And Jon. Familiar and not, kissing me as if only I existed for him, with a bone-deep hunger that throbbed through me.
Jon. I realized I’d said his name aloud, because he pulled away. Slightly, not far. Leaning his forehead against mine, thumb caressing my cheek. “You’re shivering.”
Despite the warmth of his body, I became aware of the chill. The fat snowflakes melting through my hair and into my scalp. Reality, making itself known. I pushed him away.
“It’s cold out.” I stomped my feet. They’d gone numb, the boots more for style than real insulation against the winter.
Jon stuck his hands deep into his pockets and watched me, face smooth. “That jacket is pretty but it’s not heavy enough. Let me give you mine.”
“Then you’ll be cold instead. I’m going back to work, a couple more minutes won’t matter.” I hesitated. “Thanks for lunch.” It sounded utterly inadequate.
“Are you going to forget about this?”
“I don’t know.” Though I knew I’d never be able to. Not now. “I wouldn’t have made it through high school without your friendship, but that’s the past. We both need to move on.”
Jon turned his face to the falling snow, squinting at the gray sky. “Then why did you call me?”
“It’s cold and I’m not going to stand in this park having a long conversation.”
“We can go get a drink. A Peppermint Patty. You always loved those. Remember how we’d make them for our anti-Christmas parties?”
I stared at him, struck by the memories. We’d been almost the only ones still in the dorms over the Christmas break, except for some of the foreign students and the skeleton staff. Neither of us had wanted to spend more than the perfunctory time at home with our families, so we’d used the excuse of studying to stay late and return early. We’d make terrible hot chocolate from instant packages using my Mr. Tea, and Jon had smuggled in bottles of peppermint schnapps. Instead of studying, we’d binged movies and old TV shows, drinking our Peppermint Pattys and talking about nothing.
“I can’t do that—I have to go back to work,” I finally said.
He looked at his watch—an actual wristwatch. “It’s already three. Does it matter—”
“It is? Shit!” I started walking and he jogged to catch up. “I’m late. Adelina hates late.”
“I’ll walk you there.”
“Go away, Jon.”
“Not yet. Tell me why you called me.”
I set my teeth, tempted to put in my earbuds and ignore him. “I can’t call to catch up?”
“Normal people do that, yes, but not you.”
“Gee, thanks. I feel all warm and fuzzy now.”
“I mean that you called me for the first time in nearly six years, and it wasn’t to catch up. Why did you call—does it have to do with you having a shitty week?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Amy.” He put a hand on my arm, stopping me and making me face him. We’d reached the sidewalk and the pedestrian traffic parted to flow around us. “It matters to me.”
I huffed out a breath. Considered him. This was probably a bad idea, but something inside me had melted and I couldn’t summon the hardness, the thick skin. “I have an office party at Somerset Friday night and I need a date. I was thinking about asking if you were free.”
He chewed his lip, eyes showing the clicking thoughts behind them. “Brad can’t go?”
I steadied myself. Braced for the I told you so. “We broke up.” I said, leaving it at that. Simple truth.
“You kind of buried the lede there.” To his credit, he managed to look sympathetic, rather than smug or pleased. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No. I really don’t. I just… I need a friend right now, and I need a date for the party.”
“Okay, I’d love to.” Then he smiled, boyish jubilance breaking through the passive somber lines. “You’re asking me on a date.”
“Not a date date,” I cautioned him. “As friends. A chance to catch up.”
He shrugged. “We can do that, too. What time should I pick you up?”
“I’ll find out. It would probably be easier to meet me there. And…” I hesitated.
“Just spit it out. It seems to be the only technique that works.”
“I hate to sound like a snob, but this is a party for people obsessed with fashion.”
He glanced down at his worn sneakers, the baggy jeans—and not in a good way—then grinned at me. “You’re saying I need to dress well. Ditch schleppy Jon.”
“Yes.” I grinned back at him, feeling that groove we used to have, back in the day, when I’d criticized his wardrobe and he’d defended his schleppy self.
