by Cassie Rocca
What the hell! She had dated plenty of guys, but somehow she hadn’t met the right one yet – was meeting a decent man really so impossible? And admitting her failure to her relatives got harder each time.
“What are you thinking about?” asked Eric as he helped her out of the metro.
“About my family. Clover’s always been very envious of all my nosy and noisy relatives, who are always desperate to snoop into every detail of my life. While I would much rather not have anyone to answer to.”
“Right, so is this the reason why you have temporarily promoted me to being your future husband?” he asked ironically.
Zoe smiled. “I was sick to death of feeling like the Mathison family’s black sheep, so I thought that if I told them I had settled down with a boyfriend they would finally leave me alone. I’m constantly neglecting their hopes for me, and the situation is really starting to get unbearable.” She looked at him with a contrite expression on her face. “Sorry for dragging you into this without even warning you beforehand… but you handled it brilliantly! Not even Cade, the great actor, could have done better than you!”
“Hmm… Yes, I must admit I acted perfectly… especially when I almost choked on my wine!”
Zoe chuckled and took his arm as they walked towards the crowded square together. “Maybe you could have avoided that, but even so, the evening was without a doubt better than usual, thanks to you. You really are my hero, Eric Morgan.”
“And you really are drunk,” he sighed.
Times Square was usually packed with tourists, but that evening the crowd was massive. Thousands of people filled every possible space, and they all stood looking towards a stage that had been set up at the foot of the central skyscraper; there, at six in the afternoon, the famous crystal ball had started ascending. Once it reached the top, the ball would start climbing down again for the countdown. Colorful maxi-screens lit up the faces of the crowd, the music was loud and the noise was infernal.
Conversation started to get difficult, but Zoe didn’t mind: all the activity made her feel as though she was somehow coming back to life! New Year’s Eve was one of the few celebrations she actually liked, probably because it wasn’t a sentimental one and it gave her the sensation that something new was about to begin. Every year she would mentally list her resolutions, and, although she never actually kept any of them, she liked to think that in another twelve months she could take up the challenge again and possibly change her life for the better. She had often let someone talk her into leaving a note at the Victor Center, on 7th Avenue. All the colorful notes that people would stick on the Wishing Wall would then be turned into confetti and sprayed onto the crowd at midnight: that rain of hopes and dreams would apparently bring good luck.
That year she had forgotten to leave her wish there, but to be honest she didn’t have any specific requests to ask of the universe. Maybe that was the reason why her dreams never came true: she wasn’t sure of what she really wanted.
That night, though, maybe thanks to the alcohol she had drunk or because of the absurd situation at her parents’ house, she decided to send a message to the sky.
“Let me find a decent man!” she wished, with her eyes closed.
Someone bumped into her, and she turned rapidly towards them. It was a guy, clearly pretty drunk, who turned to look at her too when he realized he had hit someone. He stared at her for a moment, and when he was finally able to focus he laughed stupidly. “Wow, you’re hot!” he exclaimed.
“A man with whom I can fall in love, not the first idiot who comes along,” Zoe added mentally, raising her eyes up to the sky.
As soon as the countdown started, she forgot about her melancholy thoughts and focused her attention only on the euphoria of the moment. She shouted, counted the seconds with the crowd, and laughed happily like everybody else. But when midnight came, accompanied by all the chaos, the shouts, the fireworks and the rain of confetti, she felt her eyes tearing up.
Almost everyone around her was kissing someone. It was a good luck ritual that she had performed quite often in the past with whichever man she had happened to be with. But that time, when she really needed it and wanted to give that ritual a deeper meaning, she was alone…
Eric found her hand and held it, and his smile warmed her. Dear, sweet Eric. It was almost as though he had some special kind of radar which allowed him to always know exactly when she needed comforting.
“Happy New Year!” he shouted into her ear, trying to avoid a group of partying people behind him who were about to stagger into them.
She saw his pale eyes behind the lenses of his glasses and felt her affection for him triple.
“Oh, what the hell!” Zoe thought suddenly: she was single, but there was a handsome guy with her. And she was desperate and drunk enough to do something stupid, like grabbing Eric’s jacket by the collar, pulling him towards her and plastering her lips on his.
She had only wanted a chaste little kiss, nothing more. Some lip action that would make her feel less alone in such an exciting moment.
But Eric’s mouth was so soft and warm… She hesitated one moment too long and suddenly the situation was out of control. She was squeezed among shouting people who were jumping up and down, trying to catch the colorful confetti while the lights of the fireworks illuminated their faces, and all they could hear was the American national anthem. All Zoe could think about, though, was the taste of Eric’s lips, which were both soft and questing at the time.
He was kissing her… he was really kissing her!
