by Marie Force
As I straighten my hair, I study the reflection of the woman staring back at me. Her eyes are haunted, her brows furrowed and her mouth pinched by the strain of grief that’s taken an awful toll. It would’ve been easier, I know, if John had been killed. At least then I’d have answers. But this endless purgatory has added years to my face that weren’t there when I met him.
Accepting that I can’t continue to do this alone comes with overwhelming relief. Tomorrow, I’ll try to find someone who can help me and take that first important step toward true healing. It’s long overdue. Tonight, however, I have a date to look forward to with a fun, funny, handsome, sweet man, and I’m going to push aside the grief and despair and allow myself to enjoy the time with him.
I’ve certainly earned the right to enjoy myself again.
ERIC
I like her more than I probably should, especially in light of my recent history with women—or I should say one woman in particular. Ava is hesitant and a little skittish and deeply troubled by something she hasn’t shared with me. I’ve had to resist the temptation to ask Camille if she knows what’s up with her sister. I suspect Camille has been so absorbed in finishing law school and planning a wedding that she hasn’t noticed her sister is troubled.
But I’ve noticed. The day she met me for a drink after work? She’d been crying. She said it was allergies, but allergies don’t leave a person looking as devastated as she looked when we met at that bar.
I’ve always been a perceptive kind of guy. I see things others don’t. Sometimes I wonder if I missed my calling. I should’ve been a globe-trotting TV news reporter. As an astute people-watcher and more than casual observer of the human race, I think I would’ve been good at that. But I’m too much of a homebody to travel the way I’d have to for that career. I like being around my friends and family—most of them, anyway—and my current career keeps me close to my siblings and friends.
The first time I met Ava, I saw the pain she tries so hard to keep hidden from others. It may as well have been lit up in blinking neon: This girl is suffering. Naturally, being the masochist that I am where women are concerned, her suffering sparked my curiosity. The fact that she’s simply stunning didn’t hurt anything, but that’s almost secondary to my desire to know what happened to her.
I sniffed around a bit with Rob and Camille when they were first home from their honeymoon. Walking the careful line between showing too much interest and trying to find out more about her, I tried to bring it up casually when I had dinner with them, Amy and Jules the day after they got back.
As I put on a gray suit for my night out with Ava, I think back to that dinner with my siblings, which was before Ava moved to the city from her parents’ home in Purchase.
Camille gave me the perfect opening when she said Ava and I seemed to hit it off at the wedding.
“We did,” I said. “We had a great time.” I didn’t mention that I’d been texting with her regularly since the wedding because that’s no one’s business but hers and mine.
“I loved her,” Jules said over sushi and fancy drinks at a midtown place Amy recommended. “Such a fun girl.”
Our youngest sister likes everyone—literally every person in the world. She’s never had an enemy or met anyone she didn’t want to befriend, from homeless people on the street to millionaire clients. Jules has the kindest heart I’ve ever experienced, and because of that, the rest of us worry endlessly about her safety. Fortunately, along with her compassion is a healthy dose of street smarts—and pepper spray Rob bought her attached to her keychain—that keep us from losing sleep over her.
“You think you’ll see her again?” Rob asked casually.
A word about my “older” brother here—he doesn’t do anything casually, so there’s nothing casual about his probing question.
“Of course I will,” I told him. “Her sister is married to my brother. I expect I’ll see lots of her.”
Rob scowled at me. Most people don’t see right through him, but his siblings always do.
“Leave him alone, Rob,” Amy said, sipping from an overly full martini glass. “The last thing he needs is everyone up in his grill because he had a good time at your wedding.”
“Thank you, Amy.” I raised my beer mug in tribute to her. They’d made fun of me for ordering a beer when the rest of them went the fancy cocktail route. I had stuff to do the next day, and beer never leaves me feeling like shit after a night out. I adore bourbon, but beer and I are old friends. “What’s her story, anyway?” I asked Camille, in the same casual tone, only mine was much more effective than his because Camille took the bait.
“I’m sure she told you she’s lived in San Diego since she left for college and only recently moved home. She’s hoping that’s very temporary because my parents are super excited to have one of us back at home. They’re giving her a little too much attention, and after ten years on her own, they’re going to quickly drive her nuts.”
None of this information was new to me. Ava told me this much herself.
“No serious boyfriends?” Amy asked, glancing at me with a knowing look in her eye.
I appreciated her saving me the trouble of having to decide if I was willing to ask that question.
“None that I know of, but Ava is super private. She never said much about her life out there, and I was too busy with law school to pry. All I know is she wants to find a job and an apartment in the city.”
“I put out some feelers with my contacts for her,” Jules said. “She’ll find something soon.”
“Thanks for that,” Camille said. “I’d love to have her living close to us.”
I want that, too, not that I shared that thought with them. I’ve learned to hold my cards close around my overly involved family. I failed to do that with Brittany. I was so crazy about her, I wanted the whole world to know. Think Tom Cruise on Oprah’s sofa after he met Katie Holmes. That was me with Brit. After waiting my whole life for the one, I went all in like a madman on steroids.
