Max laughs. “Wouldn’t we all.”
“I’ll just give him one more Google before I call.”
A few seconds later, Siri answers in her comforting robotic tone: “I found this information about JP Howard.” Up pop all the Google results I looked through yesterday morning, but also a file. It’s an inactive GoldRush profile. “He was on GoldRush?” I say.
Max and I read it together. There’s a picture of JP smiling and looking off camera, a glass of wine in his hand.
The headline reads,I am looking for a woman who loves staying in just as much as she loves jet-setting, a woman to share the quiet moments as well as the triumphs of life, a woman who love Jacques-o-late.
Okay, I’m warming up to calling him…
There’s some old news (at this point) about his billions and the fact that he’s thirty-seven. Then, hobbies:Skiing and saving the rainforest—really. I’m sure I’ve personally saved an area the size of Delaware so far just by eating Jacques-o-late.
“I have a Jacques-o-late T-shirt somewhere,” says Max.
Of course he does.
“I want to hate him, but I don’t,” Max says.
“He seems so good.” I sit up and take a deep breath. “I don’t know if I can be responsible for this,” I say gesturing to the profile. “He’s so, so…perfect.” Like a white dress that I want to buy but know I shouldn’t. I can’t be responsible for dry-clean-only Chantilly lace.
“That’s ridiculous. He’s a jet-setting billionaire and you just checked out of the hospital with a head injury and don’t know who you are. He’s the one who should be concerned about taking advantage of you.”
“But still. He’s so perfect. What if I wreck him?”
Max scoffs. “Who knows if he’s even being honest?”
This is coming from the man who only believes a person if they take a polygraph test, and not even a normal one. It has to be the one he invented. Funny that Fay calledhima liar. Maybe truth is like memory—shifting depending on perspective, one thing to Fay and another to Max.22One thing’s for sure—Max doesn’t believe he’s ever been on the wrong side of the truth.
“Call him,” he says.
I pull up the FaceTime app and call JP. My face pops up, which reminds me to wipe the smear of salsa off my nose and reapply my lipstick in a hurry. For good measure, I adjust the phone so that it gets me from a more flattering angle. No up-the-nose shots for JP.
“Hello?” I hear his sleepy voice first and then I see his face, which has that vulnerable little-boy quality that I seem to recognize—and respond to—right away. (Even if I can’t recall any of my former partners or their wake-up faces.) His hair is messed up but that just adds to the attractiveness. Rumpled hair and a stubbled Prince Charming jawline. He brings to mind that guy who played Jon Snow, but with a French accent and hair just beginning to gray at the temples, which somehow makes him look more trustworthy. He’s a mature, French Jon Snow. Any girl in her right mind would want to wake up next to him.
But I can’t help thinking, however briefly, about the unfairness of his easy attractiveness. Why do men get to be boyishly cute in the morning while women have to look like sex kittens the minute they open their eyes? I guess that’s because girlishness is bound up with sexuality at a much younger age? (No wonder I run a dating empire.)
“I’m sorry,” I say. “What time is it in Switzerland?”
“Don’t worry,” he says. “I’m just glad to see your face, Mia.” He sits up and props himself up on one elbow. He’s shirtless. Dear God, my previous decisions all make perfect sense.
He rubs the sleep from his eyes and puts on a pair of tortoiseshell acetate glasses. Why do they make him look even hotter? Maybe because his vision isn’t 20/20, he’s flawed enough to be mine.23Plus it makes him look smart, which is undeniably sexy. “I’m sorry about that fight,” he says. “It was stupid. I hated leaving like that.”
“It’s okay.” Whatever we fought about, it was probably my fault. JP is clearly the better human of the two of us, all of his goodness and inner beauty grown in a hydroponic, pest-free environment and nurtured by unconditional love and reasonable expectations. Just like all the best weed. (OMG—where did that come from? Am I a pothead?)
“It felt like you were still mad this morning,” he said.
“I just don’t like being bought off.”
With a laugh he says, “Could have fooled me.”
I smile. I guess I am into being placated with diamonds.I’ve spent less time with JP than with myself, but somehow he seems easier to understand.
Max sips his horchata and I reach for it. Suddenly I feel parched.
When JP says, “Who’s with you?” I realize that was stupid.
I move the phone so that he can see Max. “Just the house sitter,” I say.