She sighed in surrender, hugged his neck and lifted herself up on the tips of her feet to get closer to him. Even though she was tall and was wearing high heels, Eric was far taller than her. Strange, she thought in a quick glimpse of rationality, that she had never noticed how tall he was…
Eric’s warm hand started caressing her hair and then the back of her neck, while his mouth opened wider and his kiss became more passionate. Zoe felt as though she was spinning in dense foggy pleasure and let a satisfied moan slip from her lips. She hugged him even closer and felt his arms surrounding her and almost lifting her off her feet, which provoked a pleasant feeling of lightness.
Wow… that was some kiss!
She almost didn’t realize that a young guy had banged violently into her, until she was brought back to earth by feeling Eric pulling away and, although he was still holding her by the hips, taking a step backwards. Only then did her mind slowly start reasoning properly again.
She felt very embarrassed and confused and couldn’t do anything but look him in the eye hoping to find some indication of what she should do. But what kind of sign was she looking for? Did she even want to find a sign at all?
Eric’s face was as immobile as stone. He wasn’t showing any emotion and his spectacles provided a good shield for his eyes since they were reflecting the light from the fireworks. What was he thinking? Was he as surprised as her by what had happened?
“Happy New Year!” she shouted to break the silence, remembering that a moment before she jumped on him, he had wished her the same.
He nodded and turned to watch the show, and the weird moment passed. But Zoe’s confusion didn’t. All the alcohol, sadness, music and chaos had already blended into a fatal cocktail for her, but the final touch had been that fabulous kiss… no wonder she was so out of it now.
When they managed to slip away from the infernal crowd and could finally walk side by side without being jostled by anyone, and when the noise started to fade into the distance, Eric looked at her. “Do you want me to take to you back your parents’?”
“No, I’d rather go to my place. I don’t even think I can walk to Soho,” Zoe mumbled. She really needed to be alone and sort out her thoughts, and her apartment was only a few minutes away.
They walked a few blocks, remaining close to each other but without touching. Eric had his hands in his jacket pockets and kept looking straight ahead, and Zoe couldn’t really understand what mood he was in
. She could have asked – they were friends, after all – but for the first time in many years she felt hugely ill at ease in his presence, so she didn’t dare speak.
When they reached her apartment in the heart of Manhattan, Eric accompanied her to the door, but didn’t look as if he wanted to go through it. Zoe looked at him while holding the door open, unable to decide whether to talk now, when she had still some alcohol in her veins, or to postpone any discussion to another time.
“Do you… do you want to come in?” she stuttered, playing for time.
Eric hesitated, and then shook his head. “Better not.”
He was right, it was better if he didn’t come in. But Zoe couldn’t help but feel slightly disappointed by his refusal. Eric was a friend and the last thing they needed was to complicate things between them, especially knowing the state of mind she was in. All the events of that night had contributed to creating a surreal situation which really shouldn’t be taken to its logical conclusion. What would she think of herself, and of Eric, if she woke up with him in the morning? She would probably regret it. She couldn’t remember how many times she had felt bitter when she had woken up with some guy she couldn’t care less about, and who she had only used to try and fill the emptiness she felt inside.
Eric was different. He was an important presence in her life, she couldn’t just use him to fulfil her sudden need for company. And he had just shown her that he obeyed a strict moral code: he would never take advantage of her sudden weakness, not even if he was desperate or completely mad about her… Which, of course, he wasn’t.
So she forced herself to smile and took a step backwards. “I’ll call you tomorrow then… If I manage to wake up! I’m starting to get a huge headache so I guess I’m going to be asleep for most of the day.”
“Sure,” he replied, “talk to you tomorrow.”
Did it really sound like a threat or was she just being paranoid?
Eric mumbled ‘goodnight’ and left, leaving her finally alone and able to breathe again, but her hands kept shaking and she really needed something to calm her down.
The only thing she had in her fridge was a bottle of white wine, so she poured herself a full glass of the stuff and while she sipped at it she leant on the windowsill and stared at the fireworks from various areas of the city that were still lighting up the sky, although without really seeing them.
What had gotten into her? Was it possible that a vague sense of melancholy and some inner solitude had been enough to make her behave in such a horrible way? And with Eric! The only person she really trusted, the only one she would never, under any circumstances, want to hurt. She would never forgive herself if their relationship was spoilt because of a reckless kiss.
But he did kiss me back, a voice in her head said. “Well, yes, that doesn’t mean anything. He’s still a man,” she grumbled. And she knew men well enough to know none of them would ever miss the opportunity to put their hands on a woman. But the idea of Eric being just as much of a pig as the rest of them was still upsetting. Maybe she had idealized the guy too much, and now imagining him responding to a purely physical impulse was disturbing.
Taking her glass of wine with her, she walked over to the sofa and sat down. She stretched out on the soft white leather and switched the TV on in an attempt to take her mind off things. She continued to sip her wine, only now directly from the bottle. She was feeling cold and somewhat nauseous, and her head kept spinning. She knew that drinking more would only make things worse and that she would sorrowfully regret it the following morning, but every time she thought of calling it a night and going to bed, the chaos in her mind suddenly vanished to make space for only one thing: the memory of the breath-taking kiss she had exchanged with Eric, and she felt more and more like crying. So she held on to her bottle and watched the flickering TV screen until she passed out with exhaustion and fell into a dreamless sleep.
