The Stories We Whisper at Night
Page 38
“Eli? Eli, everything okay?”
I propped myself up on my elbows, squinting my eyes in the unforgiving early morning sunlight. I had no real concept of how late Eli and I had been out last night but was sure it had been well past midnight. I could remember the two of us kissing sloppily underneath a giant mirrored ball and then dancing seductively as the new year officially began. I’d been nervous as hell about Maggie leaving me with Eli, but things had gone super well, much better than I’d expected them to. They had gone well enough that I had taken him back to my apartment, where he had poured his heart out to me about how much he had been wanting to ask me out since he’d first laid eyes on me. He’d told me that I was the kind of girl that was worth doing anything for, and I had completely melted.
The sex, from what I remembered, had been drunk-sloppy and not the most fulfilling in the world, but that was something we could work on. It didn’t have to be fireworks the first time.
“Eli?”
I smiled to myself, happy to remember all of the sweet things he’d said to me despite a hangover of steadily increasing strength, and ran through a mental checklist of what I had in my fridge. It wasn’t what you might find in the refrigerator of a professional chef, but it was certainly enough to whip up a decent brunch. Eli and I could get to know each other a little better, and with any luck, decide on a time to have an actual date, one that involved a little less high-volume techno music. It was an idea that gave me all the warm fuzzies, right up until I stretched and felt a slightly crumpled up piece of paper on the pillow where Eli’s head should have been.
“What the hell?”
It was something that belonged in a movie, or maybe in one of those tv shows where women were always being fucked over. It wasn’t quite a Post-it note, but it might as well have been. I sat up all the way, quickly enough that I got light-headed and almost had to lie down again to keep from passing out. I read the note once, twice, three times, by the end of which I could hardly see straight through the tears blurring my vision. In the note, Eli started out by telling me that he had a “bitchin’” time last night. He’d been hoping he could get a “better look” at me and was stoked that he’d finally got it. He went on to say that he had a nasty habit of lying to girls in the heat of the moment, and he hoped I understood. In reality, he had no desire to explore a relationship with anybody, which included the date the two of us had spent time planning out. He hoped that I would be “cool” with it, but if I wanted to break my personal fitness contract with the gym, he would get it. He hoped that wasn’t my plan, though, because he’d gotten the chance to see me up close and personal, and there were several areas of my body he’d noticed that could use some more work. This was the kind of work that would require personal, one-on-one attention. He ended the vile thing by telling me that I should keep on “rockin’” and that he would see me around unless I was too sensitive and he didn’t see me again at all.
I wadded the note up into a crumpled ball of awfulness, threw it across the room, and then screamed into my pillow. Once that was done, I retrieved my cell phone from underneath the bed and called the only person on the planet that I could imagine talking to in my current state.
“Hey, bitch. Have a good time with the cretin last night? Sorry, I know you like him, and I swear to God I’ll keep my mouth shut about him in the future, but good Lord, he seemed like one of those pretty, dumb boys. Maybe he’s just one of those guys you have to get to know, I guess. I’ll take your word for it.”
“Maggie?” I said in a small, desperate voice, one that wavered and wobbled pitifully and made me feel even more sorry for myself than I was already feeling, “Can you stop for a minute? Please?”
“Shit,” she said abruptly, all of the playful judgment instantly gone from her voice. “What happened? What did the pretty boy, fucker do?”
“Nothing I shouldn’t have expected. Nothing that men don’t always do.”
“Want me to kill him?”
“No. I want to never feel like this again.”
That was when my very tentative control over my emotions broke, and I started to sob into the phone. As New Year’s days went, this one was not my best. Not my best by any stretch of the imagination.
CHAPTER TWO
BELLA
“I’m so, so sorry.”
“You know what? I’m done. That’s my New Year’s resolution, okay? Screw the gym. I’m going to have to find a different one, anyway. My resolution has nothing to do with the way I look. My resolution is to never give my heart to another guy again. I’m going to date like a guy does it. No emotions, no regrets. Ever, ever again.”
Maggie looked almost as rough as I felt. Apparently, she had gone home and run through her DVR with a bottle and a half of wine for company, and she was feeling the effects in a big way. It was not, however, anything close to the misery I was feeling, nursing my own hangover along with this latest awful, embarrassing twist to my non-existent love life. It was almost impossible to tell whether it was the champagne or the rejection that was making my stomach jump, but whichever one it was, I was feeling brutal.
The second Maggie had realized that I was in such a bad place, she had ordered me to meet her at Benny’s, our favorite brunch place, where the two of us now sat with a carafe of mimosas and a big basket of buttermilk biscuits. It was our favorite post night out meal, the one we’d been having since we were in college and making poor decisions on the regular. It was almost always a sure-fire way to cheer me up, and the fact that it wasn’t doing so now made things all the more depressing.
