Down with Love_A Laws of Attraction Novel

by Kate Meader

  James has known Gina for three months.

  Still, I’m not loving that look he’s giving me, like he’s checking off the Max Henderson Reaction Playbook in his head. Determined not to play to his assumptions, I take another tack.

  “Knocked her up, then?”

  “Asshole,” he mutters, but he’s good-natured about it because that’s his way.

  “Then why now? You’re not even living together.” Jesus, if I was to write a listicle on how to kick-start a successful marriage, that would be rule number one. Figure out how much you hate each other before you say “I do.”

  “When you know, you know,” he says, all Zen master.

  Each word is a stake in my heart because it’s meaningless. It’s like some Yogi Berra BS that sounds philosophical, but it’s not.

  It. Is. Not.

  There’s still time to figure this out. Most weddings are hijacked by the matrimonial-industrial complex and take a year to plan. A long engagement with cohabitation will give them plenty of time to sour the deal.

  “Set a date yet?”

  “July.”

  “Next year,” I say. Hopefully.

  “No, this one.” He does the mouth-twitch again, which I’m starting to hate. Busy cycling through all this information in my head, I try to piece it together. Three months of dating, three months to the wedding, no fetus a-growin’…

  I cannot in all good faith dissuade my brother from marrying Gina. I have no jurisdictional standing here. His life is not my life, and while I would give anything to have him reconsider this rash decision, I’m not going to turn on him now.

  One last hope is all I have. “July,” I muse with a nonchalance I’m mighty proud of, considering the way my heart is taking a crap in my chest. “So, city hall.”

  If you’re going to marry someone you barely know, then do it on the cheap. When it all goes south later, this minimization of the big day will be one less thing to impede the dissolution process. In my experience helping clients sever their matrimonial ties, I’m always surprised at how often the wedding day gets mentioned. No matter that it’s three or thirty years ago, every client harks back to this golden time as the high point. This one day when hope sprung and lambs frolicked and everyone was the best version of their usual self.

  It was at The Drake, Max. Oprah was one of our guests.

  The cake was perfect, Max. Five tiers, so pure, so representative of our love.

  Carolina Herrera’s assistant designed the dress, Max. We saved ten percent.

  And when you think how much money is spent weaving this ridiculous fantasy…well, there ought to be a law against it.

  This is why I ask my brother about city hall. Gina’s a beer-drinking, hockey-watching prep school teacher who has an unhealthy obsession with the Penguins (she’s not even from Pittsburgh, so I’m guessing it’s a Crosby thing). James is a nerd who I’m pretty sure has zero interest in fancy nuptials, unless it’s themed with him dressed as Legolas and Gina as a hobbit. They allow interspecies marriage in the Shire, right?

  If they’re in such a hurry to tie the knot, then the trappings shouldn’t matter.

  “Well, there’s an opening at…”

  He hesitates. I pounce.

  “At?”

  “The Peninsula, on Michigan Avenue. Someone canceled—”

  “You mean realized their mistake.”

  That should set him off, but no, he’s a man in love and he’s impervious to my blows. Torn between pride that he’s sticking to his “ain’t love grand” guns and annoyance that he’s not seeing the bigger picture, I grind my teeth and remain silent.

  “And we were able to get it. So July 15. Save the date.” He clinks his glass against mine. The boy’s messing with me now, and he’s enjoying the hell out of it. “You should see your face, Max. It’s like that time I screwed up your Spider-Man comics.”

  “Remember what happened there. You got your ass kicked.”

  “So worth it.”

  I consider him. “Is this a hoax?”

  A small, pitying smile lifts the corner of his mouth. “Do you really want me to not get married that badly?”

  “I just…” I halt, thinking through my reasoning here. I’m not completely opposed to true love. I don’t have a string of broken relationships or some Mary Sue clutching my pulpy heart with her skeletal hands in my closet. Or, not exactly. A flash of Becca’s face tries to take hold but I will it away. One broken engagement has not defined me.

