She laughed. “You don’t say ‘let’s change the subject.’ You have to actually change the subject by bringing up something else.”
Her laughter seemed to shift his mood back to playful. “All right then, Emma Chen-Delvaux. Where are you staying this weekend?”
She narrowed her eyes, but there didn’t seem to be an ulterior motive to the question. “Ashworth 10. For old time’s sake. You?”
“Ashworth 9. I didn’t make it to the five-year reunion, so I figured, ‘What the hell. I’ll stay in my old dorm.’”
“Have you tried the bed yet?” She was having a terrible time not flirting with him.
“No, why?” He sounded serious, but his eyes danced.
“They’re not as comfortable as I remember them.”
“That’s because our bones are ten years older. I brought a mattress pad with me, anticipating such a need.”
“You did not.”
“I did. You’ll have to come see if you don’t believe me.”
The challenge lay between them, but Emma sidestepped it. “How did you get it here? On the train?”
He didn’t seem to mind that she hadn’t answered his implicit invitation. “No,” he scoffed. “I rented a car.”
“I wish I’d known you were coming this weekend, and that we live like three blocks from one another. We could have carpooled.”
“Well, that’s what reunions are for. To reunite old friends.”
“Cheers,” she said warmly, lifting her glass of water.
Nate raised his glass to meet Emma’s and suddenly froze. What was he doing? He’d practically invited her up to his room. Not the tone he should be injecting into their relationship. Emma had always been his friend. Sure, he might have lost track of her for a while, hadn’t actually set eyes on her in a decade, but their easy camaraderie and conversation made it seem as if they’d been sharing warm beer on the green during Spring Fling only yesterday.
Of course, he’d always been interested in her back then, too. Who wouldn’t be? She was undeniably attractive with a petite, pert body, exquisite clear skin, thick, straight black hair inherited from her Chinese-American father, and incongruous but captivating violet irises in wide-set eyes passed down from her white, European mother, who had been born and raised in France. He remembered a story she’d told him one day over lunch. She’d gone to see Beauty and the Beast with some girls from a new school she’d transferred to when her father got his job at Stanford. None of the girls had believed her when she’d told them she was half-French because she didn’t look anything like Belle. They’d taunted her and called her a liar, and she’d gone home in tears. Her father had given her a lecture on race and politics that had gone over her head, and her mother had—to her extreme embarrassment—called each of the girls’ mothers at home and chewed them out in the most florid French accent she could muster. Emma had told Nate she’d learned her parents would defend her, but she had to be the one who was comfortable with her identity. “The girls all apologized for doubting me, but we never became friends. The worst part was that my mom banished Disney princesses from the house!” She’d laughed, and her candidness had blown him away.
That story was just one of things burned into Nate’s memory files of Emma Chen-Delvaux, including her sexy, girl-next-door looks and the way she fearlessly met his flirtation mode head-on. Nothing he said fazed her. He supposed that was why they’d been able to be friends, despite always having significant others. They could tease each other with no consequences. Neither would consider the other actually interested.
Except now they weren’t with anyone else. She was single, unfathomably. He was still hibernating, hoping when he came out of his cave, the wounds of his brief marriage would be healed over, and he’d be able to offer up a whole man to the next woman who came along, instead of the hollow shell he’d been when he and Alison had called it quits.
He was beginning to suspect the healing process might be over because he was suddenly very interested in Emma.
Since they were both single, would the teasing and flirting take on a new meaning? Did he want it to? There had been times in college when he’d been tempted to make a move on her—girlfriends and boyfriends be damned—and see if they were as good together as he had imagined they would be.
But he’d never let his dick overrule his common decency. Now here they were, two consenting adults, free of obligation to anyone else, looking to survive a reunion as single people among a sea of marrieds and marrieds-with-kids. He could sense they were both a little lonely.
