“Do you date a lot?”
“Not really. I had a girlfriend for four years.”
I don’t know why that surprised me. “You did?” I said, and then laughed.
He smiled. “Why do you think that’s so funny?”
“Just because we’re so young,” I said.
“I’m twenty-five. A little older than you. I guess that’s still young-ish.” He shrugged. “Maybe I’m kind of a relationship person?”
“Why’d you break up?”
“I’m afraid if I tell you, you’ll think I’m shallow”
I remember in that moment thinking,Oh no, this guy’s gonna tell me his girlfriend gained ten pounds and I’m gonna have to punch him in the face and tell him to get out.“Try me,” I said. It was important for me to know if he was, in fact, shallow.
“She called me ‘bro.’ I have no idea why. I mean…I spent four years with her calling me that, and for a long time it didn’t bother me. She did it from the very beginning. Anyway, we weren’t really a great match. It wasn’t totally about that. We were nothing alike. Toward the end she became obsessed with Beanie Babies. You know those little stuffed animals?”
“Yeah. I have a few my mom gave me. Is there something wrong with them?”
“When I say obsessed, I mean she hadhundreds. She spent all her money on them and then she started dragging me to Beanie Baby conventions.” He laughed and looked away. “I just couldn’t get into it. She’s a nice person. She’s already moved on to a fellow Beanie Baby collector.” His delicacy about the subject was charming, as if he felt guilty for not liking her.
“I don’t think it was shallow of you. Did you break her heart though?”
“Not at all. It was unemotional, like she expected it or wantedit. I went to her house and told her I thought we should take a break. She told me she had been wanting to call it off for a long time. That was that. I called her on her birthday four months ago and she said she was getting married.”
“To the Beanie Baby guy?”
“Of course.”
“It was meant to be this way,” I told him.
He leaned in and kissed me then. It was not a long, passionate, crazy kiss. It was like a testing-the-waters kind of kiss, but I could tell just from those three seconds connected to him that he was going to be good in bed. When he pulled away he was searching my eyes…hesitant. “What about you? Do you date a lot?” he asked.
“I’ve never really had much of a substantial relationship, other than this guy Jacob, who I dated my first year in college. But no, I don’t date a lot. I’ve made it very clear to my friends to stop trying to set me up. I went on like eight stupid setup dates last year.”
“I wonder why they didn’t set us up?” he said.
Alicia had told me that Brandon, a guy she was dating, had a friend, Alex, but that he was into blondes. In the beginning I thought a lot about the “blondes” thing. At the time it was strange for Brandon to try to thwart Alex and me getting together, but years later, Brandon revealed to us that he was gay, and had always had a thing for Alex, so it all eventually made sense. I loved the way Alex handled the situation when Brandon came out and told him. Alex was flattered, gracious, and forgiving of the whole thing. He didn’t make Brandon feel bad, even though I know when we were first dating he was pretty pissed at him.
“Brandon told Alicia that you were into blondes.”
“He did what?” Alex seemed genuinely confused, and a little pissed.
“Yeah, that you wouldn’t be into me.”
“I never said I was into blondes or that I wouldn’t be into you. The opposite actually. Yeah, my last girlfriend was blond, but we know how that ended.” It was quiet for several moments. “Honestly, when I first saw you, your dark hair…I mean, you’re so striking, Dani, I could barely take my eyes off you. You have this thing, it’s like a transcendent beauty.”
It felt like all of the air in the room had suddenly dropped to the floor. Time had stopped. We were in our own atmosphere. He leaned in to kiss me again, but then hesitated. “Brandon knew I thought that. I don’t know why he told Alicia—”
I put my hand to his lips to quiet him. “Never mind.”
Every detail of that night is still a sharp memory. Later, when things really got going in the bedroom, he asked me if I liked what he was doing. I could barely speak when I told him yes. He wanted to please me then. He cared.
Nothing lasts forever, I guess.
—
