“I’m not that hungry; I just want a salad,” Karen said.
“We’re both doing the tasting menu with the wine,” I told the server, which was the same thing that Meg and Walter were ordering. It was five courses along with a wine pairing. Every time the door opened, Meg was more and more irritated. We were halfway through the tasting menu when the door opened again. Karen had stepped out to take a phone call. Meg stomped over to me.
“You did this on purpose.”
“Did what?” I sipped my wine and then regarded it casually.
“You’re trying to ruin my date. You’re sitting here leering at me.”
“I’m not leering at you,” I told her, leaning forward and dropping my voice to a whisper. “If I were leering at you, your panties would be dripping wet.”
“Fuck you.”
“Why not just have Walter switch places with you?” I asked casually as she spun on her heel.
She paused. I watched her struggle for an excuse.
“Don’t even bother,” I said. “I know exactly why. I bet you asked nicely if you could switch, and he said no in, let me guess, a dismissive manner then tried to placate you. There’s a reason why a man like that is still single.”
“Yeah,” Meg said to me. “And I think that applies to you too. Guess I have terrible taste in men.”
23
Meghan
Walter put his jacket around me. The air coming off the water was chilly.
“Thanks,” I said. “I should have brought a jacket. I didn’t know we were going to be on a boat.”
“A boat?” Walter said in mock indignation. “This, Meghan, is a yacht! One of the biggest ones at the marina right now, might I add. Besides,” he said, running a hand down the back of my neck, “it wouldn’t have been a surprise if I had told you, would it?”
I didn’t really know what to do—I was starting to wish I hadn’t come. I had thought we were just going to be at a restaurant. I hadn’t really thought further along than pissing off Hunter.
Now I was stuck on a giant yacht in the middle of the bay. The lights of Manhattan twinkled in the distance. There was no one around on the yacht. Surely a boat this big needed a huge crew, but Walter must have sent them away.
He popped a cork off a bottle of champagne and poured me a glass.
I hated to admit it, but part of my fantasies of escaping Harrogate had involved things like fancy yachts and private jets, but the man in the fantasies had always been blond…
Forget Hunter. He’s trying to get in your head.
Walter dropped a raspberry into the champagne flute and held it out to me. “It’s imported from France,” he murmured as I sipped the champagne and made appropriately appreciative noises. “People think any bubbly alcohol they buy at a gas station is called champagne, but it has to be from a specific region.”
“Actually, that’s not true,” I interrupted. “Due to not signing the Treaty of Versailles after World War One, which stated that no signing member was allowed to use the name champagne, American winemakers can actually call their product champagne,” I rattled off, “but only if they started using the term before 2006, when the United States signed a new trade agreement with the European Union.”
Walter was taken aback. He had that same shocked expression that all the men I ever went out with wore eventually. All except Hunter.
“Oh. I didn’t know that,” he said finally. Because, I mean, what else were you going to say?
“Yep,” I said, “it was a fun factoid in a legal article I peer-reviewed recently.”
“You peer-review law articles?” Walter frowned.
“Just in my spare time.”
“You mean in between running the entire city of Harrogate,” he said slowly.
“I mean, sure,” I said with an anxious laugh, “if you want to put it that way.”
