The One Love Collection

by Lauren Blakely

  5. Accept you won’t find them all.

  Some geocaches will bedevil you. No matter how hard you try to find that one that some website said was absolutely in the 72nd Street subway station or definitely in the lobby of Radio City Music Hall, you’ll never track it down.

  Remember, you’re in this together with your woman, and if you don’t find one, try to have the best time possible. Tell her you’ll do it again the next month. There’s something about those words—try, try again—that might be exactly what she needs to hear.

  When she thanks you at the end of the date, you can thank me for being your guide. Because she just might be into you.

  21

  Nicole

  We barbecue on a friend’s rooftop, and we screw. We go lingerie shopping, and we do it. One evening, we see a revival of Private Lives at the Neil Simon Theater, and Ryder takes me backstage afterward to meet the director, Davis Milo, who happens to be a good friend of his.

  “Your work is amazing. I loved Crash the Moon,” I gush, mentioning a musical he recently won a Tony for. “Almost as much as I loved what you just did with Noel Coward’s work.”

  He nods a thank you. “I’m thrilled to hear you enjoyed both. I had good material to work with.”

  He’s as humble as he is handsome.

  “Speaking of good material, I’ve been enjoying your radio show these days,” Davis tells Ryder as the men do their man-hug thing.

  “Good to hear. And if you ever want to commission my life story for Broadway, you know where to find me,” Ryder says.

  Davis laughs. “Indeed. Finding the cocky bastard to play you will be the real challenge.”

  Ryder laughs. “Just find the most handsome fella around, and you’re good.”

  Davis turns to me with a sly smile. “You agree with his casting strategy?”

  I run a hand down Ryder’s arm. “I agree wholeheartedly.”

  When we leave the theater, Ryder has a town car waiting for us—one with a partition. We make excellent use of the private life we temporarily have in the backseat of the sleek, black auto that cruises through Manhattan. I’m not taking any chances. Just like last month, we’ve been doing it every night in the middle of my cycle. I’m not going to risk missing the window in case it turns out I ovulate early or late. I like to think I’m being thorough.

  I’m also just the slightest bit addicted to sex with Ryder.

  The next evening, we come up with the genius idea to play spin the bottle with an empty Pinot Grigio from my pre-baby-making days.

  Cross-legged on my floor, I spin. It lands on Ruby, and I laugh. “Does that mean I kiss the dog?”

  “Do it.”

  I bend to her and kiss her soft snout. Next, I plant a wet, slobbery kiss on Ryder’s lips. He returns my lip-lock with an equally tongue-drenched one. When we break the kiss, he says, “Bet you thought I’m one of those guys who doesn’t want to be kissed after you’ve just kissed a dog.”

  “The thought actually never occurred to me.”

  “Let the record reflect, I don’t mind at all.”

  It’s his turn to spin, and the amber glass bottle whizzes in four or five speedy rotations. After it slows, it settles on my door. “Is that your subtle way of kicking me out?” He shoots me a skeptical stare.

  “Oh yes. I weighted the bottle because I just don’t have it in me to send you on your way. I had to have the bottle do it.”

  He grabs at his crotch. “I’ll just take my sperm and go, then.”

  “No, not the sperm, not the sperm,” I tease.

  He points to the bottle. “By the way, how the fuck do you play spin the bottle with two people?”

  I laugh and shrug. “I don’t actually know.”

  “Shame on you. I’m going to tell Cal there is something you don’t know about dating games.”

  “Ooh. Those are fighting words.” I stretch my arm to my coffee table and grab my phone, googling spin the bottle for couples. A few Pinterest boards turn up first, and I click on the photos. I zoom in on one from a dating site. It goes with an article called “Date Nights for Couples.”

  Hmm. That doesn’t entirely apply. We’re not a couple. Still, I enlarge the photo. It’s a pink homemade board. “Ah, here’s how you do it. You make a game board of challenges.”

  “Like what? Like take off your bra, or give me a kiss?”