*
He felt as if he had been staring at his phone for the whole day. He had actually managed to sleep, but not for long enough and not well. At some point during the day, he had even eaten while watching the TV… but he couldn’t remember what, or even what he had been watching. His mind was focused on only one thought: he had kissed Zoe.
He had really kissed her… passionately! And she had kissed him back, moaning in pleasure in a way that had almost made him lose his mind. But the most incredible thing was that Zoe herself had kissed him first. She had made the first move.
Eric got up from the sofa and ran his fingers through his messy hair. He had tried to find a plausible explanation for what had happened, because he didn’t want to get his hopes up only to have them dashed, but his heart kept pounding in his chest and it was hard to control it. He knew that he had to stop feeling so happy, though, and get his feet back on the ground.
First of all: Zoe had been drunk, and for this reason hadn’t really known what she was doing.
Second: he had helped her with her family by pretending they were a couple, so there was a chance she had just been showing her gratitude.
Third: celebrating New Year’s Eve in Times square was a particularly easy way to let yourself get carried away by your emotions, and that could be another reason why Zoe had decided to observe the tradition she had always observed in the past – that of kissing a man at midnight.
All three of these explanations seemed plausible, which also made them depressing. Moreover, his illusions had been systematically shattered over the past few years, so he doubted very much that things would be different this time.
He sat back down on the sofa, discouraged. He knew very well that Zoe hadn’t suddenly fallen in love with him. He had just found himself in the right place at the right time. It was a sad hypothesis, but definitely the most probable one.
The thing that made him anxious was not finding out that their kiss hadn’t meant anything to her, but realizing, instead, how important it had been for him.
He had been dreaming of kissing Zoe for ten years. Ten! Only a few hours ago his dream had seemed unreachable, something that could exist only in his fantasies. And sometimes you’re even scared of a fantasy turning into reality, because you know that it might disappoint you.
But that kiss hadn’t disappointed him at all. On the contrary, it had been far better than he’d imagined it would be. For all those years he had been trapped by his feelings for a woman to whom he could only be a friend, and now that he knew the taste, warmth and softness of her lips he felt even more like a prisoner than before.
He was hopeless.
“Why are you getting yourself down this way? She must have enjoyed kissing you, judging from the way she kept at it,” he thought to himself, in an attempt to be optimistic.
Why would Zoe ignore what had happened? They were inseparable and they shared a deep affection for one another. She trusted him and asked for his help every time she had a problem. She had told her family that they were engaged, then she had kissed him… She had even invited him inside after he had walked her home. After all that, why would she find the idea of making their relationship more intimate strange?
Maybe because she never seems to have wanted that before?
Having convinced himself of the impossibility of a happy ending of any kind, he now had to think about what their relationship would look like from next Monday onwards – how would it change? Zoe had the excuse of having drunk too much alcohol, but how could he justify the fact that he had kissed her so passionately right in the middle of a crowded square?
He had given her all that he had in those few instants. And she would surely have understood everything by now and decided to keep him at a distance so as not to give him any false hope. In conclusion, their relationship was ruined forever.
That was the reason why he had never admitted his feelings for her. He’d preferred to have her as a friend rather than not have her in his life at all.
“Ok, you need to come up with an excuse of your own,” he sighed, covering his face with his ha
nds. He could say that he’d been a little tipsy too, even though he was practically teetotal. Or he could say he had only gone along with the kiss out of gallantry…
“And anyway, she kissed me first!” he muttered.
But that didn’t mean that you were allowed to put your tongue in her mouth!
He didn’t stand a chance. He was totally screwed.
His mobile phone vibrated in his pocket, and his heart missed a beat. It was her. He was absolutely sure that it would be even before he saw her name on the screen.
He cleared his throat and answered the phone, trying to sound casual.
“Hey, finally…”
You damn fool, now it sounds like you couldn’t wait to hear from her! he scolded himself.
But it’s the truth – you couldn’t, the usual annoying voice in his head reminded him.
“I didn’t think I’d ever manage to get up today. What time is it?” murmured Zoe, in a voice so hoarse that he shivered when he heard it.
“It’s five in the afternoon.”
“Wow… I slept for fifteen hours straight! That’s why I feel so completely out of it now.”
“Are you ok?”
“I have a headache, nausea, I feel like I ate my own socks, my bones ache because I fell asleep on the sofa and on my cheek I can see the mark that the neck of the bottle left. And I have no idea how a bottle ended up on my sofa.”
Eric had a sudden suspicion.
“So you don’t remember if you carried on drinking after you arrived home, right?”
