When They Do

by Sara Breaker

  I blinked, surprised at the reference, and my gaze snapped up to look at Claire automatically, and she finally met my gaze.

  “Come on, Alex,” Janice coaxed me. “Tell Claire she deserves some fun too.”

  And that did it.

  Claire stood up, excusing herself from the group with an intentionally vague “And that’s my limit. I’ll see you guys later, okay?”

  I stood up almost instantly to follow her to the door. I knew I had to get her alone. I swallowed hard, attempting to mask my nerves with a big grin, but she knew full well I was behind her, and before I could say anything at all, she whirled around swiftly to face me to firmly say, “Please. I don’t want to remember. Can we just forget it ever happened?”

  I stopped, suddenly at a loss. “I…” I could barely breathe. Forget? I barely slept last night thinking about it.

  “I hope you haven’t told anyone yet,” she looked distraught as she shook her head, like she couldn’t stand the mere thought that I had seen her naked. “I don’t want…” she stopped short, taking a deep breath. “I just can’t be one of those girls, Alex.”

  I shook my head slowly. “N-no…I haven’t told anyone…”

  There was no mistaking the wave of relief coming over her face. “Thank you for that,” she said. “I’m going to go now, but…I think it would be best if we don’t hang out together for a while.”

  I creased my forehead. “What? Are you—are you saying we can’t be friends anymore?”

  She gave me a plain look. “We were never really friends, Alex. You just happen to hang around my friends a lot. So maybe…you could hang out with your other friends for a while…? Please?” she stated, before turning around and disappearing quickly amongst the sidewalk crowd.

  I felt as though I got punched in the face.

  Happy New Year, Alex.

  Okay, so this story is about me a little. But none of this would have happened if stupid Marco and Nina hadn’t decided to get married.

  Marco and Nina’s Engagement Party

  I didn’t go.

  I made some lame excuse about work so that Marco wouldn’t bust my ass about not attending his fancy engagement party. Of course, I had to swear under pain of death to show up at the actual wedding in return for flaking out at the engagement party. In any case, I knew I had to. I was a groomsman after all.

  But I’d had the ultimatum from Claire and I didn’t want to be a jerk. That was, an even bigger jerk than she already thought I was.

  This time, my mission was reversed. I was in no way about to attend any party if I knew that Claire would be attending, or be around anywhere that I knew she would be present. Naturally, this meant that I had missed every other party since New Year’s. And I hadn’t been hanging out at The Irish either. I still went out for the rare beer with Tyler and Marco, but elsewhere, and only when I was 100% sure the girls would not be showing up.

  And whenever Tyler would ask me where I had been, my standard response was only “Nowhere. I just needed a new scene.”

  I didn’t feel like reactivating my hook-up chore wheel or exploiting Tinder again. Don’t get me wrong, I still went out and about town, and had the usual one-night stand when the opportunity presented itself. It wasn’t like the city had run out of available babes, although—they all still paled in comparison to Claire.

  I hung out with my other friend Rob quite a bit. We went to the same gym. He was also single, except he was a few years older, already been divorced once, really jaded, and everything that came with that particular set of circumstances. His motto was “Fuck the past. And fuck tomorrow. Fuck today. Fuck everything.”

  I mean, we spent Valentine’s Day at a strip club.

  “She’s a skank,” Rob hollered after his last lap dance had left.

  I just shook my head to myself amused, as I took a sip of my scotch.

  “Hey, what about you, man?” Rob gestured at me. “You’ve only had one all night. What, you don’t like the girls here? I mean, yeah, I didn’t realize how skanky they all are. Maybe Tuesday’s girls were just better. I was only here once before, on a Tuesday. I’m usually at ‘The Leopard Skin’. Now you really wanna have some fun, come to the Leopard on a Monday night,” he advised with a grin.

  Admittedly, hanging out with Rob was definitely not the most intellectually stimulating or morally encouraging pastime. Rob was almost a fine example of every bachelor’s dystopian future. I supposed if I was going to look at the bright side, I could think that at least I hadn’t ended up like Rob yet.