  I study the board. “Basically. But there are others, like truth or dare, or slow dancing, or hold hands during the next turn, or coupon for massages.”

  He scoffs. “I remember spin the bottle being more fun in middle school.”

  “I had my first kiss during a spin-the-bottle game.”

  “Yeah? What was his name? How was it?”

  “Peter Lansing. He was this beanpole of a seventh-grade boy. He had braces. I was so terrified of them getting stuck to my lips that I gave him a quick peck and then scurried back to my spot.”

  Ryder huffs. “Great. Now I’m jealous of Peter Lansing.”

  I shove his shoulder. “You’re jealous of a skinny thirteen-year-old who didn’t even get tongue?”

  “Evidently,” he says, grabbing the bottle and setting it on the coffee table. He tugs me up, and before I know what’s happening, he’s scooped me into his arms.

  “What was that for?” I ask, wondering why he’s holding me as if he’s going to carry me over the threshold.

  “This is my version of spin the bottle,” he says, his voice deep and husky. “Every single piece on the board is the same. Fucking you.”

  Shivers sweep down my arms.

  He carries me to my bedroom and sets me on the bed. He strips me, spending extra time on the red, lacy bra I bought when we went lingerie shopping. “That’ll cover the taking-off-your-bra piece,” he says, as he cups my breasts, making me moan as he kneads them.

  “And this will take care of another one,” he says as he drops a kiss on my lips. His kiss is hungry and fevered, and my back arches as he consumes my mouth.

  He lets go and brings his mouth to my neck, leaving a hot trail of kisses in his wake. My hands dart out, and quickly I undress him, too.

  We are naked together once more. He grasps my hips to move me up the bed. “Truth or dare. Do you want me to come inside you now?”

  “So badly.”

  He shakes his head, plants his hands on my knees, and opens my legs. “Wrong answer.”

  “How was that wrong? That’s what I always want.”

  “And you’ll get it. But you come first. Always.”

  He stares at me with such heat in his eyes, such fire in the blue sky of his irises. I’ve never felt so wanted in my life. It floors me that I asked him to give me something tremendous, and yet here I am with a man who’s ravenous for me. He climbs over me, straddling my thighs as he runs a hand up and down his gorgeous cock. I writhe as I watch him.

  “You like this, baby?” He grips himself with a tight fist.

  “Yes. God, yes.”

  “You want it, don’t you?”

  I lift my hips in answer. He stares down at the wetness between my legs. His throat rumbles. “So fucking pretty.”

  “Please,” I moan, begging.

  His hand slides up and down his hard-on. “In my game, we’ve just landed on make her come.”

  22

  Ryder

  Her eyes give her away.

  She wants me to make her scream in pleasure.

  She always does. I’ve learned in this short time with her that she’s as addicted to orgasms as I’m hooked on giving them to her.

  I’ve got her pinned like this, her attention solely on my dick. “I want you so fucking wet. So fucking crazy.” I stroke from the base to the head, and her back arches.

  “Ryder, please.”

  “Please what?”

  “Please give it to me.”

  I shake my head. I grip harder and tighter, rocking my fist up and down my cock.

  Her breath comes in fast, erratic pants. I want to tease her so b
adly. I want her wild with desire. “Don’t let me do this alone,” I say.

  Her brows knit together. “You’re not going to jerk off on me, are you?”

  I nearly laugh at how worried she seems over the prospect of spilled seed. Coming on her chest would be pointless for her during this “window.” I grab her hand, wrapping it around mine. I move our joined hands up and down my shaft. For a brief second, I am damn tempted to finish the job and jack off all over those glorious tits. “You’d look so good wearing my come all over your chest,” I tell her with a groan as we stroke my cock together.

  “No,” she says with a desperate cry.

  The image turns me on so much that a drop of liquid beads at the head of my cock. I swipe it with my thumb and bring it to her lips. “Suck it off,” I tell her as I push my thumb into her mouth.