  What has, you might ask? The wealth of bat shit I see in my day-to-day. I want better for him. “It’s happening sort of fast. I just don’t want to see you get hurt or taken for a ride.”

  “By Gina?” he asks, with a teenage boy’s chuckle at the imagery conjured up by “taken for a ride.”

  “By anyone. The Peninsula isn’t cheap. Why the hell are you shelling out this much cash on one day?”

  “The wedding planner—”

  I hold up my hand as if he’s a client about to offer unbidden the Saugatuck vacation cottage to his ex. I knew there was something shady about this whole thing. “There’s already a wedding planner involved? When did you get engaged?”

  “Six days ago.”

  Fuck. We met last week when he must have been planning this, and he didn’t say a word. He waited a week to tell me because he knew I’d be an asshole. And I feel like the asshole he knows me to be.

  Guilt shadows his usually open features. “I was going to call but I wanted to tell you in person. I know you don’t deal with change well.” He looks down at his scotch, then flashes a cheeky peek, checking out my reaction.

  The change comment might be said in jest, but it’s not totally untrue. I’m a man of routine and big life events tend to impact that. I run the same path in Lincoln Park, I eat at the same restaurant every Sunday night, I wear the same suit to court (Ermenegildo Zegna, tonal plaid wool two-piece in slate blue). But I can’t use the “change bad!” notion to dictate the lives of those closest to me.

  “Congratulations?” I offer, five minutes too late. Then to underscore my unbridled enthusiasm, I clink my glass against his and throw down the scotch.

  It burns.

  “Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” The little prick is having a blast. “And I really don’t need a grouchy best man standing up with me.”

  I grin because I may not be totally on board but I’m going to be my little brother’s best man, and the thought makes me warm.

  “I’m not sure three months is enough time to plan a bachelor party, never mind a Peninsula-worthy wedding.” I’m still a little bit touchy about the location. It’s so over the top and I wonder if this wedding planner he mentioned is bamboozling them. That’s this chick’s job—smoke and mirrors, upselling on everything, creating the fairy tale while you flirt with bankruptcy.

  James pretends not to notice my testiness. He’s good like that.

  “I’m sure you’ll think of something. Remember Toby from the Patterson?”

  This kicks off one of our favorite stories about Toby, a guy we know from a neighborhood watering hole, who had his bachelor party at a sex dungeon. We’ve re-told this tale to ourselves and others several times but it never gets old, and by the time we get to the part where an Arby’s roast beef sandwich was used in a fetish simulated sex scene (I kid you not), my bad humor is, if not exactly a thing of the past, making a halfhearted effort to not harsh the vibe.

  His phone rings and a goofy smile overtakes his face. With a “gotta take this” nod, he makes to leave the booth, but I stay him with my hand.

  “I need to take a leak. You talk to your…fiancée.” That sounds weird.

  But not to him. I’m already forgotten and with a smile that could power the city grid, he answers with, “Hey, honeyb
ear.”

  Ker-ist.

  I head past the bar toward the restrooms, vaguely aware that the goddess who’s not my type is no longer here. Neither is Brooks Brothers, so I guess I missed my shot. Hot Server smiles at me and I almost stop. Almost.

  I need clarity here more than I need a quick fuck.

  I’m still on edge about James’s news, and I’m thinking about ways to ensure he looks after himself. I’m not saying Gina’s a gold digger, but she sure as hell isn’t making bank teaching whiny eighth graders, no matter how nice the prep school. Educators are never paid what they’re worth, though if she’s showing up hungover every morning, everyone’s probably getting what they deserve.

  James will go ballistic when I mention a pre-nup but I have to do it. Not because he makes 150K playing at nerd but because my little brother has a net worth of about ten million. I used to be in the same boat, but that’s a story for another day. You might know the name of our great-grandfather on my father’s side—Hank Henderson. As in Chicago pig baron, Hank Henderson, the slaughterhouse king who made his fortune in the early twentieth century. Those little squealers were good news for my family’s financial well-being, and while we’re no longer in the business of spilling porcine blood (except for when I use the law to eviscerate my opponents, natch), the trust is still ticking over and compounding interest at a healthy rate.