He’d found Emma Chen-Delvaux, single, on the college campus where they’d first met. He wouldn’t get another opportunity like this. He could only hope that putting himself out there wouldn’t strip away the scar tissue he’d carefully grafted over his heart.
Still, he thought, as he raked his gaze over her from the top of her head down to her sexy, strappy sandals and crimson toenails, even if it hurt, it might be worth it. He felt the stirrings of arousal in the base of his belly; he couldn’t place them at first they were so foreign to him. None of his college friends would believe he hadn’t had sex in over a year. It was difficult to imagine it himself sometimes.
He tore his gaze from the neckline of Emma’s simple white tank top and moved it to her face, where he found her smiling a bit uncertainly. “Hmm…what?”
“I said are you going to any of the campus events tonight?”
“Like what? I didn’t pay very much attention to the schedule,” he confessed.
“They’re screening It Happened One Night in the cinema, and there’s a square dance or something at one of the fraternities. The all-school dance is tomorrow night on the green.”
“Oh, yeah!” At the all-school dance their senior year, Emma and Christophe had danced every song together, the meathead surprisingly good on the floor, Emma looking fresh and lovely in a white strapless dress. Why did he remember that? He recalled her laughing at his antics as he did the Robot to the Beastie Boys. He’d always been trying to get her attention back then.
“I’m not much for square dancing,” he said. “Want to go to the movie?”
“Sure. We should head up there now. I think it starts at eight.”
They said good-bye to a couple of their classmates as they exited the tent and made for the cinema in the arts complex.
The night was sultry and warm for May. Less than a month from the solstice, the air was tinted the dark blue of twilight, and Nate had the strangest urge to take Emma’s hand in his as they walked. He was afraid that if he tried, though, she’d laugh at him. It wasn’t exactly his signature move, but it would have been nice to walk hand-in-hand with a pretty girl through the cut-grass-scented air.
She didn’t seem to pick up on the potential romance of their situation, or if she did, she wanted to avoid it because she started asking him about their mutual friends. They began comparing notes on who was doing what and with whom.
“Kate’s apparently a lesbian,” he said, getting into the spirit of the gossip session.
“What? She is not.” Emma’s reaction was gratifyingly astonished.
“She is. I saw her not long ago. She’s engaged to a woman she met doing roller derby.”
“Are you serious? That’s great, but wow. You guys were together for like….”
“A year,” he said. “I know.”
“Did you know…I mean, when you guys were together, did she….”
“Tell me she’d rather be having sex with a woman? No, she did not. I thought we were good together even in the sex department. I mean, she never complained to me.”
“Then you must be better than I thought.”
Nate shot Emma a sideways glance, and she grinned.
“I mean, if you could satisfy a lesbian….”
He laughed. “Oh, yeah, that’s me. Gay, straight, they leave happy.”
She giggled. The sound warmed him, but also depressed him. Maybe she’d never be interested in him sexually. They’d been
friends for so long she probably didn’t see him that way. As heightened as his senses were around her, he wondered whether two hours sitting next to her inside a dark movie theater was such a good idea. “What’s this movie about?”
“I’m going to confess something. It’s in black and white, but it’s excellent. You’ll love it,” she assured him.
He mock-groaned. “You know I don’t like any movie made before 1994.”
“Well, this one was made in 1934, and it’s an absolute classic. Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. Trust me.”
“All right.” He could handle himself for the length of a movie. When they got out, if he still felt like holding her hand, or kissing her, or taking her back to his dorm room and trying out that twin-sized bed, he was giving himself permission to do it. She might think it was a good idea. If she didn’t, maybe they were such good friends they’d be able to laugh about the time he’d made a pass at her at their next reunion.
Chapter Two
Kill me now. The movie was halfway over. Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert were arguing their way into each other’s hearts, and Emma was so turned on by having Nate three inches from her body she’d jumped out of her tiny cinema seat when he’d tapped her on the arm to offer her a piece of gum.
Get a grip, Emma.