“You’ll have to help me. Come over tomorrow night and you can go through my clothes and tell me what to wear.”
“What? No. I’m not coming over.”
He’d pulled a notebook out of his coat pocket, flipped through pages of what looked like equations. Slipping a mechanical pencil out from his shirt pocket, he wrote something down. Tearing off the paper from the spiral binding, he handed it to me. “Here’s my address. Any time after six is great. I’ll make dinner.”
“I’m not coming over.”
“You can throw away the clothes you don’t like,” he coaxed. “If you want me to buy something new, I will. You can dress me however you like—you know how you love to do that.”
I did love that. I eyed his unruly curls, sticking out unevenly as they coiled with the melting snow. “Can I cut your hair?”
“Yes,” he answered immediately, smile going crooked. He raked a hand through it and, seeming to just realize how wet it had gotten, pulled out the stocking cap and put it on. Unable to stop myself, I straightened it for him.
“Okay, but just the clothes and haircut. No dinner.”
“I’m a really good cook.”
“Since when?”
“Since I had a place to live in with an actual stove instead of a hot plate. You’ll be impressed.”
“I doubt that. I remember your hot-plate mac and cheese.”
“An artist is only as good as his materials—didn’t you always say that?”
“Well, that’s true. Fine, you can feed me. Dinner, haircut, outfit for Friday, but that’s it. No…” I waved a hand between us.
“No what?” He leaned in. “No hot kisses that make me feel like a dying man finally reaching the oasis in the desert? No seducing you until you whisper my name in that breathy needy way?”
“Jon,” I warned him, but—goddammit—it came out needy and breathy. My vulva ached, and I clenched against the arousal.
“Just like that,” he breathed against my cheek, adding a whisper of a kiss. “It makes me want to take you to bed, to touch you everywhere, until you scream my name instead.”
Holy hot damn.
I took a very deliberate step back. “Who are you and what have you done with my friend Jon?”
He didn’t smile at the old joke. Only gazed at me with that incredible sexual intensity that I’d never before seen in him. “He grew up and did a lot of therapy. No more waiting in the wings, being afraid to go for what he wants. Time to pull out the nuclear fission material. I want a chance with you.”
“I don’t know how I feel about that.” I missed having the tree at my back, wavering a little on my heels from the unexpected physical reaction. “I think you maybe shouldn’t say these things.”
“Not saying those things got me nowhere. This might be my last opportunity. Maybe yours, too.”
“For what?” I couldn’t seem to think straight. If we’d been alone, I might’ve let him take me to bed. Jon. My brain wouldn’t quite wrap around that.
“To find out what you’ve been missing by leaving the past behind.” Jon had closed the distance I’d created, holding my gaze. “Because you’d be missing out, Amy. I promise you that.”
I had to lick my dry lips, then produced a laugh I wasn’t feeling. “You’ve certainly gotten egotistical, I
can vouch.”
He shook his head slightly. “No, just confident. We fit. We always did. I’m going to prove it to you.”
Enough of this. “We’ll see.” I pushed past him, hurrying my stride.
“Tomorrow night, you will see!” he called after me.
I just shook my head and kept walking, though I didn’t try to suppress the smile.
“Glorrrroroooia Gloorriaahhh. Gloria!” he bellowed out, mangling the pitch. I glanced back, unable to help myself, and saw Jon standing in the middle of the sidewalk, arms stretched out, singing at the top of his lungs while the streaming crowd gave him a wide berth—although several people clapped.
Crazy man.
~ 13 ~
I stood outside Jon’s apartment door, hesitating.
It wasn’t a bad building. Nothing high class, for sure. Not like Brad’s had been. But more than decent for a grad student. It smelled of plaster, old wood, and other people’s dinners, but the tiles were clean and the hallway lightbulbs all lit. A sign of a good super, when there aren’t burned-out lightbulbs.
Quite a bit better than I’d expected, actually.
Clutching the bottle of wine I’d brought, I seriously reconsidered the wisdom of doing this.