  You could say we’re targets for women of a certain mindset, not that I think Gina is like that. I’m exceptionally fond of her but—

  “Hey, watch where you’re going!”

  I stop, too late to watch where I’m going, but just in time to see where I went. Or rather what I stepped on.

  My goddess.

  She’s holding and rubbing her foot while standing on her other heel. Her face is scrunched up, more annoyance than pain, I’d wager, and I realize now that she was walking out of the ladies’ restroom when she crashed into me. My thoughts might have been elsewhere but I’m pretty sure I had the right of way.

  I could notify her of this but she’s currently hunched over, so I’m not going to assert my case yet. Besides, this position gives me the perfect opportunity to finish that inventory I started earlier.

  The pink dress has a subtly deep V that reveals a perfectly proportioned rack and a lush expanse of smooth, golden skin I want to lick. Freckles dot her shoulders like a night sky, leading me to plot a course to pleasure. Who knew an overproduction of melanin could be so damn sexy? My reaction is unstintingly visceral. It surprises me because, while I’m a healthy red-blooded American male, I’m not given to instant hard-ons at the sight of a hot woman.

  Finally, she peers up through long, golden lashes and I’m heat-blasted by a singular beauty. Green-not-blue eyes, cherry-red lips, a Cindy Crawford beauty mark.

  She is absolutely gorgeous.

  She is also absolutely pissed.

  “Nothing to say, big guy?”

  Now I’m not that big. I clock in at six feet and change but I look taller because I have broad shoulders from swimming all winter long every morning in the pool at my building. But I’ll take it because it sounds like she’s hovering on the edge of flirting.

  “Let’s check the damage.” I jackknife to the ground outside the women’s restrooms at the Gilt Bar.

  This surprises her so much she straightens and jerks her foot back.

  “May I?”

  This surprises her more. “I—” She blinks.

  “I just want to be sure your foot is okay.”

  “Um, sure.”

  Before she can second-guess that excellent decision, I take her allegedly injured foot in my hand. Shoe off. Palm around her heel. Gaze avidly, searching for the imprint of my Ferragamo cap-toe Oxfords.

  I glide a thumb over a slightly darkened patch of skin, along the knuckles of her toes, gratified to feel her shiver. Her nails are a pearlescent blue, sort of surprising given the womanly sophistication of the pink dress and the quality of her footwear.

  “Still throbbing?” I ask, all cheeky innocence as I peek up.

  Her lips almost curve but she fights it. “Just a shock, that’s all. You really need to pay attention to where you’re walking.”

  “You crashed out of the restroom without heed to the main thoroughfare. When entering from a side street, it’s incumbent on you to check for oncoming traffic.”

  I don’t know if she crashed out of anything, but I’m sure enjoying her disbelief.

  “You collided with me. If it was the other way around, my heel would be embedded in your foot.” In my mind, I hear the word “dickhead” tacked onto the end of that and the implicit wish that her heel was embedded in a more sensitive part of my anatomy.

  She has a point but I refuse to concede. Instead I obfuscate because that’s how I make my goddamn living.

  “What can I do to make it better?” No admission of guilt, but an offer to settle in a way that will satisfy both parties. I smooth my thumb over her foot again, outside-in, lingering on the arch. The little hitch I hear in her breath turns me rock-hard. You are eventually going to have to stand up, Maxie-boy, so why are you making it so difficult?

  She pulls away and fumble-feels for her shoe, but I’m there like a psychic Prince Charming sliding her into it. That’s right, my slide action is a thing of beauty. Cheesy, but as long as it’s in my head, I can be as cheesetastic as I want.

  “I’ll live,” she murmurs.