I picked at the half-eaten biscuit on my plate miserably, Eli’s note playing itself over and over again in my head. Maggie, who might as well have been reading my mind, pounded one fist on the table loudly enough that a couple of the other tables near us looked at her curiously. Typically, this was the kind of thing I would admonish her for, but in my current state, I couldn’t even be bothered to do that. I was too defeated to care if we were the subject of scrutiny.
“Where in the hell does he get off treating you like that? That’s what I want to know!”
“It’s his right, isn’t it?” I answered glumly, keeping my tears from returning by sheer force of will. “It’s not like he owed me anything.”
“Of course, he did! He owed you basic human decency. And if he was going to be such a shit, why did he say all of those things to you? What was the freaking point?!”
“I don’t know. I do know that I don’t have any right to be surprised.”
“Bullshit, you don’t.”
“No, seriously, Maggie, it’s true. I’m not a kid anymore, and this isn’t the first time I’ve met a guy like Eli. It’s not the first time a guy has done something like this to me. Isn’t even the third or fourth time. If it’s happening to me over and over again, maybe the problem isn’t the men. Maybe it’s me.”
“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with you, Bella. You’re smart, funny, and not to mention, a total fox. Seriously, you’re the hottest person I’ve ever seen outside of a movie.”
I squirmed uneasily in my chair, going through the same uncertainty I always did when people commented on my looks. My relationship with my parents, especially my mom, had been strained, to say the least, but one of the things she had always been proud of was my appearance. I could remember from the time I was very little, my mom asking anyone who would listen to her to affirm how beautiful her only daughter was. I was often told I looked like Snow White, and I had gone as her for Halloween three years in a row. My hair was naturally so dark it was practically black, and my eyes were bright blue. Because my skin was so fair, I easily flushed. On top of that, I had been blessed with a quick metabolism and curves that easily got attention, whether I wanted it or not. The only problem I had ever had with my looks was my lack of comfort accepting compliments for them, something I dealt with even with the people I was closest to. Maggie, who knew this, watched me turn bright red and then rolled her eyes dramatically.
“I’m not saying I deserved it. What I am saying is that I kind of brought it on myself.”
“Um, I don’t think so.”
“I do.”
“How do you figure?” Maggie asked hotly, her own face flushing with annoyance over my comments. She wasn’t at all pleased with what I was saying, and I knew that giving up on the idea of love and romance would strike her as the stupidest thing in the world, but I no longer had her kind of faith in the process. “I’m waiting, Bella. You can’t say something like that and then go all eerie silent like this.”
“It’s what I said already. My resolution.”
“A resolution to swear off all men? Because you deserved this guy treating you so badly? I don’t get it, Bella. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”
“I’m not saying I deserved it, but I didn’t ask for anything better. I keep falling for these douchebags and just losing my head completely over them. I’m not going to do that anymore. I’m not getting played like this.”
“So you’re giving men up?”
“Nope, not giving them up.”
“Then what?”
“I told you, I’m playing their game. I’m going to play without feelings. My heart is being taken out of the equation, right here, right now. I’m done letting myself get hurt. If somebody is going to get hurt from here on out, it’s going to be the dude.”
“But that’s so depressing! Don’t you see that? You’re just giving up on love.”
“Yes ma’am, you better believe it.”
“You can’t do that!”
“Why not?”
“Because you just can’t!”
“That’s not really an answer, Maggie. Besides, people make resolutions to be better off. Mine might be a little bit unconventional, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t good. I’m never going to have another morning like this one again. No more Elis. No way.”
Maggie gave me a forlorn look, but I could only smile. The note from Eli was still inside my head, and every time it pushed its way to the forefront, it made me sick to my stomach. If there was something that I could do to make sure I never felt this way again, I was going to do it. Something told me that the more guys I ran through without catching feelings, the better I would be at it, too. A year from now, I was going to be so far away from this sad girl with too many feelings that I wouldn’t even recognize her. All I needed was to find a guy.
“Excuse me, can I interrupt you for a moment?”
I looked up at the server, a girl who seemed like she would rather be doing just about anything but talking to us. She shuffled around in the pocket of her apron and grabbed a napkin before handing it to me. Even with it crumpled up, I could see that there was writing scribbled across its surface.
“He’s paying up at the register right now,” the waitress said before walking away.
I looked. I didn’t want to, not at all, but I did. The guy looked like Clark Kent, minus the nerdiness. If this guy wanted to try and date me, that was totally on him. As far as I was concerned, he was my practice. Operation New Year’s resolution was a go.
CHAPTER THREE
BELLA
“Just remember, keep your head in the game, Bella. This is not a first date. At least, not the way all your other ones have been. Don’t forget that. Don’t let yourself get swept up. This is sex and nothing more. Got it?” I stared at my own reflection in the mirror, stared at it for so long that it didn’t really even look like me anymore. That was good. I didn’t want it to look like me, not when I was dead set on turning myself into somebody else. Tonight was my ‘date’ with the napkin guy, which meant that being somebody else was exactly what I needed. It had been a week since he’d left the napkin with the waitress, and the two of us had texted back and forth ever since.