  “Hey, if you’re strapped for cash right now, I can spot you another lap dance,” he offered, already raising his hand to call someone.

  “Oh, no, no, I’m good. It’s not that,” I assured him with a nod, so that he dropped his hand. “This is fine,” I said, gesturing to the pole show.

  I guessed I’d never realized how much my social life had become dependent on “the gang”. Tyler and Janice always had some friends who threw parties for random reasons. Marco’s parent’s house was almost always lit up for some special occasion. Without the group, I had to rely on my visiting the random clubs and bars to find girls.

  Not very many opportunities to “whore myself out”, as Claire had put it, I remembered with a frown, thinking of the irony.

  I didn’t know why I couldn’t stop thinking about Claire.

  I had known Claire for years. But suddenly, everything I knew about her was all at once coming back to me. Every darn little ridiculous adorable thing.

  The way she wrinkled her nose, pretending to be repulsed, when she’s actually amused. Or that look she’d give you right before she just knows you’re about to be schooled. The way she tried not to laugh at lame jokes, the infectious sound of her laughter when she just couldn’t help it. Contrary to her often sarcastic, highly logical front, I knew she was a total sucker for sappy sentimental ads on TV. She was the only one who would still bother to have pointless mundane debates with me—usually regarding the existence of mythical things, loch ness, aliens, that kind of stuff. She had given me this non-fiction Carl Sagan book about space for one of my birthdays—I’d never read it. I told her so the year after. That was the last time she ever gave me a book.

  I suddenly felt like I wanted to be that guy. The guy she had thought that I was. The kind of guy that would read that book. The kind of guy she would agree to get coffee with without making a face like it was the most horrendous thing she could ever think of. The kind of guy you would still want to spend the rest of the next day with, after having a night of the most mind-blowing sex with him.

  Everything about her was confusing me like hell. I wanted to put her out of my mind. Not to mention what had happened with Claire had seriously shaken my confidence. I’d never felt so inadequate before in my entire life.

  I went out with this girl last night. She was great. She’d said I was great too. But right after the “festivities”, she’d gotten dressed right back up and was out the door after ten minutes. Sure, she was legitimately a flight attendant on a layover with an early flight two hours thereafter. But it still shook me.

  “Are you still recovering from last night—what was her name? Natalia?” Rob prompted me, as he popped some Swedish meatballs in his mouth.

  “Natasha,” I corrected. “No, it was fine.”

  “Fine?” Rob echoed. “Just fine?” he wrinkled his forehead questioningly. “Whoa dude, don’t tell me you’re having some kind of,” he whistled suggestively, “guy problem—down there.”

  I shot him a look. “What?” I asked, quickly dismissing it. “Don’t be ridiculous. I am 100% fully operational down there.”

  “Well, that’s a relief,” Rob blew out his breath. “I’ve been sitting here with you all night, and that is not the kind of infectious problem I need at this point in my life.”

  I shook my head to myself, chuckling lightly. “You can put your mind at ease then,” I advised. “I just—,” I hesitated before relaying, “I just can’t stop thinking
about this girl I slept with last month—now she was a total firecracker in the sack. I mean, to say I was impressed is saying enough to her credit.”

  “Ooh, does she live on Nob Hill? Is her name Tiffany? I’ve met her,” Rob volunteered, gulping down his drink.

  “No…no,” I shook my head slowly, trying to recall. “I don’t think you know her.”

  “Damn, maybe I should, if she’s so hot even you can’t stop thinking about it,” he remarked.

  I creased my forehead, having obviously no intention to do those introductions. “Nah, forget it. It’s nothing,” I dismissed nonchalantly.

  “Is that why you’re hanging out with me so much lately? Something happen with this girl?” Rob asked, grabbing a handful of nachos from the table.

  I blinked, trying to think of a different excuse. “No…that’s not it. My uh—friend is getting married later in the year,” I replied, only half-fibbing, before making a show of shrugging, “and I just can’t deal with being around him for the moment.”

