two and half dates before going boots up on the closest available sturdy surface.

  “What?”

  “You’re beautiful.”

  “You’re full of shit.” Despite her denial, her skin flushed, and she smiled at him. “Or, if you’re trying to seduce me, you’re certainly doing it the wrong way.”

  “Well, the thing is, I’m not trying to seduce you.” She hadn’t expected him to say that.

  “You’re not?” She looked around the room, at all the well-heeled and quiet couples and foursomes scattered across the ultramodern décor. “Why would you drop almost a thousand dollars on dinner if you weren’t trying to seduce me?”