by Anne Marsh
I dutifully try to imagine going out with her. The last non-Molly dinner date I had was with Hazel, naturally, and it was technically a business expense. We went to a casual seafood stall down on the San Francisco wharf, where we had a slightly smelly view of the water and a dozen sea lions. We worked our way through a mountain of crab on newspaper with lemon and butter because Hazel had made it clear that anything else would be a cardinal sin. I think we’d closed a big deal that day, but that memory is gone—that was just business. I remember the important stuff. The way the salt air had teased her hair into a Jackie Kennedy bouffant do. How she licked red lipstick and butter from her mouth.
I tap out a quick hello to May before I can overthink things. Max, Dev, Hazel—they’re right. I need to try meeting people. May must agree with them because she messages me right back.
Five minutes later, I have a date.
* * *
The restaurant May suggests that we meet at is highly reviewed on Yelp and is on the edge of the Santa Cruz boardwalk, cantilevered far enough out above the water that falling overboard would necessitate an ER trip. I’ve tipped/bribed the host for a table by the windows, which are open to let in the sea breeze, and I spot May the second she arrives. People sometimes lie, posting pictures from ten years ago or borrowing from a J. Crew catalog, but May looks like her picture. Blond hair floats around her shoulders and she’s wearing a lavender sundress with skinny straps. A cropped denim jacket with crystal buttons is slung over her arms and she’s wearing a pair of wedge sandals. The polka-dot ribbons crisscross around her ankles. She looks fun and approachable and sexy.
She waves at me as the maître d’ leads her to our table, so perhaps I look like my picture, too. Or whatever she imagined a venture capitalist looks like. Possibly, she just googled the hell out of me because it’s not as if my face isn’t online. I stand up to greet her. I’m waffling between a handshake and a friendly hug when she takes the decision out of my hands and brushes a kiss over my cheek. She smells like summer flowers, the kind Hazel’s sisters grow in their front yards.
I’d like to say we make awkward conversation, but we don’t. There’s mostly just silence. After we order drinks, she toys with her straw and I try to think of something to say. Work. Work is always safe. Everyone has work stories.
“So. How are the kindergartners?”
May shares a cute story about today’s arts-and-crafts project, in which macaroni noodles and toilet-paper tubes feature prominently. She shows me pictures on her phone and I make the appropriate noises.
When May asks me about my own week, I share a couple of carefully curated stories with her because I don’t quite trust that whatever I tell her will stay between the two of us. It’s happened to acquaintances—you meet a girl or a guy, have a few cocktails, swap a few stories, but then your dinner conversation shows up on a gossip site or someone horns in on the deal you were making. It’s a cutthroat world. We should talk about her instead. I rack my brain, trying to remember the details from her dating-app bio.
“Have you picked any good apples lately?”
May stares at me blankly.
I recognize that look. Usually it makes an appearance when I bust the person pitching me on something they added to their pitch deck because they thought it sounded good, but then they forgot that they put it in and that they know nothing about it.
“Apple-picking? A deep-seated love of? In your profile?”
She laughs. It’s a happy, light, totally obnoxious sound. Does she make it in bed, too? “Busted. My friend wrote that for me.”
She says this as if it’s no big deal that I just caught her in a little white lie. And maybe I am overreacting. Dating profiles are just marketing, right? And we all know the creative license a marketing department takes—the CEO doesn’t approve every single word.
I forge ahead. “Okay, so no apples. Bananas? Pears? Pecans?”
May stares at me as if I’m crazy.
When she excuses herself to go to the ladies’ room—ten long minutes after she arrives—I seize the chance to text Hazel.
SOS.
Hazel’s response is immediate: Don’t be such a baby. What’s wrong?
I have a long list, but I’ll sum up. Sitting in an ocean of awkward silence. Also, the apples were a lie. I want my money back. My dreams of apple-picking-ever-after are dashed.
Hazel: Well, shit.
