“So, yeah. I guess I’ll see you again at the library?” Should we make plans? I was really terrible at this.
“Definitely. I’m going to be spending a lot of time there now.”
“Like, tomorrow? Around five?” he asked with another little smile.
“Absolutely. I’ll see you there. Same table?”
“Same table.” He seemed like he wanted to say something else. Or do something else. But he decided against it and backed up.
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow, Marisol. It was really great to meet you.”
“Ditto. And it was really great to meet you, Chase.” He nodded and then headed for the elevator.
What an interesting day it turned out to be.
I called Chloe as soon as I could to tell her about the last twenty-four hours.
“It’s been nuts,” I told her. “From Fin being missing to randomly meeting this guy. I can’t even believe it.” I was going to leave Sapphire out of it and just tell Chloe I had a feeling something was wrong with Fin. That was what Sapphire had told me, so it wasn’t far from the truth.
“Wow, gimme all the details. I’ve had an awful day at work and I could use the distraction so I don’t commit arson and burn the spa down.”
“Okay, but then you’re going to tell me all about that.”
“Deal.”
So I gave her the abbreviated version (minus Sapphire) of the whole thing. She listened and gasped and showed surprise at all the right parts. It felt even more dramatic in the retelling than it had been living through it.
“Holy shit, Mari. You have this really intense life. Sometimes I’m jealous.” She wouldn’t be if she knew the whole story.
“I don’t even know what to think right now. My mind is still reeling. I also feel guilty.”
“Aw, why?”
“I don’t know. Like I’m betraying Fin or something. I know I’m not, but I can’t help the way I feel,” I said. I was so relieved I had her to talk to, at least about this.
“Poor, Mari. He really did a number on you, didn’t he?” Yeah, he had.
“It will just take some time to get over it. I will, but it’s not going to be easy.” I’d thought I was getting somewhere, but then I talked to him on the phone and it brought everything back up again. Now I was back at the beginning. Starting over.
“Do you need some more aquarium time? I think they’re closed now, but I can break in if you need me to.” It was very sweet that she would risk arrest to make me feel better, but I could deal.
“I can handle it. I did before and I can do it again. I’m a big girl.”
“Hell yeah you are! I know it’s late, but do you want me to come over? We can stay up and talk.” Both of us had to get up tomorrow, but I hadn’t had her over to stay the night in ages.
“Yes, come over!” I said. Having Chloe over would save me from spending the next few hours writing more Fin letters. I needed more human interaction.
“Awesome, I will be right there.” Chloe lived so close to me that if she could jump from roof to roof, she could be here in seconds.
“Bring wine,” I said. I hadn’t had the sake, but if Chlo was coming over, there had to be wine involved.
“Done,” she said and hung up. I rushed around, getting all my junk food out and ready. I also threw my clothes off and put my cutest and comfiest pajamas on. For a moment, I thought about Fin’s apartment and how much fun it would be to curl up in his bed and bring down the large video screen and have a movie marathon with Chlo. But I wasn’t going back there. Even if I had a key. That part of my life was done. Left behind so I could move on.
I was just tossing my hair into a messy bun on the top of my head when Chloe knocked on my door. I opened it and she held up two bottles of wine and grinned at me.
“You are my favorite,” I said as she danced her way in.
“Well, duh,” she said, putting down the bottles and then grabbing some wine glasses.
“I have a nice spread for us,” I said, motioning to the smorgasbord I’d put out on the coffee table.
“Excellent. I definitely need to drown my feelings in some food. Are you PMSing right now?” Since we were so close, our cycles tended to sync up.
“Yup.” She made a face at me and handed me a glass.
“So, I need way more details on this Chase fellow.” We headed to the couch and I gave her painstaking details about Chase, right down to his eyebrows and every single freckle. I mean, I’d only met the guy today and spent a few hours with him so I couldn’t give that many details, but I did my best.
“Now tell me about your day,” I said. “I’m sick of talking about me.” I finished my first glass of wine and poured another.
Chloe didn’t need much encouraging to launch into her day from hell. That got me through my second glass and by the time she finished, I was sleepy and full and feeling much better.
“Movie?” I asked.
“Yes, but only something made before the year 2000.” Chloe wasn’t a fan of many modern movies. Most of her faves were from the seventies and eighties and even earlier.
She got up and went through my collection and selected Can’t Buy Me Love with the absolutely dreamy Patrick Dempsey.
“He was so dorky in this,” she said, pressing play on the DVD player.
“I know, but you can still see the potential. He’s even better looking the older he gets. I can’t wait to see him as a silver fox. Hubba hubba,” I said.
“I would go straight for him, I swear,” Chloe said, which was quite a statement to the beauty that was Mr. Dempsey. Chloe wouldn’t go straight for a million dollars.
“You would suck his dick?” I asked.
Chloe squinted at him and turned her head to the side, like she was considering.
“Maybe. I’d probably have to close my eyes and pretend it was a banana or something.”
“It doesn’t really work that way,” I said. You could pretend a dick was anything you want, but at the end of the day, it was still a dick and you still had it in your mouth.
“I could give you some tips, if you want,” I said.
