“Oh.” I sipped my water. “Yeah.” I watched him at the bar, his elbows on the counter and his gaze on one of the TVs, while a trio of young women nearby giggled and gawked at him. He didn’t give them a first or a second glance. I couldn’t help smiling.
“How are things with you and Rob?” Yessi asked.
She snapped me out of my little daydream about what had…gone down…between Dax and me earlier this morning. “Oh,” I said. “Fine. Whatever.”
Dax set Yessi’s beer in front of her.
She sipped the foam off her Green Line. “Dax, what do you think about this whole Rob thing?”
He took a seat adjacent to me and across from Yessi. “Rob is…?”
“The guy Annie’s seeing? The one she grew up with?”
“Oh, he’s one of those guys.” Dax was checking out the score on the TV. “I don’t know anything about him.”
Yessi’s wide eyes snapped to me. “One of what guys?”
“You know,” Dax said. “One of the guys she’s going to settle down with.”
I turned to him. “Thank you,” I deadpanned.
His eyes met mine. “What?” Then he looked from me to Yessi. “She didn’t know? I just figured. She’s your best friend…”
No, I hadn’t told either of my best friends about this, only the random dude in my basement with whom I was now hooking up. Why was that so hard to fathom?
Yessi rested her chin on her hand. “Tell me more, Dax.”
I shrugged. “Go ahead.”
“You should tell her,” Dax said.
He was right. I probably should. Yessi and I had vowed to keep each other in the loop better, hadn’t we?
I swung around to face Yessi, who I knew would not approve of any of this, but we were trying to be more open and honest with each other. I would trust her not to eviscerate me tonight in a bar full of people, one of whom I had just had sex with three times this morning. “Okay…the night I found out about Mark, I got a little drunk—”
“Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait.” Yessi held up a hand to stop me. “You got drunk?”
“Yes, I got drunk, and I sent a text to several—”
“Thirty-nine—”
I shifted my narrow gaze to Dax for a moment. What the heck, man? “Sure. Thirty-nine.” And then I was back to Yessi. “I sent a text to thirty-nine men that I was ready to settle down and…in the light of day, I realized I truly was. In vino veritas, right? So, I contacted Rob and”—before Dax could drop another truth bomb, I got out ahead of the story—“Darius Carver—”
“The Man on Main Street?” she squealed.
“Shhh! Yes, the Man on Main Street,” I said. “The two of them are both serious about getting out of the dating rat race and…getting married.” I whispered those last two words.
Yessi’s inscrutable eyes watched me for a few moments before turning to Dax. “What do you think about this?”
I opened my mouth to stop him from answering but quickly closed it. I actually wanted to hear this answer. I glanced over at him.
He’d fixed his eyes on Yessi. “I think it’s a terrible fucking idea,” he said. “I think marriage, if that’s truly what she wants, should be for love, and I think she’s selling herself short thinking that she’ll never find that.”
My mind bounced between the idea that Dax could be talking about himself and the reality that I knew he’d never be able to give me what I wanted. He was a young musician, and he’d just gotten divorced. He wasn’t ready for the kind of commitment I needed. I’d be knee-deep in my Bunco phase by the time Dax was ready to settle down.
Yessi sat quietly for a few seconds. “I agree with Dax.” She reached over and patted my hand. “Hon, we both know people who stayed together out of convenience. It never works out. I don’t know, maybe you could love Rob or Darius, but if you don’t and you go through with a marriage, it’s going to end in disaster.”
Everything was always black and white with Yessi. She was as analytical as I was, but she always saw things as right or wrong, good or bad. There was no gray area. She just so happened to fall in love with someone who was in the same mental, physical, and emotional space she was, and since it all worked out for her, she had no reason the question the magic of love—no reason not to believe that if it happened for her, it would happen for everyone.
Meanwhile, I was pushing forty, and I’d never even come close to having what she and Polly had. “Forgive me for being a realist,” I said. “You’ve been with Polly for a long time now. You don’t know what it’s like to be out here, with all your friends pairing off and moving away.” My lip trembled. “All I know for sure is that I don’t want to be alone.” I puffed up my chest. “This is me solving that problem.”
Dax reached for my hand and squeezed. “Hey.” My eyes met his sad, serious ones. “There is nothing lonelier than a loveless marriage. I speak from experience.”
“Time to start the tournament!” Ronald’s voice boomed from the stage.
I wrested my hand from Dax’s. “Your marriage started with love and passion, and those things faded. I’m talking about doing the opposite: starting from a place of similar goals and mutual respect. Maybe the other stuff will come later.”
I positioned my pencil over the answer sheet, visibly ready to crush the competition. But my mind kept flitting to thoughts of Rob’s brotherly, passionless kiss, to Darius beaming at Monica Feathers, to Dax holding me this morning like we’d been together for years. I snuck a glance at him, and his eyes were on me. I felt a tug behind my belly button.
Just as Ronald announced question number one, Dax said, “You deserve the other stuff now.” His bisected eyebrow flickered.
My stomach in knots, I pulled my eyes away from his and wrote the correct answer: Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. “Yeah, well,” I said, “we can’t have everything, can we?”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Can We Use a Lifeline?