  She wraps those sexy red lips nice and tight around my thumb and sucks off the first taste of me. My dick grows even thicker. I bring my hand back to my cock and play with myself some more.

  “Touch yourself, baby. I want to watch you get yourself off.”

  Her hand shoots between her legs, and I scoot back, parking myself between her knees. Her legs are a V and her fingers fly over her wet clit.

  “Oh God,” she cries out as she arches into her fingers. It hits me like a flash of light in a darkened room. She’s so turned on she’s nearly there.

  “You’re going to come, baby, aren’t you?”

  She bites her lip and nods. Her face twists in exquisite torture. Her fingers fly over her pussy, and I have a front-row seat to the hottest show in town. I jack harder, faster. This is the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.

  In seconds, she goes off. She rocks her hips against her hand. “Oh God, I’m coming.”

  Her beautiful body writhes and twists and bucks, and I can’t wait. I move up her, wedging myself between her gorgeous thighs. I bury myself in her and groan. Her wetness envelops me, and it feels so fucking good. “Nicole,” I murmur as I lower my chest to her. “You’re so sexy when you come.”

  “So are you.”

  She’s even sexier when she comes twice, and I’m determined to bring her a double. I slow the pace, ease in and out. I swivel my hips, and bring her back up the hill. With each thrust, she pants harder. She moans louder.

  “Yes, baby. Give it to me. Come again. I want it so bad.”

  She digs her nails into my back and pulls me deeper, matching me thrust for thrust. Her hips rise in one long, gorgeous lift, and she falls apart. Her eyes squeeze shut, and she calls my name as she comes again.

  Something in me rattles loose.

  Pleasure, but also more than that. Something I haven’t felt in ages.

  Intimacy.

  Rather than fight it, I let it pull me under. I let it become part of us tonight. I reach for her hand, thread my fingers through hers, and I sink deep inside her as I climax.

  When we both come down from the high, we’re still holding hands. I don’t want to let go.

  “Like spin the bottle,” she whispers as she stares at our linked fingers, a reverent look in her eyes.

  “Yes. Just like spin the bottle.”

  We’re silent as we lie there, me collapsed on her, but I don’t want to move, and she doesn’t seem to want me to. Her other hand travels to my hair, and she runs her fingers through it. “Do you want to stay the night?”

  “That’s not on the spin-the-bottle board,” I say with a husky laugh.

  “I know.”

  I raise my face from her shoulder and meet her eyes. I’m not a clueless guy. I’m not a twenty-something playboy who doesn’t know what emotions are when they smack him in the face. I’m thirty-two, with a degree in psychology and a career based on a fine understanding of what happens between men and women when they come together.

  I am 100 percent aware of what’s happening here.

  I get why my heart is expanding in my chest.

  What scares me most is that even though I get it, I still say, “I do want to stay with you.”

  I call my neighbor, ask her to watch my dog, and then I spoon Nicole all through the night.

  23

  Nicole

  This time we don’t stop.

  As we slide into the last week or so of my cycle, we don’t quit our horizontal hobby.

  I tell myself it’s because we have his dates to finish, and it would be silly not to screw. We don’t go at it nightly like we did when I might have conceived, but it seems foolish to execute the hotel hijacking date I promised without making full and proper use of the bed.

  Because of our dogs, we make the hotel escape during the workday when we take a long lunch. It comes complete with shower sex at a swank Gramercy Park hotel, as well as another round on the bed.

  In the post-orgasm haze, he wraps an arm around me and tugs me close. “For the record, I absolutely want you to be pregnant, but this has been the most fun I’ve ever had, and I’d be lying if I said I won’t miss it once you’re knocked up.”

  I smile and snuggle into the crook of his arm. A wistfulness settles over me, but it comes with sadness, too. “I know. Same here.”

  “It’s sort of strange. That this is just going to end,” he says in an even tone, as if he’s making a scientific observation.