Chloe shuddered.
“We need to stop talking about this right now,” she said. “It’s ruining this for me.” I shut my mouth and looked at the bottle of wine. There was still a little bit left. Chloe had drunk more than me. I should probably catch up.
We talked through the rest of the movie, but not about Patrick Dempsey’s dick. We avoided any dick talk.
“So, do you think you’re going out with him again?” she said, and I knew she wasn’t talking about Patrick.
“I don’t know, Chloe. I didn’t really go out with him this time. I told him I’d just gotten out of something and he said it was no pressure. He also didn’t kiss me. He thought about it, but he didn’t. I respect that. Even if I wanted to date him, I just can’t right now. It’s too soon.” She was one to talk. She still hadn’t started dating and it had been several months since Harmony.
“Well, I think you should go out with him. He sounds perfect.” I gave her a look.
“Chlo, no one is perfect.”
“Yes, but he could be.” She wasn’t letting this die.
“Why are you so interested in this guy?” I asked.
She grabbed a bag of chips, stuck her hand in, pulled it out and pouted. Apparently the bag was empty.
“Because I think it would be good for you to be with someone else. I mean, if you’re going to be with someone else right now. You don’t have to. But if you did. I mean, I haven’t even met the guy, but I can tell you like him just by the way you’re talking. So it sounds like he’s a winner already. Plus, he’s going to law school. He could make mucho bucks.” If he was the right kind of lawyer, I suppose. If he went into doing pro-bono work, not so much. If he went into corporate law, oh yeah. Chase hadn’t told me what kind of law he wanted to get into. He’d seemed kind of cagey about it, so I didn’t push. I got the impression that maybe his parents were the ones who
had pushed him into it. I’d asked him what his parents did and, surprise, they were lawyers.
“I don’t know if you’re going to meet him, because I don’t know how often I’m going to see him. And I don’t mean see him like date him. I mean see him like… hang out with him. Studying and so forth.” Talking about this was starting to stress me out again.
“Can we not talk about this?” I asked, rubbing my forehead. I felt a headache coming on, which was weird because I wasn’t even close to having a hangover yet. I got up to fetch some aspirin and a glass of water.
“I’m sorry, I just want you to meet a nice guy.” I did meet a nice guy. I met the nicest guy ever and things didn’t work out. Now every other nice guy would have to measure up to him. Sure, I was attracted to Chase, but it wasn’t that burning fire I felt the first time I met Fin. He didn’t make me feel like I was going to swoon over every time he looked at me. That dimple though…
No, I didn’t need to think about this right now. I had more pressing matters, like school. And my mother.
“Really, the last thing I need is another boy in my life,” I said as I sat back down on the couch. The movie was almost wrapping up to the happy conclusion. Why couldn’t life be like an 80s movie? Where was John Hughes when you needed him?
“Amen. I don’t need any and I do just fine. Pussy trumps dick.” I made a face at her.
“Hey, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. I’m totally happy to let you have a shot.” She was totally joking. I was used to Chloe propositioning me.
“I’m good,” I said and we went back to watching the movie.
By the time it was over, I was really drowsy from the wine, but I wasn’t ready for bed yet.
“Another?” I said.
“Yup. You pick this time.” I didn’t feel like getting up, but I did. I needed to get some new movies. I’d been cycling through the same ones for ages.
I picked a classic and went with Notting Hill.
“Ew, Hugh Grant, really? He’s so gross,” Chloe said as the movie started with shots of Julia Roberts.
“He’s British and floppy-haired.” I had a thing for messy hair, clearly. “Just stare at Julia if you don’t like him.”
“She’s not my type,” Chloe whined. I picked up one of my accent pillows and threw it at her. She caught it and put it behind her back to prop herself up more.
“Oh for the love of God. Find someone with tits to stare at then.” Chloe pouted, but didn’t say anything else. She was just giving me a hard time, as best friends are wont to do.
Chloe and I both fell asleep on the couch, our bodies stretched out opposite one another. I woke up in the morning with one of her toes nearly up my nose and I was doing the same thing to her. I really needed to get a bigger couch if we were ever going to do this again.
“Oh my God, I am never doing that again,” Chloe moaned and then rolled over.
“What time is it?” she asked and I groped for my phone on the coffee table. It was nearly eight. Fortunately, we’d woken up with enough time to get ready. Chloe didn’t have to be into work until nine and I didn’t have class until ten.
“Coffee please,” Chloe said as I stumbled to my feet and into the kitchen.
“I’m working on it,” I snapped. I couldn’t be responsible for anything I said before I’d had my first cup. I hated talking to anyone before I’d at least brushed my teeth.
“Can I shower here?” she asked. God, she was demanding in the morning.
“Go ahead, but make it quick. I need one too.” She mumbled something and then shuffled off to the bathroom. She still had a lot of her stuff here from previous sleepovers, including a few work uniforms.
I stared at the coffee, waiting for it to be ready. It wasn’t going fast enough.
“Come on,” I moaned to the pot just as the steaming liquid started pouring into the pot. Thank God. As soon as it was done, I grabbed the French vanilla creamer and savored my first cup as Chloe began to sing in the shower. Whatever got you going, I suppose.
