“Hey there,” I say over the din of the crowd, feeling wholly unstoppable.
“Hiya,” he says, like he’s enjoying this as much as I am.
“Were you looking at me?” I ask.
“Um,” he says, flustered. “Sorry about that.” His accent rises and falls in that effortlessly magnetic English way.
“I wasn’t asking you to apologize,” I clarify. “I was asking if you wanted to kiss me.”
He looks taken aback, like he’s not sure he heard correctly. “You serious?”
“Very serious.” I take a half step closer. We’re so close together that his eyes aren’t quite in focus anymore. I prefer it that way so I don’t have to concentrate on him. I can focus on the game and how I’m winning.
“I bloody love American girls,” Fit Rugby Lad declares, leaning in. It’s a rough and unapologetic kiss, like we both have something to prove.
Jules and the rest of the hen-do crowd are watching on, cheering manically. The rugby squad are whistling too, as if they’ve just brought home the trophy.
I tell Fit Rugby Lad that I’ve got to get back to my friends’ hen do but that he should find me before he leaves. He takes my number and promises to do that.
“What a snog, babes,” Jules says when I return to her side. “Never knew you were so shameless.” She looks enormously impressed.
“I’m not shameless,” I say. “I can just tell when someone’s into me.”
“Except with Alexander,” Jules notes without filter. The moment it’s out of her mouth, she seems to realize that was the wrong thing to say, so she proceeds to laugh loudly to cover up her tracks.
I’m not bothered, though. I’m too busy riding the drunken high that comes from being desired by someone desirable.
A little while later, Fit Rugby Lad comes over to say goodbye. “We’re heading back to my mate’s flat,” he says. “Give a shout later?” He gives a cheeky wink, and I feel it between my legs where my leotard meets my tights.
I think about the last time someone touched my tights. It makes me want to have someone else’s hand there so the new memory can fully usurp the old one. And more than that, to satiate the ravenous hunger I haven’t realized I’ve been repressing until now.
“Yeah,” I hear myself telling him, as if I’m back in college again. “Text me.”
He taps my bum, almost like a high five, and then is out the door with his teammates.
I’m left buzzing. Here it is, the proof that I’ve still got it. That I can still speak eye contact and land the hottest guy in the room.
But one pint later, the whole thing is filling me with that hollow feeling. Here I am, over thirty years old, waiting for some guy I’ve just met to text me to see if I’ll come sleep with him. The fact that his name (which I can’t even remember) hasn’t lit up on my phone screen is making me feel old and unattractive.
I don’t want this to be who I am—someone whose self-worth is tied up in a stranger’s decision of whether I’m worth hooking up with. I just want to have that one person who I know loves me, flaws and quirks and cellulite and all.
I don’t want the hot passion of hormones that quickly dissolve and fizzle and fade. I want the kind of love that makes me feel sane and secure and snug. Not with a bad boy or some arrogant adrenaline seeker who lies his way to the top. With the good guy, someone who’s responsible and respectful and texts me on Sunday mornings, not Saturday nights. Someone who’s patient and kind and rejoiceswith the truth. Someone who makes me feel like I’m always enough for him, even on the days I don’t feel like I’m enough for myself.
The thought drops into me, or drops out of me, like it’s been there all along, waiting to be released.
I don’t want someone. I want Rory.
It’s not in the hesitant or hypothetical ways I’ve contemplated that I might love Rory in the past. It’s firm and full of unflinching conviction. And maybe this isn’t the perfect time to fully accept this, when Rory is with someone else. When I’m drunk in a pub, trying to flirt with other guys so I won’t have to think about how the one I want doesn’t want me.
But maybe itisthe perfect time because it cuts through all the clutter and deception I’ve been telling myself about how fine I am. How I don’t want a life like my family has. How I’m destined for bigger and better things than the places and people of Michigan can offer.
But here it is, the cold, hard truth. Except the truth doesn’t feel cold and hard at all. It feels warm and soft and relaxing, like putting my feet up after a long day at the office.
I love Rory and I want to be with him. I want to settle down in a little yellow house on a lake near Kalamazoo. Close to our families but nottooclose that we can’t enjoy a bit of privacy. I want to slow down and slow-dance in the kitchen and host game nights on the back porch in the glow of firefly light. I want to have a few kids and take them tubing and roast peanut butter s’mores together on long summer days, serenaded by crickets and bullfrogs. I want to watch college football in the fall with Rory and my dad andbrothers on Saturdays. Sundays will be for church and homemade pizza, without the incessant stress of work emails and deadlines.
I want to make pancakes in the morning before Rory and the kids leave for school and let Rory scoop me ice cream at the end of the day. I want to fall asleep curled up next to him every night and wake up beside him each morning and do it all over again. I want to grow old together and take our sweet time doing it so we notice every single gray hair that appears and tease each other for it.
It feels so sunlit and safe. Not the safety net kind of safe—not a fallback or a backup choice. The first-choice kind of safe. The security that comes from knowing there’s no place you’d rather be and no one you’d rather be there with.