Me: Yes, this is shit, thank you for asking. Rescue me.
Hazel: Tell me the plan.
Me: What?
Hazel: I know you. You have a plan, a backup plan and a parachute. Hit me.
Me: Am I that predictable?
Hazel: You’re a control freak.
Me: Pot, kettle.
Hazel: Penetration strategy. Go.
Me: Inappropriate, Coleman.
Hazel: Pfft. You’ve sold her on the billionaire bachelor fantasy—she’s at your table. You took her somewhere nice, right? Not tacos on the beach?
Me: Technically she’s in the ladies’ room and you like tacos on the beach.
Hazel: But I’m the backup plan. Woo her. Ask yourself, what would Prince Harry say? You can’t go wrong there.
Me: 10 out of 10. You’re good at this.
Hazel: Pfft. I’m the best. You can thank me with lattes. If all else fails, do the billionaire bad-boy thing.
* * *
May bounces back and I feel like I’ve just plunged my head inside a greenhouse full of very exotic flowers. Taking a deep breath might actually incite dizziness.
“Let’s get to know each other!” she chirps.
I decide the bright smile on her face is—mostly—genuine. It occurs to me that she might be nervous about tonight, too. The only things she knows about me are what Max has programmed into his stupid dating app.
“I’d love to,” I tell her, and I think she believes me, because her eyes light up.
May opens her purse and pulls out a stack of pink cards. “You go first. Pick one.”
I take a card. There’s a question written on the back in flowery script.
If you had all the money in the world, what would you do?
I go with Hazel’s suggestion and play the royalty card. “I’d open an elephant sanctuary in Africa, where orphaned and injured children could come to work with the animals and recover.”
“Wow.” May possibly goes a little slack jawed. She definitely leans into me, which just proves Hazel’s favorite point, namely that Hazel is always right. “That’s so noble.”
My fingers itch to text Hazel about my newfound nobility—she’d cut me down to size with a pointed insult.
Instead, I salute May with my wineglass. “Your turn.”
She grabs a card, flipping it over.
What’s the most expensive thing you’ve ever bought?
It’s like freaking kindergarten but without the crayons. May launches into a lengthy description of a handbag and I zone out. I’m not a fan of games. I think I’d prefer a more direct approach. I try to remember how Molly and I met, but the details are gone. I know there was a college party and far too much cheap beer. We took a couple of classes together, including a required PE class, where we had to square dance. Molly was even worse than I was.
The food is good, the wine is better and there are worse ways to spend an evening, even if I do have to list the contents of my car trunk—emergency flares, first-aid kit, gym clothes. And list three words my closest friends would use to describe me—organized, reliable, loyal. And choose my favorite Christmas present ever—the Lego Death Star, hands down.
May’s game turns out to have thirty questions—naturally—and we work through twenty during the main course, saving the last ten for dessert. After we finish our mains, we opt for a stroll around the restaurant’s deck while the waitstaff clear our table and prepare a chocolate soufflé.
&
nbsp; May loops her arm through mine, her boob brushing against my arm. I don’t think it’s an accident, although I shift away like a vestal virgin. Max would die laughing. May’s pretty, I inform my dick. She’s friendly, fit and probably a whole lot of fun in bed. When we pause to gaze out at the ocean, she leans back against me, as if we’ve known each other for weeks or months. I could slide my arms around her or rest my cheek against her hair or catch her hand with mine. I could kiss her.
The problem is that I don’t want to do any of those things. May’s lovely, but I’m not interested in getting to know her better. I don’t want to find out if she’s a morning or an afternoon or a midnight kind of person, or whether she starfishes in bed or sleeps straight and still like a vampire in a coffin. And as much as I want to have sex again before I reach Viagra territory, I don’t want to have sex with her—May—who turns out to love yachts and pink nail polish, tequila cocktails and seafood, glue sticks and holiday crafts. Sleeping with her just because I’m lonely isn’t fair, no matter how willing she is to be romanced by a billionaire bachelor.