For the umpteenth time.
I couldn’t kid myself that we were only friends. Jon had made his intentions more than clear. Searingly clear. Enough that I’d had a sex dream about him. I never had sex dreams about real life people—always the mysterious, faceless stranger.
Though present-day Jon was a stranger to me. No wonder I’d been all off my stride with him.
All these years, he’d somehow stayed a gangly teenager in my head. The guy who was my friend when no one else would bother with me. The guy no one else bothered with. Maybe that’s why I’d left him so thoroughly behind. In a past that could never be dressed up, that teen geek Jon stood side-by-side with poor, awkward, brainy Amy. I loathed that girl I’d been, and I’d taken the first chance to leave her behind in the past where she belonged.
I should go. Jon was my past, not my future. He possessed none of the things that I wanted for myself. I shouldn’t even be on what the rest of the Fab Five would consider a legit date without counting the points. That kiss had skirted the legal boundaries of the Rules, right there. Yes, it had been unexpected, but I’d said yes when he asked, which meant I should have calculated points. Recalculated them, that was, for the new Jon.
That was the answer: I’d count the points and the score would determine whether or not I knocked. Anything less than a 4.0 and I’d walk away.
1. Looks. Jon was not handsome. Though a lot of that squidginess around the edges came from him being buried in his head and paying no attention to how he looked. I couldn’t really fault him for that set of priorities. He had a good foundation, with that thick hair and those brown eyes that held so much intelligence and intensity… But we’d all agreed it was wrong to score on potential. Any guy could be a fixer-upper if we squinted hard enough, which was against the spirit of the Rules. As is, Jon hit maybe a 0.25. Adelina probably would say that was over-generous.
2. Rhythm. Jon had never been an athlete. The jokes about white guy dancing? So him. The guy lived entirely in his head. Still, if I considered the sexual aspect that dancing was supposed to indicate, he might surprise me. The kiss had been off the charts. Maybe I’d give him a 0.5. No—0.55. Okay, a firm 0.58.
3. Taste. I hadn’t seen his apartment—yet—but I had seen his clothes. He should get a fat zero for taste. Unless I counted the taste of his mouth, which had been… oh, wow, pretty fucking incredible. Intoxicating. But that wasn’t really the intent of that category. Jon seemed to have nursed a yen for me all these years and that showed questionable taste—particularly based on that girl I’d been. I’d cut it down the middle on that one with a 0.5.
4. Touch. I still hadn’t shaken the feel of him, something I didn’t care to think about too closely. I’d never been a very physical person. I liked sex just fine—don’t get me wrong—but, for example, I didn’t much like getting a massage. Having someone else touch me kind of gave me the heebie-jeebies. Maybe because I’d known Jon for so long, though, his touch didn’t feel weird and foreign. Okay, I could justify a full 1.0 there.
5. Chemistry. Maybe it was that same syndrome of knowing him from before, but being friends changed the chemistry in a way I hadn’t expected. I felt comfortable with Jon on some deep level, like it didn’t matter what I did to shine myself up. He’d seen me much worse. That made me think of Kelly’s story, about being friends and just wanting to be married to each other. I didn’t want to be married to Jon, though. I certainly didn’t love him. He didn’t make me feel all giddy like Brad had. So… maybe a 0.25?
That made his total score a 2.58. Not enough. I should walk.
Though that would be enough to earn him a second dance or a date, if we’d just met. It wasn’t enough for making out—which we’d already done, so I owed a penalty for that—and definitely not sex. Even if I counted in a full point for the extra something, which we probably had when we weren’t fighting, he still wouldn’t hit the 4.0 or better needed for me to go to bed with him.
But this could count as just a date, at the most extreme interpretation, and since we’d never actually dated, the 2.58-3.58 would be enough for that. Even if this didn’t count as a date, though, the numbers weren’t compelling. I should probably just leave.
But my criteria were all wrong, according to everyone’s advice, which meant I should see him. Or was I doing my same thing by wanting to see him despite objective scoring?