On Thursday night, I made microwave popcorn—one of the only foods I was qualified to prepare—and set the bowl on the coffee table in the family room to watch Darius’s segment on Dax. I sat on the opposite end of the couch from where he and Joanne were cuddled together.
We hadn’t really spoken about anything of substance since trivia on Tuesday. After the initial discussion about my love life, he, Yessi, and I got down to the business of kicking everyone else’s butts. And then Yessi invited me back to her condo for a little more friend time.
While she nursed Olivia, I’d sat in the chair opposite her, feeling like I was a witness in one of her trials. “You need to be straight with me. What’s going on with you and Dax?”
I grinned, making sure to hold eye contact with Yessi, whose superpower was being able to smell bullshit a mile away. “Nothing. He’s living in my basement.”
With the disbelieving look she gave me, I half expected her to say, Ma’am, you’re under oath.
“Seriously,” I said. “Basement.”
“We promised to be more forthcoming with each other.”
She had me there. “Okay,” I said, “in the interest of our friendship, you should know we slept together a little.”
Yessi raised an eyebrow. “How little is ‘little’?”
“Only one night. Three…times.”
“Annie.” She shifted Olivia’s position.
“It’s not a big deal,” I said. “We discussed it beforehand, and we both agreed it would be a one-time thing.” …Which ended up being a three-time thing, including a sleepover, but shit happens.
“He likes you,” she said.
“And I like him,” I said in a steady, even tone, “as a human being.”
“He likes you more than that,” she said. “I can tell. And you like him, too.”
She always thought she had the exact right read on every situation. Well, no
t this time, Yesenia Cortez-Bean, Esquire. “Our feelings are irrelevant in this situation,” I said. “We are in completely different places in our lives. We want different things. The timing isn’t right.”
“The timing is never right.” Yessi glanced down at her daughter, who was growing sleepy-eyed. “I think you’re under the impression that things were all smiles and rainbows when Polly and I got together.”
“Well, weren’t they?” I said, chuckling. “I mean, the two of you were both professionals in your thirties with 401(k)s and no car payments.”
“It’s not that simple,” she said. “When we first met, Polly hadn’t come out to her family yet, so that was an issue. And I’d just made partner and was suddenly under a whole lot of pressure to perform at work and bring in clients.”
“Not to belittle your situation,” I said, “but those issues sound surmountable to me.”
“Well, maybe they do now,” she said, “because we surmounted them. Falling for the cute, smart, single guy who lives in your basement doesn’t sound like the worst problem to me, either.”
I sighed.
“And look at Kelly,” she said. “She’s been working her whole life to build her real estate career in Chicago, but she fell for someone who lives all the way across the state. You don’t think that seemed insurmountable to her?”
I had no answer for that, mostly because Kelly had stopped talking to me and I had no idea what she might have been thinking when she met Mark.
“That’s all I’m saying,” Yessi said. “All problems are unsolvable until you solve them.”
And now I was back in my house, sitting on the couch with my own unsolvable problem (not to mention his massive pooch), about to watch his interview with one of two guys I’d pledged to possibly marry.
I grabbed a fistful of popcorn and shoved it in my mouth.
“Good evening,” said the anchor filling in for Gayle Gale.
I attempted to swallow the wad of popcorn mush. “She’s not as good as Gayle,” I said, spraying a little popcorn on my shirt. Classy, Annie.
“No one is,” Dax agreed. His fingers played with Joanne’s ears as he stared at the TV. He seemed a little on edge, and I understood why. I’d been the subject of one of these segments recently, and he’d seen firsthand how my professional life blew up afterward.
“You’re gonna do great,” I told him. “I’m sure the camera loves you.”
He flashed me a quick, sweet smile.
Jana Philipps, tonight’s anchor, continued, “Tonight our Man on Main Street, Darius Carver, spotlights a hot local band on the verge of making it. Darius?”
The camera cut to a smiling Darius in front of a screen bearing his “Man on Main Street” logo. “Thanks, Jana. Tonight I highlight Farouche, a band making very innovative music in a very interesting way.” His eyes twinkled. “And stick around to see if you can spot a link to one of our other recent stories.”
The screen cut to Farouche playing a gig at a small bar in town, then Darius talking to other members of the band. I glanced over at Dax, whose eyes were glued to the TV.
“He’s making you guys look great,” I said.
Dax nodded.
I focused on the TV again. Darius was talking to Kat, the bassist, about her classical training. “But Kat isn’t the only one who studied Mozart and Beethoven.” The camera cut to Dax on keyboard. “Dax Logan started playing piano at three and never looked back.”
Now on-screen Dax was sitting at a diner booth, hands folded on the table. His usually messy hair was combed, and he appeared to have shaved. My heart swelled. He looked so cute, like he’d been trying so hard to make a good impression in his big TV debut. I shook my head. Stop noticing his looks.
I straightened up and focused on what he was saying.
“I would play anything,” he said. “I started plunking out melodies by ear, and then, once I could read notes, I studied every style of music I could get my hands on.”