I looked myself over, doing my best to judge whether I was going to make a good enough impression. I was about to go change my dress for the third or fourth time when my doorbell rang and stopped me dead in my tracks. I wasn’t expecting anyone, and being a naturally suspicious person, my first instinct was to stand still and pretend I wasn’t there until whoever was at my door went away. Unfortunately, I was also the kind of person that would worry about why somebody had knocked on my door obsessively if I didn’t figure out who it was. It was the second part of me that won out in this battle, and I sighed, going to the door and opening it.
“Oh! You!”
“Yes, me. Sorry to surprise you. I guess I’m a bit early.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off of Matt, the man I had chosen to be my first victim in Operation Resolution. Part of it was because he was ridiculously good looking, but that wasn’t all of it. It wasn’t even the biggest part of it. The reason I couldn’t stop staring at him was because he wasn’t supposed to be at my door at all. I didn’t need to get my phone out and go through my text messages to know that I had been quite clear in my desire to meet Matt at the restaurant he’d picked out rather than have him come and get me. I didn’t think I had even given him my address, and yet here he was like it was no big deal.
“Something the matter?” he asked innocently, shooting me a smile full of the most perfectly straight, white teeth I had ever seen.
“Uh, no. I mean, actually, kind of, yes. What are you doing here?”
“I was under the impression that we were going out tonight. Was I wrong?”
“No, not wrong, but I’m pretty sure I told you I would meet you at the restaurant. Didn’t I?”
“You did. I took the liberty of getting your information from a little birdie. Please don’t be mad, all right? I just couldn’t get my head around the idea of having you meet me there. My mother raised a gentleman, or at least she tried. Old habits die hard, I guess.”
“I guess they do. Mind telling me who the little birdie was?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. I made my promises.”
I nodded, not really needing him to spill the beans anyway.
Because I didn’t want to be rude, and because he was already at my door, I allowed Matt to escort me down to his incredibly impressive sports car and even open my door to boot.
A quick trip to Google’s search bar was all that had been required to learn that Matt had built a tech company from the ground up and was almost certainly a millionaire. He also had a reputation for being a playboy, which was just about perfect, as far as I was concerned. It was like having the answer I was looking for dropped straight into my lap. All I had to do was keep myself from letting my head get turned by him and all his fancy trappings, something that was going to be easier said than done, I realized as soon as we pulled up to the restaurant. It was one of those uber swanky places where only rich people could afford to eat, which I most certainly was not.
“Are you sure this is where you want to go?” I asked as the valet guy helped me out of the car, my eyes wide, despite all my attempts to look unimpressed.
“I am. Or at least, I was. Why? You don’t like it?”
“It’s just a little fancy, don’t you think?”
“Too fancy, huh? Can’t say that’s something I’ve heard women complain about before. We could just eat at the bar, if that makes you feel better.”
“That sounds great!” I answered brightly, feeling more comfortable already.
Matt stopped at the elegant double glass doors of the restaurant abruptly. He looked at me with an expression I couldn’t place, but if I’d been forced to guess, I would have said it was a mixture of exasperation and humor.
“What?” I asked, sounding a little more defensive than I should have.
“Please don’t take offense. I guess I’m just a little bit surprised.”
“By what?”
“By you,” he laughed, gesturing with his head for me to enter the door he was still holding open for me, “if you don’t mind me saying so. I was kind of joking about the eating at the bar
thing. You know most women wouldn’t want to do that at a place like this, right?”
“Why? What’s the big deal about a place like this, other than it’s super fancy?”
“It’s one of the hottest restaurants in Austin right now. It’s almost impossible to get reservations here, especially on a Friday night. Most women, most people, would jump at the chance to sit down at one of these tables.”
“Maybe I’m not most people. And as far as I’m concerned, the bar will do just fine. Is that a problem?”
“No.” He shook his head, laughing again as he led me towards the still impressive looking bartop with one warm hand on the small of my back. “Not a problem at all. This is going to be a good night, I think.”
I kept silent at that, not wanting to give Matt the impression that I was overly impressed by him or particularly confident that this was going to go the way he was predicting. Truthfully, it didn’t take very long for me to realize that he was going to be hard to keep my cool with. The Superman comparison had been an adept one, and it was far more noticeable with the two of us sitting so close. His eyes really were the most remarkable shade of blue-green, and he had dimples when he flashed his almost too perfect smile. I could smell his cologne now, a combination of woodsy and spice, and the way it combined with the heat of his body gave me a fuzzy, almost drunk feeling. When he put his hand on my knee while he talked, it was all I could do to keep from jumping off my leather bar stool. I gripped said stool’s sides with both hands and managed to keep myself in place, but a warm spot in the middle of me started to roll in expectation. I told myself that Matt couldn’t see it, that I was smooth enough to keep my nervous desire to myself, but then he flashed that grin at me again, and I knew he wasn’t so easily fooled.