She could be excused for acting like a teenage girl. The setting was transporting her right back to freshman year’s introduction to film class. She and Nate had often sat next to each other, talking and teasing through the inevitably long, incomprehensible films. Back then, a hundred other bored college students had surrounded them, and the setting hadn’t seemed romantic, but here, in a half-full theater with the light of the silver screen flickering across their faces, her thoughts could be nowhere except on the man sitting next to her. How different he seemed to her, more mature, a little world-weary. Yet they’d been able to pick up right where they left off, so neither of them had changed that much. Naturally, he was thinking about her only as a friend as their easy banter made plain, but it was oh-so-tempting to read more into the situation.
He was Nate, her friend, her buddy, her classmate. He was also hot, the muscles on his exposed forearms chiseled from working with his hands. And what hands. Sculpted and sensitive and all too easy to imagine holding a hammer with authority or stroking her skin. He didn’t tower over her, making her feel like a little girl, but he wasn’t so short they’d look out of whack if she wore heels. His face had always appealed to her with its austere lines and sexily prominent nose. His crew cut emphasized that Nate Hirsch was not a boy any longer. He was definitely all man. She caught a trace of his spicy aftershave and shuddered. All man.
In the cinema seats, it was apparent their bodies fit together like a matched set. Their knees nearly touched, their shoulders grazed if one of them laughed at the witty dialogue. Emma kept her arm and hand carefully folded on her side of the seat, lest she knock into him and betray her awkwardness.
God, what she wouldn’t do to feel a man on top of her, feeling his weight and the mass of muscle pressing down, trapping her in a sensual vise. She was getting wet just thinking about lying underneath Nate, feeling the rough of his dark stubble on her skin as he plied her with kisses, preparing her to take him inside her.
Ugh. She needed to stop this line of thought. It wasn’t his fault she was going through a dry spell. She hadn’t even made it to bed with the last guy she’d dated. He had been pleasant, but so polite and nonthreatening, Emma had felt like a bad feminist for dumping him because he was too nice. Apparently she wasn’t attracted to amiable men with no body hair. Nate was hairy in all the right places, at least in those places she’d seen. She’d always rather fancied his silky black arm hair, and she allowed herself a little peek where his forearms extended from his linen shirt. Yeah, hairy in a good way. A very good way. She was pathetic if the sight of arm hair was making her as hot as a sidewalk in July.
He’d think she was really hard up if she propositioned him tonight. She had some self-respect. It had been so long since she’d felt the spark of attraction with anyone; she might as well enjoy this butterfly feeling and take some memories of it back home with her.
Home. Home to Brooklyn, which was, amazingly, Nate’s home, too. Now that they were aware of one another’s proximity, he’d be turning up like a bad penny, and she’d need to maintain their friendship if she wanted to survive that. Park Slope was like a Weston dorm sometimes, so many alums had landed there. Why not Nate, too? But if things got out of hand this weekend, it could become awkward when they got back to the city. She was locked into a thirty-year mortgage that she had no intention of bailing on.
Far better to keep things friendly with Nate this weekend. If it was meant to be, they’d exchange contact info, have coffee or a drink sometime, and let things progress naturally. Jumping his bones at their college reunion smacked of desperation, nostalgia, bad judgment. And they hadn’t even been drinking, so they wouldn’t be able to blame it on the alcohol.
There, decision made. No sex this weekend. Her libido would have to calm itself. No more arm-hair peeking. No more fantasies. Just friends. With effort, she dragged her attention back to the movie, only to realize it was ending with the walls of Jericho tumbling down, Claudette and Clark about to consummate their tempestuous romance.
At least someone would be getting some tonight.
***
“Are we getting old?” Emma asked as they trudged back across campus to the Ashworth dorms. “It’s barely ten o’clock, and I’m exhausted.”
“We’re not old; we’re just smarter than we used to be,” Nate offered. He hoped that was true and his instincts were not wrong. Otherwise, he was about to get shot down in a stunningly embarrassing fashion.