Darius’s voice cut in: “Dax ended up at Yale on a music scholarship.”
I turned to him, eyes bugged out. “Yale? You went to fucking Yale?”
His cheeks turned pink.
My eyes went back to the TV. We’d discuss this later. I needed the whole story.
“But life isn’t easy for these musicians,” Darius was saying, his voice taking on a hint of gravitas. “As you know, Man on Main Street likes to give the full story of our subjects, even when it’s tough, and though Farouche is highly regarded among music critics and fans, they’re still only on the verge of stardom. Everyone in the band has a day job.”
“I’m an office temp,” Kat said, before the other members rattled through the roster of their jobs.
“I like that he does this,” I said. “It’s good for people to know the amount of work and sacrifice it takes to make it.”
Finally, on-screen Dax said, “I’m a bartender.”
“Interestingly enough,” Darius was saying, “that job put him in touch with another of our Man on Main Street subjects—concierge doctor Annie Kyle.”
My stomached dropped. Here it came. The big link to me. Darius was a professional, and I trusted he wouldn’t say anything to embarrass me, but still. I wasn’t comfortable being in the spotlight. I did my job and went about my day. I didn’t crave attention.
The video returned to the shot of Dax in the diner. “Yeah, Annie showed up one night and ended up performing first aid on my leg after a shard of glass cut me.” He laughed. “And then she started coming in all the time, and we got to talking. She found out that I needed a place to stay, and she, out of the kindness of her heart, told me, a guy she barely knew, that I could move into her basement.”
“Did that throw you for a loop?” Darius asked.
“Yeah, it did.” Dax laughed. “And for a minute there I did worry I was walking into a Misery situation.”
I reached over and slapped him playfully on the arm. “I’ll Misery you.”
“But it’s been great, actually,” on-screen Dax was saying. “Annie and I have gotten to know each other a bit, and she’s so supportive of my music.” He chuckled, shaking his head. “We’ve been competing in this big Chicago trivia tournament, and she agreed to give me all our winnings to help me keep following my dream.” His eyes turned serious. “I’m not sure she realizes how close I was to quitting the band before she came along.”
I hesitated for a second and then reached across Joanne. Dax took my hand, and my entire body relaxed.
As the segment moved on to the future of Farouche, I said, “You’re making this whole ‘no feelings, just-one-time’ thing really difficult.”
I felt his eyes shift to me, and I looked over. “Maybe we jumped the gun a little when we agreed to that,” he said.
“Dax—”
“I mean it,” he said. “I like you, Annie. I like you a lot more than ‘one time.’”
I kept thinking about Yessi’s advice—that timing was never perfect, that love was never easy. What Dax was proposing would be the epitome of that. It might feel good now, but where would we be in six months? A year? We barely knew each other—Yale!—and I couldn’t seriously consider giving up two sure things for a guy that could pick up and hit the road with his band at any minute. I was way too practical for that. “Dax, it’s not that I don’t feel the same way—”
“Great.” He gently removed Joanne from his lap and rushed to my side. He took my hands in his. “If you feel the same way, that’s all that matters.”
My mind ran through all the ways this would end badly. The two of us had never really discussed anything of importance. I didn’t even know where he stood on the issue of having kids. I literally just found out where he went to college.
“The rest we can figure out as we go along. Annie, what do you say?”
He moved in closer as my doorbell rang, and Jo
anne rushed to the door, barking. Grateful for a pause in this conversation, I jumped up. “Sales call, probably,” I said.
Dax followed me to the hallway and grabbed his dog’s collar, dragging her away from the door. I looked through the peephole.
“It’s Darius,” I said as I fumbled with the doorknob.
Dax pulled Joanne toward the basement steps. “I’ll take her on a walk and keep her out of your hair.” He shot me one last look—full of both hope and concern—as he disappeared down the stairwell.
With a deep breath, I pulled open the door. “What are you doing here—?”
My eyes traveled down to the stoop. Darius knelt in front of me on one knee, holding a gargantuan diamond ring. “Dr. Annie Kyle, please say you’ll marry me.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Game of Phones
Glancing down the street to make sure no one had witnessed what just happened—least of all Dax—I motioned for Darius to get up and come inside. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you live on TV right now?”
He stood and brushed off his pants. “Oh, I recorded all that earlier in the day.” He grinned. “The magic of television. I gather you watched the segment?”
“Yes,” I said. “You did a great job highlighting Farouche. I’m sure it will up their profile.”
“I’m sure it will.” He stepped into my living room and ran his finger across the back of the dusty piano. “What did you think about the last bit?”
“The last bit?”
Darius frowned. “You didn’t watch until the end? I sent you a secret message.”
I shook my head.
He scrunched up his face a bit, and I could tell he was annoyed. “No matter,” he said. “It was just a sly nod to our little arrangement—me telling you that I was about to make good on our promise. No one who wasn’t in on it would suspect anything.” He winked and handed me the ring box.
I opened it, and the canned lighting above us glinted off the marquise-cut boulder. Darius had impeccable taste, even if the ring was too flashy for me. Kelly would probably give it four drooly-face emojis. I snapped the box shut.
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