Months after the disaster, I still miss her and actively hate myself for that. More than anything, I miss the feeling that had me higher than I’ve ever been in my life. But I’ve learned that when you’re higher than you’ve ever been, the crash is that much more excruciating.
In thirty-two blessed years, I’d never been disabled by grief or disappointment, but I was after she left me—or, I should say, after she ghosted me. To this day, I can’t get my head around how someone could do that to the person they’ve professed to love. It boggles my mind. And when I think about the way I freaked out trying to find her, calling in the police and sounding the alarm with everyone we knew… I shudder as a wave of nausea has me wondering if I’m going to be sick—again. I’ve puked more since she left me than I did in my whole life before her.
Only after Amy and Jules tracked her down and came back with the true story did I fall into the deep pit of true despair. Before then, I’d had hope to cling to. Surely there had to be an explanation that made sense. I’d pictured her in a hospital suffering from a head injury that had stolen her memory. What other reason could there be for seven days without a word from the woman I loved?
Turns out there was a reason, and after I heard it painfully delivered by my sisters, I went underground for a full month. I didn’t go to work or leave my apartment even once. I refused to talk to my siblings, my friends, my parents… The only one I wanted no longer wanted me. What else did I need to know? Luckily, my employers value my contributions, so I didn’t lose my job, but even if I had, I wouldn’t have cared. I was lower than I’ve ever been, and nothing as trivial as losing my job could bring me lower.
I haven’t been out with anyone since disaster struck eight months ago. I haven’t wanted to—until I met Ava at the wedding. Since then, I find myself thinking about her quite frequently, which is a welcome relief. The more I think about her, the less time there is to dwell on Brittany and the mess she made of my otherwise charmed life.
Adjusting my gray suit coat ove
r the white dress shirt I’ve worn without a tie, I try to mentally prepare myself for my first real date after the worst breakup in modern history. With Ava’s sister married to my brother, there’s too much at stake to risk taking a step with her that I’m not ready for. I’m ready for this, or I wouldn’t have asked her. I wish I’d met Ava before Brittany did a number on me. I think Ava would’ve liked the guy Eric Tilden was before Brittany Kerns ruined him.
The new Eric Tilden is cautious and jaded and cynical. This Eric will never again put himself in a position to be flattened by a woman. The days of jumping on sofas are over forever for this guy. Funny enough, I don’t miss sex, and I used to have a lot of it, before Brittany and with her. Since she left me, I’ve lost interest. It’s like my sex drive shriveled up and died along with my heart. She broke me in more ways than one.
I dab on a hint of cologne—something I’ve never worn before, because I got rid of everything that reminded me of Brittany—clothes, cologne, music and the bed I shared with her. I destroyed every photo of her and us together. I threw out clothing she left at my place—even the five-hundred-dollar jeans she treasured—and smashed the turntable she gave me for our first Christmas into a thousand pieces before I dumped it down the trash chute in my building. I wanted nothing of her left in my life, and I succeeded in purging her from my home. If only I could do the same with my memories.
I’d like to invent a device that can rid your brain of things you no longer want or need to remember. Wouldn’t that be something? A way to wipe clean the hard drive and reboot your internal system. Sign me up. I’d willingly volunteer my brain to develop such a thing, especially if it meant I’d never have another thought about Brittany for the rest of my life.
“We’re not thinking about her tonight,” I remind myself. “Tonight is for Ava. Brittany is dead to us.” Keep saying it, old man. Keep saying it until you succeed in purging her from your brain the same way you’ve gotten rid of her in your home.
I grab my wallet, phone and keys off the kitchen counter and head out to pick up Ava, determined to look forward rather than backward. I want to get to know her better. I want her to trust me with whatever haunts her, but that’s not going to happen overnight. If she’s never told her sister, what makes me think she’ll tell me?
Maybe she won’t, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try to get to know her. I have a feeling she might be worth the effort.
If someone had asked me before my brother’s wedding—which I’d been dreading, by the way—if I was ready to get back to dating, I would’ve said no way. I had zero interest in anything having to do with women or dating. In fact, before the wedding, I might’ve replied that I’d rather have a vasectomy without painkillers than go out with a woman, and it would’ve been the truth. But then I met Ava, and suddenly, I was intrigued by a woman again.
Not that I’m looking to plunge into another relationship. Not even kinda. I like Ava, and I enjoy spending time with her. That’s all this is, I tell myself as I walk the short distance from my place to hers. It’s a diversion. Something to do. A new friend to get to know.
Another thing I like about spending time with Ava is that she doesn’t know Brittany, didn’t know me with her and doesn’t look at me with sympathy or empathy or pity the way everyone else in my life does. I’m tired of being on the receiving end of everyone’s good intentions. Even the people I work with, the fucking partners, for God’s sake, know what happened to me, and I hate that. But that’s what happens when you take an unscheduled month out of work. The bosses find out your fiancée ghosted you, and everyone feels terrible for you.
It’s time to rewrite the narrative but to proceed with utmost caution.
As I arrive at Ava’s building, I text her.
Be right down, she replies.