Though outwardly still her pert little self, Emma had seemed stiff during the movie and hadn’t responded to his overtures of conversation. She used to whisper to him constantly during film class. He’d eventually stopped trying to engage her attention, caught up as he was in the tale unfolding on screen, the mismatched couple equal in wits and bravado, their vulnerabilities the thing that would bring them together if only they could get over their pride.
That had been his and Alison’s problem. They had been too concerned about how they appeared to each other and hadn’t cared enough about what was really going on between them.
He’d discovered his passion for woodworking as their wedding—a traditional affair Alison had been set on—was being planned. He now saw she’d thought it a passing hobby, and he’d eventually get a real job like her friends’ husbands. A husband who worked with his hands didn’t fit how she wanted her life to be.
He’d also wanted to start their family while she had wanted to be the cosmopolitan, trendy Brooklynite who had a husband more as a status symbol than a committed partner and who could wait another decade to try for kids. He hadn’t had the guts to admit they wanted different things. When he’d found out she’d gotten pregnant and had an abortion almost a year into their brief marriage, he had been stunned she’d do something so drastic without his knowledge. After that, their fragile relationship had had no chance of recovery. He still felt horribly betrayed that she could do something so selfish when she was well aware he wanted kids. He felt the loss of a baby he hadn’t even known about while it existed more than he felt the loss of his marriage. He was as pro-choice as the next liberal, secular Jew, but it was different when it was his wife, whom he was supposed to be able to trust, making a life-altering decision for both of them. Alison wouldn’t have told him about it at all if he hadn’t found out and confronted her.
He needed to put all of that behind him and consider the possibility of trusting a woman again. Maybe that’s why he felt so buoyant with Emma. She knew him, knew his faults, his embarrassments, and his ’fro tendency. And she didn’t judge or try to change him. She seemed to like him the way he was. He only hoped he could convince her to give them a chance to like each other in a different way.
As engr
ossed as he’d been in the movie, he couldn’t get away from the scent of her—some summery floral scent that pervaded the air and made him want to bury his nose in her hair and stay there forever.
They walked in silence as they dropped down onto West Street, on which sat a row of red-brick buildings that housed most of the freshman and sophomore classes during the school year. He had lived in Ashworth 9 his freshman year with a New Yorker named Cory, whose extracurricular activities tended toward smoking pot and flirting with every female in sight. Emma had lived one floor up with that annoying blonde girl, Brooke. He didn’t know if he and Emma had seen each other before, but he vividly remembered that Sunday brunch early in the fall when they’d talked for the first time. Campus dining hadn’t opened until eleven on the weekend, so if you were up earlier than that, you were out of luck or maybe consigned to ramen in your room. Nate had made it a point never to wake before eleven—Sunday or not—if he could help it. He almost hadn’t gone down to brunch that day, had thought about snacking on Bugles and Peanut M&Ms while playing some Grand Theft Auto. The ideal way to laze away a Sunday. But Cory had cajoled him into going downstairs and across the courtyard to the dining hall. He had admitted waffles and scrambled eggs, even if they were mediocre dining hall ones, were better than junk food.
He had sat down next to Cory and a girl named Tallulah he’d recognized from his film class. Plopping down at the round table next to her was the cutest girl he’d seen so far as a college man. “Aren’t you in my Intro to Film class?” she’d asked. “Yeah, you’re the one who sleeps through every film. I was going to tell you to keep your snoring down.”
He’d grinned at her sassy mouth and shot back some inane response. They’d been friends ever since. He’d been mildly disappointed when he’d found out she was dating someone—the editor of the school paper, he seemed to recall—but not surprised. Of course she’d been taken. She was the ideal woman. Pretty, smart, quick with a good-natured rib. Independent. Even if it seemed she always had a serious boyfriend, she never let him interfere with her friendships or studies. He had started dating a sociology major later that semester, so the attraction thing was off the table.
Sweet Imperfection Page 2