  “Aha!” Rob gave a shout of laughter. “And another one bites the dust!”

  I cracked a grin, nodding slightly. Since his divorce, Rob had become quite predictable, and I supposed one of the things we had in common was that we had the same incontrovertible opinion regarding marriage and commitment. “Right? And he’s only known the girl what—six months?” I shrugged again, somewhat in ridicule. “They’re claiming it’s true love.”

  “Bull-crap!” Rob exclaimed. “I had known Amanda two whole years and I still never found out she was a vapid whore until way at the end.”

  “You should see this girl though,” I remarked, shaking my head as I thought of how to describe Nina in the fewest words. “She’s like…total eye-candy, if the candy was the entire Sugar Factory.”

  “Hey, that’s what I thought when I met my wife—excuse me, ex-wife,” he corrected with a roll of his eyes. “’She’s not bad looking. She’s great in the sack.’ Total marriage material, right?” he prompted before his expression changed instantly. “Wrong,” he snapped. “Next thing I knew, she was sleeping with the handyman—so much for marriage material.”

  I had to laugh. “Right, because you weren’t constantly cheating on her every chance you got?” I prompted, absolutely knowing better. “Weren’t you doing every female yoga instructor at some point when your wife thought you were doing tai chi classes?”

  Rob grinned. “Hey look, sometimes you can’t change a man’s nature,” he explained. “And me—I’m a hunter. Man was never meant to be monogamous. It’s evolution. It’s scientific,” he declared, tapping his temple with his forefinger. “I’m just not meant to settle down with just one. No matter how hot the sex is,” he put down his empty beer pint and raised his hand to order another. “Think about it,” he proposed, “eventually, there’s going to be another girl who’s even hotter. It’s inevitable. Nothing lasts,” he stated. “Nothing good anyway.”

  Not that I was suddenly buying into Rob’s bitter, cynical, potentially sociopathic sales pitch, or taking to his particular shade of rose-colored outlook in life, but what he said did make me think.

  I decided that what was bugging me was just that I had no closure. Especially since everything had ended not on my terms, but Claire’s. It was a simple case of wanting what I couldn’t have. I couldn’t possibly be actually pining over having a relationship. I wasn’t about to change my bachelor ways and the life that I loved. Being a hunter was my nature too. I should just enjoy my big win and move on.

  And maybe the reason I was so blown away by Claire was the same way diets worked. Maybe it was like having a nice, juicy steak after not having meat for so long. Before New Year’s Eve, I had been holding myself back for weeks, so it stood to reason, I could have been not looking at it objectively. Claire wasn’t really that good. She was just “cheat day”. And maybe I had been so focused on the “mission”, all this confusion was just some residual energy that would eventually wear off.

  With that all finally settled, I suddenly felt recharged. “You know what?” I finished my drink and prompted Rob, “Spot me another lap dance.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” Rob clapped his hands, grinning as he raised his hand with mock formality, “Garçon!”

  ***

  I got Marco and Nina’s wedding invite in the mail in early March. And by then, I was all back to normal.

  Marco and Nina’s Wedding Registry

  I wasn’t the type of person who planned ahead. It was already May when I rummaged through my old mail to dig out the wedding invite, only then finally feeling compelled to go through the motions of preparing for attending the wedding, not to mention being a groomsman.

  In fact, I hadn’t even thought about the wedding for months. An important contract had come up at work so I had been busier than usual, and I found that being busy with work didn’t give me much time to think about personal stuff, which was probably all well and good. I definitely needed to clear the slate anyway.

  But I didn’t realize what being a groomsman at that particular wedding entailed, as there was certainly much less hoopla at Tyler’s wedding. Nor did I notice that my invitation had come with a schedule of such related activities—suit fittings, meetings with the bride and groom, seating chart discussions, planning the bachelor party. Another sheet of paper that came with the invite spelled out options for another vital task that needed to be undertaken—what to buy the newlyweds as a wedding gift.

