He looked over from his own stack, equal in size to mine. “You are?”
“Well, yeah.”
I tried to sound breezy, offhand, two things I never was. It didn’t work, a fact made clear when he gave me his full focus of attention. “Hold on. I thought you guys had a good time the other night.”
“We did,” I said, folding another card. The paper was thick and embossed, each name done by a professionalcalligrapher. Wreck it, you pay for it, had been my mom’s directive. Never before had paper made me nervous. “I’m just, you know....”
Usually, when you trail off, people just finish the sentence for you in their own heads. Ambrose’s was clearly still full of beats and choruses, because he said, “You’re what?”
“I’mbusy,” I told him. “And it’s your job.”
He drew back. “Gosh. Okay. Sorry. I’ll go right now.”
With that, he pushed out his chair and got to his feet, then headed to the back office, where my mom and William were conferring with the valet parking company about Elinor Lin’s rehearsal dinner, whistling as he went. I wassurehe’d never done that before.
So he was happy. No crime in that. And just because he’d had a great time with Lauren the night before—he hadn’t said so exactly, but the music-making spoke volumes—didn’t mean he was going to win our bet and me lose. I only had to keep going on dates, just like I’d done with Leo. I wasn’t humming, mind you. But I’d done it.
I winced to myself even as I thought this. After Lauren and Ambrose had left the night before, Leo and I had talked for another hour or so, mostly about his writing, the conversation interrupted occasionally by Jilly, coming to complain that the party sucked and she wanted to go home. Finally, around eleven, she bumped into some guy she knew from yet another food truck—the community was wide reaching—and decided she wanted to stay indefinitely just as I was ready to leave. In the end, I got a ride with Leo on the back of hisfixed-gear bike, where I felt every bump and rattle of the handful of miles back to my house.
Once there, I could tell he expected to be invited in by the way he kept glancing at the door. But William’s car was still there and I didn’t feel like making introductions. In the end, we sat on the curb, the bike lying beside us like a literal third and fourth wheel. I was tired of talking, tired in general, and trying to come up with a good exit strategy, but Leo was still going full speed about his writing.
“Really, it’s all process,” he explained to me. “You have todig, you know? Fiction is blood, sweat, tears, shit, all mixed together. Like the lotus from the mud. If you nurture it, something beautiful comes.”
I could admit this all sounded exotic and dramatic at one point. But that had been a few hours earlier, and I still didn’t understand exactly what his book in progress was about. “That’s cool,” I said, a response I’d taken to alternating with a few others like “Wow,” “Interesting,” and, just for variety, “I never saw it like that.” For someone so interested in words, he didn’t seem to notice this repetition.
Now he smiled, like I was cute, before reaching out and rubbing his thumb along the side of my mouth, then down my chin. I was thinking maybe I had something on my face, and wondering for how long, when he suddenly moved in to kiss me. It was swift and abrupt and took me by total surprise, even before he leaned me back into the grass with one smooth movement. I had a flash of a vampire whipping a cape over his head, which was not exactly romantic, andthen his mouth was on mine, tongue wriggling.
Ugh. I let it go on for a long enough period so as not to seem totally rude, then sat back up. “Well,” I said, as he pulled back, his eyes sort of dazed, “I should go. It’s late.”
“Now?” He looked at the house again. “Really?”
“Yeah.” I made an effort to look apologetic, like this was not actually my choice. “I have an early day, and all....”
“Yeah, okay, cool,” he said, cutting me off. “I get it.”
I stood up, aware of the dampness from the grass on my back. “I’ll see you around work, I guess?”
“Sure.”
I started up the walk, relieved to finally be wrapping things up. I’d only taken a few steps, though, when he said, “It’s the bet, right? Just dates, nothing more. FYI, I didn’t really want that either.”
Pausing, I said, “Okay.”
“It is,” he replied, pulling a cigarette out of his pocket. Ugh. At least he’d waited. “Okay, I mean.”
Right, I thought. He was still there on the curb when I went inside.
So that was my night. Not totally terrible, just weird. It did not, however, leave me humming, whistling, and walking with a literal bounce in my step, something I noticed as Ambrose passed me, heading out for the coffees.
“You want anything?” he asked. “Maybe a nice melty doughnut?”
“No,” I told him. Then, realizing I sounded surly, I added, “Thanks, though.”
He gave me a thumbs-up, then pushed out the door. Ira, tied up to the nearby bench and wearing a green bandana, got right to his feet, wagging happily. As Ambrose bent over him, petting his head, I saw he was whistling again.
Just then, my phone rang. Enough time had passed that, sometimes, I didn’t even notice my Lexi Navigator ringtone anymore. Today, though, for whatever reason, the opening chords made my heart hurt in a way it had not in a while.
“Hey,” Jilly said, sounding especially cheerful herself, considering it was morning and I knew she had all four kids with her for a full day. “Happy Wednesday!”