  I stand and, even in her heels, she’s a good six inches shorter than me.

  “Should we exchange insurance information?” I ask.

  “I think we can handle this without getting all that bureaucracy involved.”

  “Right, wouldn’t want our deductibles to shoot through the roof.” Meanwhile the deductible in my pants is angling for an introduction.

  We hold the moment, and it’s not awkward. It’s pretty nice, actually. The insurance metaphor has run its course but it was kind of lame to start with.

  She peers up at me, waiting for something though technically it’s her turn to talk. For once in my life, I don’t want to talk. I just want to soak her in. She’s as flawless as my first impression, with lips that are newly glossed, probably while she was in the restroom. This reminds me of Brooks Brothers, and he’s the last guy I want polluting my brain.

  As if I can shield her from the rest of the bar, I raise an arm and lean it against the wall. It makes my biceps bulge against my suit jacket and while she doesn’t look, I know she sees. She inhales a quick, tight breath and magnetizes me with those emerald-fired eyes.

  I can’t believe I’m going to say this…

  “So how does a girl like you get to be a girl like you?”

  Slight eyebrow tilt (her). Epic held breath (me).

  “Good line.”

  “Thanks,” I say around my disappointment.

  The “good line” is from my favorite Hitchcock movie, North by Northwest, and sounds better when spoken in that weird, clipped accent by dapper god of screen Cary Grant. When I’m interested in a woman, I throw it out—okay, ya got me, it’s sort of a test. I’m not expecting an answer, per se, but some inkling that its awesomeness is appreciated.

  If she had said, “Lucky, I guess,” which is Eva Marie Saint’s response in the movie, I probably would have dropped back to my knees and proposed. I love a woman who can appreciate the classics.

  Hold up there, Henderson. My brain screeches to a halt because I’m running away with myself here, pretzeled in knots by this woman. I certainly do not want to cuddle up with her on the sofa watching Jimmy Stewart stalking Kim Novak or Anthony Perkins undergoing a Mommy-induced identity crisis.

  I date but I’m not interested in anything long-term, at least not now. My partners at Wright, Lincoln, and Henderson pick up the slack in that area. Lucas comes of
f like my brother, an über-romantic who plays the field but who I suspect is heading for a fall one of these days, while Grant is getting back on the dating horse after the hell of his divorce from one of my best friends, Aubrey, aka the Ball Crusher. My heart squeezes thinking about these people I care about in pain—and for what? The cause of true love. It’s enough to make anyone a skeptic.

  Suffice it to say I’m not in the market for a relationship and, if my brother is to be believed, this green-eyed goddess is a relationship sort of girl. Which means I need to set the stage.

  “Did you ditch Brooks Brothers?” I say it roughly, a low rumble of sex so she knows that playtime is over. Down to brass tacks.

  I expect her eyes to widen at the admission I’ve been tracking her all evening. Instead, she accepts it as her due that every man in this place was likely eye-fucking her over his Manhattan.

  “Maybe he’s in the restroom,” she offers.

  “Maybe he shouldn’t have left you alone.”

  “Maybe this gal can handle herself.”

  “Maybe she should let herself be taken care of by someone who knows what he’s doing.”

  She’s having a hard time settling on amused or irked. “Does this work for you?”

  “What?”

  “The cocky player, shock-and-awe approach.”

  That brain screech from a second ago has turned into an Aston Martin crash into a tree. Here I thought we were rocking the fun flanter and now I sense some attitude.

  I decide to go all in. “Every. Damn. Time.”

  Confidence is ingrained in me. It took a while, given my distinct lack of poise as a child, but I’ve worked hard to overcome my early deficiencies. Now I’m the guy who knows how to please a woman—my clients, of course, but most especially the women in my bed. (In case you’re wondering, those two categories never intersect. I love my job too much.) If I were to hand off an exit survey to a woman leaving my bedroom, I’d be getting all fives on the Likert scale. Meaning “Fuck Yeah Satisfied.”