  Marco and Nina had set up a wedding registry at Gump’s—this fancy-ass store near Market Street. I was already passing it on the way back from a client meeting one afternoon, so I thought I might as well just get it over with. Preparing for weddings was probably my weakest skill. Shopping for presents being a close second. I was just hoping that the registry wasn’t all chick stuff—pink comforters and gravy boats.

  I could have had that client meeting the day before or after. I could have decided to take a cab back to the office and skipped walking past Gump’s altogether. But fate was a tricky thing. Or maybe it was just plain old vengeful karma that I spotted Claire in the home ware section as soon I as came up the escalator.

  The last time I had seen Claire was at La Verde, this upscale restaurant in the Financial District, a couple months ago. It looked like she was having a working lunch with some colleagues or clients. I was there with a date. Even with Claire’s intense, professional demeanor, just scribbling down notes, and talking dispassionately with her group, I still thought she looked pretty hot. But instead of being rattled, I had decided to focus on the superior thought that I had already “been there, done that”. I had wanted to come over and at least say “hi”—I mean, I still had manners—but…let’s just say my date had distracted me with something else.

  Regardless, that afternoon at Gump’s, it still felt like it had been so long, I wasn’t prepared to see Claire all of a sudden. I thought I caught her gaze sweep past my direction and instinctively, I hunched, turning around, pretending to inspect something on the shelf.

  But I was 6’4”. It wasn’t like I could hide.

  “Alex?”

  I turned around, slightly surprised that she had decided to speak to me first. I mean, she could have just left immediately. We hadn’t even spoken for over four months. “Uh…hi,” my mouth was dry. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Hi…Claire,” I managed a plain smile.

  “Hi,” she paused for a moment, looking unsure what to say next, then she noticed the piece of paper I was holding and her eyes widened in recognition. “Ah, you’ve got Marco and Nina’s gift registry too.”

  I looked down blankly at my hand. “Yeah,” I nodded, only then noticing she had another copy in her hands. “So…you’re still going to the wedding?” I asked, somewhat surprised.

  “Of course,” she said. It was subtle but I could tell there was still something in her eyes that was unsettled about the idea—even then. “Wow,” she let out a slight chuckle, “it’s really weird to run into you.
It’s been…a while.”

  Weird? That might not have been the word I would have used. “You look—good,” I said. I wasn’t sure exactly what I should say. But then I told myself that there was absolutely no reason I should be toning it down. I wasn’t even entirely sure if we still were friends at all.

  “Uh…thanks,” Claire’s smile looked a bit adorably lopsided. “Listen…” she paused again, looking embarrassed, “I…wanted to…apologize for making you leave the group.”

  I was going to dismiss it but she stopped me. “No, no,” she continued, “please. I was…an emotional wreck. I admit I didn’t handle it very well.” She met my gaze, “I know it might be four months too late, but I wanted to tell you—I am sorry.”

  That made me smile. “I…” I hesitated, “I’m…sorry too.” Except I wasn’t really sorry. Admittedly, my goals with regards to Claire in the beginning might not have been too honorable, but I felt like I wouldn’t have changed a thing were it to happen all over again.

  And as those big blue eyes looked up at me again, I felt a sudden twinge. And I knew, whatever I thought I had already resolved, regardless of how much time had passed, or how many philosophical platitudes I’d come up with, or even how many other girls had come and gone—despite everything, one thing was unquestionably clear.

  I still wanted her.

  It was a particularly unusual thought, but I didn’t say anything.

  “And if it helps at all, everyone kept looking for you,” Claire went on with a friendly smile. “They all missed you.”

  “Hm,” I nodded in short acknowledgment, with a hollow smile, noting that she didn’t say ‘we’. My unexpected realization had rendered me sort of speechless, and I was trying to clear my head so I could re-establish my cool and calm façade, but it caused a few moments of awkward silence.

  Fortunately, Claire was up to par. “So, have you decided what to get the happy couple yet?” Her tone switched to casual and impersonal, as though she was a salesperson at Gump’s, gesturing to the selection around us.