He interrupts my contemplation with a deep groan that, unfortunately, goes straight to my core.Good fucking lord, of all people to be sexually attracted to—
“Sorry,” he says after his throat works on a swallow that doesn’t help matters downstairs either. “I didn’t realize I was starving till I started eating.” He pops another sushi roll into his mouth. “Want one?” he asks around a mouthful of raw fish I really wish I hadn’t seen. At least I can be grateful it does the trick in calming down my hijacked hormones.
I glance over at his spicy tuna roll with a frown. Then I shake my head, wondering at these inexplicable, physical feelings I’m having for a man I just met.
I haven’t been sexually attracted to someone since my last year of college. That was over four years ago, back when I found my body’s seemingly random response to arousal endlessly frustrating. How could I spend months wantingdesperatelyto desire my almost-boyfriend the same way he desired me, only to feel the most intense bout of sexual attraction of my life for the guy I went on onedate with immediately after him? A date that didn’t even go well, much like…
Wait a damn minute.
Much like this one.
It all clicks into place when, with no regard for sense of decency, Julian reaches across the table with his chopsticks and plucks a sushi roll off my plate.
Four years ago, I was talked into a blind date by a girl in my Gothic Literature class. Despite insisting I was done with dating after my awful situationship imploded, she told me she knew the guy to help me get back out there. I hadn’t realized I was graysexual yet but was more than a little wary of her “best way to get over someone is to get under someone” logic. I took the bait anyway, but instead of a rebound, I came out with yet another key example of my terrible dating history.
“Oh. My. God.”
“What?” he asks mid-chew. Then, as if only just now realizing what he did, he backtracks. “Leti, I’msosorry. I’m used to sharing food with all my friends, and I— It was instinct…”
Just like it was instinct for him to pick off a few fries from my plate four years ago until they were gone. I even told him beforehand that I don’t like to share food. Besides, those truffle fries were nine dollars and he only paid for his portion of the bill. I quit dating altogether after that night.
My dating history ended with this man. Now, years later, it’s starting back up with him.
“God, Iknewyou looked familiar.” He was lankier in build back then, his curls shaggier, but his smile is the same. Those deep dimples should’ve given him away sooner, but I was too dumbstruck by his crooked grin. Even his explanation,I’m used to sharing food, calls that night back to me.
“We’ve been on this date before.”
4
Julian
Took you long enough, Leticia.
I bite the response back, unsure what her reaction would be if she learned that I’ve known who she was the entire time. Hell, even now I’m not sure what possessed me to swipe right when I came across her profile last week. I blew my chance with her four years ago and then was promptly forgotten, if her reaction—more likenonreaction—to meeting me again at Angela’s party a few months back is to be believed. My cousin is a menace, and she knew exactly what she was doing pretending to introduce us after I told her Leti hated me. Except, I found out that Leti didn’t hate me at all. You can’t hate someone you don’t remember, and there was no mistaking the blank look on her face as she shook my hand for anything else. Since then, I haven’t been able to get this woman out of my mind.
It would be stating the obvious to say the same can’t be said of her, which is something I still can’t quite fathom. How am I so deeply forgettable to Leti when she’s been lodged in my brain for months? Longer, if I’m being honest with myself. Years longer.
I told myself I was merely satiating a need for answers by swiping right on her profile. I never expected to match with her. Whatwas more unexpected was the feeling it evoked seeing her name flash across my screen. I couldn’t remember the last time I got butterflies in my stomach over a romantic prospect, much less nearly choked to death over one—and via a photograph, at that. She’s even wearing the same blue dress that almost killed me, the devil woman.
I must have a degradation kink I don’t know about to think this was my second chance to make a better impression on her—a morememorableone, since apparently that’s not my strong suit. We’d laugh about the strange series of coincidences that led us back together after our first date years ago and see if we could make something work between us this time around.
That is, until the horror of what I’d done sank in when I realized a few messages in that shestilldidn’t remember me. She didn’t seem to remember meeting me at Angela’s party a few months ago either. She thought she’d matched with a cute stranger, not someone she’d already dated and deemed unworthy.
I never should’ve said yes to this date.
On top of showing up late, I’ve spent the entire night putting my foot in my mouth. The accident on I-10 I could do nothing about, but she’s got me pegged as a commitment-phobe because I don’t know when to shut up. Instead of telling her that I value nontraditional relationships above institutions like marriage and have no wish to have kids of my own because taking care of a hundred teenagers every week at my job is taxing enough on its own, I ranted. If there is no going back from there, there definitely isn’t any recovering from awe’ve been on this date beforeaccusation. Do I come clean about remembering her, or play it cool and wait and see where the conversation turns?
That one. Play it cool, Julian.
I eye her warily across the table, playing the part of confusion. “What do you mean?”
“Four years ago, a classmate I barely knew set me up on a blind date,” she says. “You were twenty minutes late, snapped at me for checking my phoneonce, and ate all of my truffle fries. And not only were they expensive, but you also only paid for what you ordered!”
Inwardly, I wince at the play-by-play. She’s right, of course. But even though she makes me out to be a douche, I remember a few details of that date differently from her.
“Do I not look familiar to you at all?” she asks.
I pop a sushi roll (my own, hallelujah) into my mouth to keep from having to respond right away. My eyes narrow in thought as I chew, thinking over my response. I may not know her that well, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the truth won’t go over well with this woman. After a long swallow, I ask, “Did you used to wear glasses?”