I had no fucking idea anymore.
So I knocked on the door.
Then jumped back, nearly overbalancing, when he immediately wrenched it open. “You knocked!” he declared with a delighted smile.
“Well… yes,” I said. “That’s what people do to let the person inside know that they’re outside.”
“I wasn’t sure you were going to, you stood there so long.”
Disconcerted, I scanned the door. No peephole. “You were watching me?”
Cheerfully, he pointed to a tiny cam in the molding. “Video surveillance. Hazard of being a tech guy—I can’t resist the toys. It’s motion sensitive and sends pics to my computer, so I can monitor who comes and goes.”
Of course the guy who won’t use social media had to be into tech.
“Why didn’t you open the door, since you knew I was here?” Surely I should deduct points for that.
“I thought it was important for you to decide to knock,” he replied, very seriously. “You know—fully opting in. That said, want to finish the job and actually come inside?”
“I’m not sure now,” I said, narrowing my eyes at him, but I walked in. Then paused, surprised by the homey living area, complete with a crackling fire in a deco-tiled fireplace—with a cozy looking furry rug in front of it—and an actual Christmas tree.
Delightfully devoid of sports-themed décor. I should up him at least a tenth of a point just for that. Still a 2.68. Or 3.68, if I added the extra something. If I kept this up, I’d figure out how to edge him over the 4.0 threshold—definitely against the Rules.
Jon slipped the wine bottle from my hands, bumping me out of my thoughts. “Shall I open this?”
“If it matches what you’ve fixed for dinner, sure.” Rich and beefy scents wafted from the kitchen, so I suspected the Zin would go well enough.
“I don’t really know wine pairing stuff, but if you’re not picky, I’m not. And there aren’t other options.”
I eyed him. “Who doesn’t keep wine in the house?”
“You know, given my history, it feels dangerous. Drinking alone seems like the dark gateway.”
“Yeah,” I replied, not sure what else to say. Jon’s dad had been a raging alcoholic. Not reasonably functioning like mine, but the hard-core, living-in-alleys variety—until he died in one, of exposure and passed out from drink, when Jon was only ten. Jon had never talked abou
t it all that much, so I was kind of surprised he’d said anything now.
“Take your coat?”
Still cold, I’d rather have kept it on, but I didn’t want another lecture on self-care. I turned my back and let him help me out of my dress coat. Wool, at least, if unlined. “Fancy manners.”
“I watch a lot of movies. You look gorgeous.”
“Thank you.” I’d come from work and told myself I’d dressed for that and for the season, not Jon. But I’d gotten compliments all day on the absinthe silk blouse paired with a narrow black sheath skirt and over-the-knee boots, framed with a long loose-knit charcoal sweater.
He hung my coat in a hall closet, then picked up the wine he’d set down and carried it behind a low counter and into the open kitchen.
I wandered over to the Christmas tree, admiring it. What single guy put up his own Christmas tree? We had one, mainly because Marcia did most of the work, recruiting Damien to help. They were in that cozy phase of the relationship. But our ornaments were the kind you buy in big cases at the box store, because none of us had our own. Julie because her family didn’t celebrate Christmas, and the rest of us because our families did, and still kept possession. And I had a little tree in my room, one I’d made a couple of years before, out of cut and polished steel.
Jon, though, he had lots of old-fashioned ornaments, going back easily fifty years, some of them. Spinning one of the tinted molded aluminum ones, I looked over my shoulder at Jon, then accepted the glass of wine he gave me. A pretty goblet style suited for the Zin, in fact, not what I’d expect of a grad student.
“To old friends,” he said, holding up his own glass in question.
I clinked mine to his. “This is a nice place.” Renovated in the last few years to my eye, with chrome appliances and a granite counter in the kitchen.
Jon looked around, as if trying to see it through my eyes. “I had some work done when I bought it. A friend told me that the updates would be an investment in the property value.”
Missed Connections Box Set Page 33
