One
Amber bulbs dangle on white strings above our heads, making everyone in the restaurant look like a cartoon character with a bright idea. I, however, feel like an absolute fool for coming here tonight.
It’s crowded, loud, and overpriced. Three things Buckley hates.
Buckley, my long-term boyfriend and college sweetheart, sits across from me looking pensive in a brand-new shirt, a crisp oak color, that’s too snug around the collar. I bought it for him this afternoon as a surprise from the athleisure boutique I work at.
I always forget Buckley’s neck size. Shoe size: ten and a half. Pant size: 30x32. Dick size...a gentleman never tells. But, somehow, I always screw up his neck size. It’s wider than the rest of his parts.
(No, I’m not talking aboutthatpart, which has plenty of girth, thank you very much.)
(I, Holden James, never said I was a gentleman.)
When he got home from work at the accounting firm, I had this fresh outfit laid out on the bed for him, flashed him a pair of train tickets, and told him we were having dinner in Manhattan tonight.
If Buckley had it his way, we’d never leave our town. It has a Whole Foods! We’re within driving distance oftwoIKEAs! Both of which we can only shop at because he brings home the bacon, and by bacon, I do mean the organic smoked turkey bacon I attempt to fry on Sunday mornings while he sleeps. Unimaginably, I always set off the smoke detectors, and he wakes up to open all the windows, reasonably grumpy.
But tonight, he didn’t protest the trek into the city because I told him it was my treat.
Though, this treat turned out to be more of a trick.
Gwendolyn, my boss and the woman who owns the boutique I work at, recommended this place. “It’s divine,” she’d said, while watching me fold ugly pairs of patterned leggings for the fashionably indiscriminate who frequent Fab Fitness Flair. (Try saying that five times fast.)
The Yelp listing made this restaurant seem like a lavish, dimly lit dining establishment with olive accent colors and old-world charms. A good place for important conversations like the one I’m hoping to have with Buckley tonight.
“Your boyfriend will love it,” Gwendolyn had reassured me when I clocked out this afternoon.
Now here we are and, judging by the disgruntled look on Buckley’s face, he isnotloving it. He’s the embodiment of the anti-McDonald’s slogan right now.
Not that I blame him.
Our light wood table is smashed up against our neighbor’s—a short, bald agent talking career trajectory with a young blonde. She’s probably a singer judging by her wacky outfit, a neon bucket hat and Edward Scissorhands–esque nails. How she picks up her wineglass is above and beyond me. I watch in abject horror, hoping she doesn’t spill the dry red all over her white crop top.
I’m fixating on the excess of stimuli around me because I’m more nervous than I’ve ever been before. A big question hovers just behind my lips. I’m holding it back until the right moment. During dessert, probably. Right after Buckley’s first bite of cake. I’m trying to sweeten him up so he’s sure to say yes when I pop the question.
The plates we’ve been served so far were small. Each tasting has been just that—a bite of bliss that escaped my palate before it even settled. The pear salad was exquisite with a refreshing pink dressing—pomegranate, maybe?—that I was afraid to ask the fussy waiter about since he was already annoyed with us for our (my) stinginess.
We’ve ordered the cheapest drinks and the least expensive plates because the boutique doesn’t pay me that well, and my side hustle of teaching Cardio Dance Fit classes isn’t much better. This outing tonight is being bankrolled by a Capital One credit card limit I have no idea how I got approved for.
“Thank you for coming here tonight,” I say to Buckley, sounding small. My heart is skittish. Here’s the only man I’ve ever loved sitting across from me, the man I live with, and despite the small distance of white tablecloth between us, it feels like I’m shouting at him from the other side of the world given the noise around us and the chasm of emotions I’m afraid to fall into. “I know it took a lot for you to get off from work early since you’re still the new guy and, yeah, it means a lot to me.”
“Sure, Holden,” he says, and my chest contracts.
He never calls meHolden. Since forever, he’s called me H.
One night, when he was really drunk, not long after we first met, he went on a rant at an ABC—anything but clothes—party about how Holden has no immediate nicknames. “Hole?” he goofed. “We can’t call you hole!” The room lit up with laughter from every corner, and even though it was at my expense, I didn’t care. His attention had that spectacular effect on me. “I’ll call you H. Short, simple, eighth letter of the alphabet. H is like a house, dependable and sturdy, right? Like, two I’s connected together.”
Then, when we started dating, he told me H was more like a home, still dependable, still sturdy, but he and I were the two I’s and the line connecting them was our love.
It was over-the-top, but I rolled with it, enjoying that I could be someone worthy of romantic words, no matter how cheesy. For once, I didn’t feel reduced to the-guy-whose-mom-died at the end of high school.
“I bet you’re wondering why I chose to trek all the way out here tonight.” I muster up a prizewinning smile, shucking the bad memories I almost let infiltrate our night. I’ve got to sell this.
The waiter, a handsome guy with piercing hazel eyes, comes by with our entrées, interrupting my flow. There are approximately four truffle raviolis on a large pewter plate topped with green leaves and a measly amount of sauce. I already know I’m going to be starving when we leave. As if my stomach weren’t already in nauseated knots.
“Thank you,” Buckley says almost too congenially to the waiter. His eyes drift down the waiter’s ass as he walks away. I normally wouldn’t mind Buckley checking out another man. Looking is fine. Touching, within the express bounds of our open relationship, is fine, too. But to do it so brazenly in front of me when I’m obviously trying to talk to him about something significant is more than grating.
“I didn’t really give tonight a lot of thought,” Buckley says when he finally tears his eyes away and picks up his utensils.