The doorman admits me when I tell him I’m here to see Ava. A few minutes later, she comes off the elevator, wearing sky-high heels and one of those sexy, clingy dresses that tie at the hip. Miles of creamy white leg is on display, and her auburn hair falls in silky waves around her shoulders. Her golden-brown eyes have been given a smoky look with artfully applied makeup. Tonight, she seems a little less haunted than she was on our previous encounters. I’m hypnotized by her, and then she smiles.
Holy shit, she’s stunning, and for a moment, I’m rendered mute and paralyzed while I watch her come to me.
“Hi,” she says, sounding a little breathless. “You look nice.”
“You look… Wow. Beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
I extend a hand to her, and she takes it, our eyes meeting in a charged moment of awareness.
She looks up at me. “Where’re we going?”
“Brooklyn.”
“Oh, cool. What’s there?”
“Come and I’ll show you.” I lead her out the door that the doorman holds for us and down the stairs, moving slowly in deference to her heels. On the street level, I hail a cab, help her in, and when I’m settled next to her, I give the driver the address of our destination.
My eyes are drawn to her sexy legs, and I remind myself I’m not allowed to touch. But for the first time in a very long time, I want to. I really, really want to.
Chapter Seven
AVA
Sitting in the backseat of a cab with Eric next to me, I have butterflies in my stomach. Something is different tonight, from the way he looked at me when I came off the elevator to how he held my hand and helped me into the cab. The easy banter is gone, replaced by the kind of tense expectation I haven’t experienced since the night I met John.
Eric looks so sexy in a gray suit, and he smells delicious. I want to lean in closer to get a better handle on the scent he’s wearing.
I’ve never been nervous in his presence before, but now I am. I have no reason to be afraid of him, not physically, anyway. He’s never been anything but a perfect gentleman around me, from the night we met when he slept on the other side of my bed so he could be there if I needed him. Nothing breeds trust with a new guy quite like a platonic night in the same bed, especially when I was drunk and vulnerable.
I liked the way he held my hand and helped me into the cab.
I love the suit he’s wearing and the way it hugs his lean but muscular body.
I like the way he looked at me when he saw me coming toward him, and I marvel at how everything between us seemed to change in those first few seconds.
I’m unnerved by the unusual silence between us. Even when we’d just met, we’ve always had plenty to talk about. The silence isn’t uncomfortable, but rather, charged with the weight of expectation. I try to remember the last time I truly looked forward to anything, and it was before John left. I used to look forward to getting home to him after work each night, especially on Fridays when we’d have an entire weekend to spend together.
I don’t want to think about him when Eric is sitting close enough for me to touch him, not that I do. But I could, and I’m quite confident my touch would be welcome.
“Are you okay?” I ask him, more to break the silence than anything.
“I’m great. You?”
Smiling, I nod. “I’m excited to be going out tonight.”
“I’m excited to be going out with you tonight.” He reaches across the small bit of seat separating us and takes my hand.
As the breath catches in my throat, I curl my fingers around his hand. His gaze meets mine, and I can tell by the way he looks at me that he’s feeling the same way I am. This casual night out with a friend has taken on all-new significance, and how did that happen in the span of a heartbeat?
The taxi darts through traffic, horn blasting, stopping, starting and swerving to avoid disaster at the last second.
“I feel like I’m in a video game.”
Eric laughs. “Such is life in New York. And why do we never put on seat belts in cabs when they drive the way they do?”
“Safest drivers in the world,” the cabbie says in a thick New Yawk accent that makes us laug
h.
We lurch to the left, and I grasp the door handle with my free hand. The driver lets loose with a string of profanity and lays on the horn. I love every second of it. Even with my life in danger, I feel more alive than I have in years. We cross the Brooklyn Bridge, take an exit that leads to the waterfront and pull up to The River Café, situated adjacent to the bridge.
Eric hands the driver cash, helps me out of the cab and keeps an arm around my waist as we’re ushered into a cozy, elegant dining room. Our table looks across the East River to Manhattan.
“This is fabulous,” I tell him when we’re seated.
“I’ve heard great things and have always wanted to come here.”
I like knowing he’s never been here before, that it’s not somewhere he went with his ex. Not that I think he’d bring me to a place he went with her, but I’m glad just the same that we can share this new experience with each other.
“I had to call in a favor from a friend to get us in on short notice. A guy I went to college with is friends with the general manager.”
“Well, thank you for calling in a favor on my behalf.”
“What looks good to you?”
We discuss the menu and settle on salads to start with as well as the salmon for me and the halibut for him. Then we look over the drink menu.
“Mmm, the dark and stormy looks good,” he says. “I wonder if they’d do that with bourbon rather than rum.”
“You don’t like rum?”
“I got sick on it once.” He makes a face. “Never again.”
“That’s me and gin. Never again. I might’ve had to add champagne to my never-again list if it hadn’t been for your emergency pizza rescue.”
“I’m glad I was able to preserve your relationship with champagne.”
The waiter says they can do the dark and stormy with bourbon, so we each order one, and when he returns with our drinks, Eric orders dinner for both of us. He does it so smoothly that it never occurs to me to tell him I could order for myself.