Chloe and I rode the T together since the stop for her job was right before my stop for school.
“Have a good day at work, dear,” I said, giving her a kiss on the cheek that she returned.
“You too, my love.”
Classes went by as they usually did and soon it was time to meet Chase again. I was having reservations about seeing him today, seeing as how we’d just seen each other last night. Was it too much? But we’d be studying. We weren’t going on a date.
I beat him to our table at the library and spread my books out so he wouldn’t have any delusions about what I was going to be doing.
“Hey,” a voice said behind me. I was in the process of getting some pens out and I dropped them all over the floor in surprise.
“Oh, shit, I’m sorry,” Chase said, bending down to gather them up. I grabbed a few. God, I had a lot of pens in my purse.
“No worries,” I said as he handed the pens back to me. I put all of them back in purse, except for two.
“Well, I’m starting this off right, aren’t I?” he said, sitting down directly across from me this time.
“All you need to do now is spill hot coffee in my lap.” We smiled at each other and I compared the feeling I got from that with the effect Fin had on me. They were just… different. Fin was like a hurricane. This was more like a gentle rain, washing over me.
“I’ll see what I can do. So, how was your day?” he asked as he started pulling out his books and notebooks and a laptop.
“Pretty good,” I said as he brought out some tomes that looked like you could use them to bludgeon someone to death. “Got enough books there?”
“Apparently, law requires a lot of really heavy books. Did you know that?” he said with pretend shock.
“Noooo, I had no idea. You should have gone into something lighter. Like advertising.” We both laughed.
“That’s kind of terrible. But true. I had a gen ed class with a girl who was in advertising and she asked me how to spell Canada once,” he said and I winced.
“That sounds about right.” He smiled at me again and turned his laptop on.
“So, let’s say we work for two hours and then take a coffee break?” he said.
“Sounds perfect.”
I knew, given the same situation, only with Fin in Chase’s place, I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on my work. But Chase was unobtrusive and quiet. The only sound he made was the turn of a page or his fingers quietly clacking on the keyboard. He didn’t make much noise in general, which was what made him nearly the perfect study partner. He didn’t sigh, or chew on his pen, or jiggle his foot or anything like that. In fact, he was so still that at the end of the two hours he’d barely moved.
He’d said I was studious, but damn. Chase took the focus cake.
I finished at exactly the two hour mark, closed my book and rubbed my eyes. I’d gotten out of the studying habit lately, so my eyes weren’t used to staring at print for long stretches. Chase looked up at me and then at the clock.
“Damn, two hours already?” He stretched his arms above his head and both his shoulders popped.
“You were really focused there,” I said.
“Yeah, I was actually doing some research for mock trial and it was interesting. We’re arguing about assisted suicide. I always find it easier to focus when something or someone is particularly interesting.” Somehow I didn’t think he was talking about assisted suicide anymore.
Chase stared at me and I had to look away from those dark eyes. They were quite something.
“Coffee?” he said, blinking and breaking the connection.
“Absolutely. But you’ll let me pay this time.” He laughed, causing a few people to glare from nearby tables. Chase just gave them a sheepish smile and packed his things up again. Charming. He was charming in a sweet way. Not like Fin.
I really had to stop comparing Chase to Fin. They weren’t the same and it wasn’t even a fair comparison. I wasn’t dating
Chase and I didn’t plan to. Right now he was a friend, if even that. I hadn’t even known him for 24 hours yet.
“It was a nice try,” he said as we walked to the café. “But there’s no way I’d let you pay.”
“Why?” I asked. There were a lot of potential reasons, but I wanted to know his reasons.
“Because that’s just how it works.” I gave him a look as he let me get in front of him in line.
“How it works? What does that mean exactly?”
He shrugged.
“I don’t know. Look, I am a big believer in equality for everyone. Unlike some men, I find assertive and in-control women sexy as hell. But there are some things, like paying for a woman and opening doors for her that I think are just nice and we should keep doing them. If that makes me old-fashioned, then I guess I’m happy to wear that label.” That was quite a speech and a few people in line were definitely listening when he said it. An older gentleman in front of us turned around and gave Chase a thumbs up.
“That’s the way it should be, young man,” he said. Chase just grinned and flashed him a thumbs up.
“Well, I can’t argue with that,” I said.
“You should never argue with a lawyer. They always win.” I rolled my eyes at him.
“You should never argue with a woman. They always win,” I said, giving him a smug smile.
Chase started a slow clap that made everyone around him stare, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“You win,” he said.
“Yes. I do.”
This second encounter (I refused to call it a date because it just simply wasn’t) with Chase was just as nice as the first.
“So, your girlfriend isn’t mad that you’re hanging out with me?” I said.
“Wow, subtle much?” I shrugged. Chase didn’t seem like the kind of guy who got easily offended. Or offended at all.
“Just wondering. I showed you mine, show me yours.” I didn’t mean it that way, but he definitely raised an eyebrow and I threw a napkin at him that he caught with one hand and then tossed in the trash with impeccable aim.
Deep Surrendering: Episode Ten Page 3