  I close my eyes because the reality hurts.

  Yes, we will end.

  Yes, that’s always been the plan.

  We were supposed to be practical. A wham, bam, thank-you, ma’am. We weren’t supposed to miss the sex, or the closeness, or the cuddling when this ends.

  Our relationship has always been finite. It has a beginning, a middle, and a clear and obvious end. Like a rotation of a planet, our relationship starts in one spot and ends there, too, and no one should bat an eye or shed a tear.

  Perhaps this makes me foolish, or maybe it just makes me focused on the mission, but I hadn’t thought about how I might feel when this is over.

  Now, I feel more sadness than I expected, and a longing, too, even as I’m consumed with my own amped-up hope for a baby.

  “But we’ll stay friends,” I say, drawing in a breath that strengthens me. “We’ll be friends and colleagues and Ping-Pong partners.”

  “Yes, we absolutely will.”

  I wonder if that prospect sounds odd to him, too.

  But then I stop thinking when he kisses me once more, because I’ll take what I can get for the next few days.

  Three in the morning.

  The twenty-eighth day.

  The bitch doesn’t show. But I don’t trust her. She fucked with me once before. She might do it again.

  The navy-blue night has draped its blanket over the city as most of Manhattan slumbers. But all over this island, there are pockets of people awake like me. Some with lonely hearts, some with graveyard jobs, some unable to let go of the day.

  I lie awake, moonlight slicing through the blinds, casting a silvery glow on my bed. Ruby sprawls next to me, her russet tail twitching, her snout fluttering. She is dreaming of bones, peanut butter, and beef jerky while my wide-awake wishes are for soft breath, angel-wisp hair, and a new life to love.

  I flash back to the time Ryder and I talked about how much love one has to give. I imagine when I do finally have a baby, I won’t be wondering if I have enough love for everyone in my life. I’ll be wondering how I can store so much inside me.

  I like to think our ability to love is infinite. I want to feel the limitlessness of love.

  But I know better than to blindly believe this time is the charm. I need to be prepared for my monthly bill to ruin my morning with her blood-red appearance.

  When I first asked Ryder for his help, I thought he’d give me a cup of batter and I’d send him on his merry way. It would be a true transaction, and then I’d turn to basters and exam tables and appointments. Any disappointments I’d process on my own with friends and family.

  Now, no one is more enmeshed than he.

  If my test is negative again, do we simply go on?
Do we have monthly dates in my bed during the nights when I’m most likely to conceive? Do we go about our separate lives the rest of the time? What if it takes three months, six months, or more?

  Ryder’s nearly done with his field guide to dating, and it thrills me to see his show and column inch back up in popularity. I gave him what he needed—a dating companion. But my need for him has no end date yet.

  How can I expect him to maintain this sort of commitment to making love to me every month until I’m pregnant? How can I ask his commitment-phobic heart to keep practicing fidelity with my body?

  But the more nights we spend together, the more it feels like we have some sort of commitment. I feel it in the pounding of my heart, in the calm inside my chest, in the warm glow that comes when he holds me. I see it in him, too, in the way he looks at me, in the tenderness of his touch, in how he sets his hand on my belly as if he’s hoping too.

  I don’t know what to make of any of it, though. I let the thoughts repeat over and over, and in the tangled mess of my mind, I finally find sleep.

  In the morning, I’m still blissfully period-free.

  She doesn’t show during the day, either, and that old friend hope bubbles up again, like a tease. Surely, she’ll pull the rug out from under me any second. I tell myself that soon the crushing waves of cramps and disappointment will collide in me, mixing up a new cocktail of sadness.

  But hope is a potent drug. It overpowers fear. My wish is stronger than my need to tamp down all this fervent want.

  The next morning, I walk my dog in the chilly dawn, the remnants of this week’s Halloween still in store windows. After I race back to my apartment, nerves and anticipation jostling inside me like boxers in a ring, I take the stick I never peed on last month, and I pee on it.