“So formal.”
“I stopped asking women if they wanted to ‘hang out’ when I was a senior in college. Too many misunderstandings. I once showed up to a movie with flowers, and she’d invited her actual boyfriend along.”
“Oh no.” I laugh. “Just so you know, I’m sober.” The words pour out of me, unplanned. “I’m the kind of sober where I count how long I’ve been sober.”
He nods. He doesn’t look upset, just thoughtful.
“I count in years, not days, just to be clear. This is not new. But I need to make sure that you’re okay with that. It’s fine to have a drink around me, and I can go to bars, but I can’t be around people who get wasted. And I can’t have it in the house. Not that we’re talking about moving in together.” Now I’m really embarrassed. “I just wanted to warn you, so you could think about whether you’re okay with that.”
“I have absolutely no problem with that,” he says. “It’s not a big part of my life at all.” I feel a wave of relief, but then helooks away. “I feel like this is where I should confess something to you.”
There is a long, ominous pause. “Yes?”
“After my divorce I am not entirely sure I trust women. I’m not entirely sure I trust anybody.”
“Oh.” The words are not just a flashing red warning sign; they are one of those fifty-foot billboards in Times Square. It’s not even that he has that feeling. It’s that he feels it enough to need to tell me about it.
“I’m trying,” he adds softly. His hazel eyes look serious. “Just promise me one thing, okay? If you want to get back with your ex-husband, that’s fine, but?—”
“I don’t.”
“I heard you at the party. And I heard something about you leaving the firm last summer to be with him, and no one knew whether you were coming back. So if you are in some on-again, off-again thing with him…”
I shake my head. “We’re definitely off-again. I mean, we’re definitely off forever.”
He looks a little skeptical, but he nods once. “Okay,” he says. “Then we can give this a try.”
He takes my hand in his and squeezes it, and I feel a warmth spread from my palm up my arm and all the way into my chest. He looks right in my eyes as his thumb slides gently across my wrist. “And don’t be afraid to tighten that grip a little.”