While May makes a second call to the ladies’ room, I hightail it back to the table and tap out another SOS to Hazel. I need an exit strategy. A nice one.
Hazel’s response is almost instantaneous. Option A: Fake a food allergy.
My bad food experiences are thankfully limited. Only one particularly memorable encounter springs to mind, when I consumed bad something—tacos, tequila, you name it—south of the border.
You want me to lie to the poor girl?
Hazel fires right back: Get off your high horse, Archangel. Or just puke and skip the talking.
She follows this up with a GIF of a cartoon character spewing a green tsunami on a red-checkered tablecloth. My stomach lurches, preparing a sympathy hurl, but Hazel’s still typing.
Option B: Spew embarrassing personal details until she runs screaming.
This one feels more honest, but hardly less unpleasant. I eye the ladies’ room door, but there’s no sign of May. The problem with being a billionaire bachelor is that I have to worry about internet gossip sites. TMZ would have a field day with the details of my divorce, for example.
Option C, Hazel texts, I’ll crash and drag you away. Do you want me to be crazy ex-girlfriend, ex-wife, or ex-hookup?
I go for the honest answer.
Just come.
Hazel doesn’t miss a beat.
That’s what SHE said.
CHAPTER FIVE
RESCUE ARRIVES THIRTY very long minutes later. May and I have finished our dinner and shifted to the bar. The pink cards come with us, although I’ve given up hope for the night. The bar’s great, though. It’s classic: polished, wood countertop, tall stools and shelf after mirrored shelf of liquor bottles. I count ten different kinds of whiskey alone. In the mirror, May and I make a cute couple. The bartender winks at me and gives me a thumbs-up. I ignore his knowing smile and focus on my date, who is casting my astrological chart on a cocktail napkin and admiring my love line. It’s bold. Or strong. Or something. I don’t snort because that would be rude.
“What’s my future hold, love?” Our bartender leans in, subtly cutting me out with his shoulder as he smiles at May. “I could use a good heads-up.”
May asks when his birthday is and he winks at her. “Tomorrow.”
He’s probably lying, but May rolls with it and starts scratching on a new napkin. All around us, the bar is full of happy, drinking, chatting people who have plenty of things to say, but I feel like an observer. The bartender is promising May that he can guess what she’ll like. I’m not sure he means a particular drink, but she accepts something pink and frozen with a happy smile. He makes her feel special.
I’m pretending an all-encompassing interest in the drinks menu when May’s eyes widen almost comically. I follow her gaze instinctively, but then her face is obscured by the blonde who drops onto my lap. My brain promptly short-circuits because my new companion wiggles as she starts to slide down my thighs. She has a fabulous ass. Thighs. I mean, honestly, the whole package meets with my enthusiastic approval, even when she wraps her arms around my neck like ivy on an oak. For the first time tonight, anticipation buzzes through my veins. And other parts.
“You owe me,” the blonde whispers against my ear.
Hazel.
Of course it’s Hazel.
I do owe her, although I suspect we should have agreed on a less open-ended plan. I also had no idea that Hazel kept a stash of emergency wigs in her massive walk-in closet. She turns with another hard-on-inducing wiggle until she’s facing May, who is still staring. I don’t think she saw our date ending this way, either. Hazel is wearing a pair of skinny jeans, white Fendi boots that stop just below the knee and a fitted white T-shirt with a black-Sharpied White Knight scrawled across her boobs. Since we’re separated by mere inches, I can tell her eyes are lit up with impish glee. She has that wicked, hot-biker-chick thing going on for her—the kind of woman who graced my teenage bedroom walls and who I jerked off to more than I care to admit in high school. How is this woman possibly single?
“Excuse me?” May crumples up the bartender’s future, sounding rather proprietary. Yeah. She’s definitely decided I’m her billionaire bachelor.
Hazel leans forward. Instinctively, my hands cup her ass because she’s straddling my legs and my knees... Well, I’m pretty certain I’m not supposed to notice what they’re pressing against. Let’s just say it feels amazing.
Look, I know this is a bad idea. I should just tell May that I don’t think we’re a match and that we should get on with our separate lives.
But I might be a little too aware that May’s been fantasizing about her billionaire date night. If I’d simply been looking for a hookup or sex, I might ask if I could take her home or sweep her away to a palatial hotel in San Francisco. It’s not as if there’s a billionaire code of conduct that gets passed out when your bank account hits ten digits, but I’m literate and Hazel keeps stacks of Harlequins on her bedside table. As a member of the billionaire-boys club, I’m supposed to wine, dine and charm, preferably in a Maserati, a Hugo Boss suit and a penthouse suite.
“Bonjour, mon chéri.” Blonde Hazel throws her arms around my neck in an octopus hold and swoops in.
Holy shit.
Her hands cup the side of my head, angling it until she has me exactly where she wants me, and then her mouth covers mine. It’s the kind of aggressively hot kiss that goes from zero to sixty in under a second. Her tongue strokes along my upper lip, I open and she takes full advantage. Our kiss gets hungrier, noisier. There is nothing subtle about how she kisses me—it’s balls-out, loud, messy and the hottest thing ever. I feel her arms tighten, her breasts pressing against my chest. She’s practically giving me a lap dance and we’re sitting in a bar.
In public.
In front of May.
This is not the plan I would have gone with, but nevertheless I find myself falling into our kiss, my tongue dueling with hers because Hazel tastes amazing and this is...fun.
Hazel comes up for air and I grab her hands because I’m not sure how far she’ll take this. She looks over her shoulder and winks at May. “C’est moi.”
I’m no French expert but I don’t think that makes sense.
“I’m calling an Uber,” May says with fierce dignity.
I nod because she’s a grown woman and we both know this isn’t going to work.
The bartender slips a new, folded-up cocktail napkin to May. I’m pretty certain that it’s his number, but whatever it is—number, grocery list, scathing indictment of my social skills—she tucks it into her purse with exaggerated care.
I should say something to her. Instead, I lift Hazel off my lap, set her down on the bar stool next to me and walk May outside. She doesn’t say anything while we stand shoulder-to-shoulder on the sidewalk, staring at the car icon crawling acr
oss the screen of her phone.
When the Uber pulls up to the curb, I make sure she’s shared her ride details with a friend and I give her my number so she can text me that she’s arrived home safely. And then I open the door so she can slide inside, except that she pauses, the open door between us. From the corner of my eye, I spot the Uber driver grinning at me. Even he knows I was overly optimistic about how this night would turn out. I flick him a salute and decide that I’ll date again. When hell freezes over.
I lean down—the advantage of being built like a Viking—and brush my mouth over her cheek. “Thanks for having dinner with me.”
She bends toward me as if she’s thinking of what to say. “You could—”
“Be safe.” I take a step back, fingers curling around the door handle.
I’m not thrilled that she’s going to be riding home in the dark with a total stranger, but if I offer her a ride, she’s going to read things into it. Conceited? Not really. She’s staring at me like I’m a piece of chocolate cake with extra frosting and she hasn’t quite decided if I’m worth breaking her diet and the extra time in the gym.
When the car drives off and I turn around, I find Hazel grinning like a loon as she throws her arms wide. Her T-shirt stretches over her boobs in a way that’s either alarming or fabulous.
“Congratulations—you’re a free man.”
My smile feels lopsided. “Thanks.”
Hazel’s gaze slides over my face. “You’re terrible at dating. Why did we run May off?”
Even I know I should definitely not answer the question. Instead, I take the most direct course toward my car. You might think that living in California means I’m eco-friendly and carbon conscious and all the rest of those laudable things, but the truth is that I like knowing where my exit points are. Having a car close by means I’m not dependent on anyone—or anyone’s app—for my getaway. Ergo, I’m valet parked.
