by Julie Olivia
“My cousin, Natalie. She’s one of my favorite people. Hard-working. Parties a lot. Talks about willies a lot.”
I bark out a laugh. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. I hear lots of stories about brilliant nights with mind-bending orgasms and men who supposedly have meat the size of machetes.” She leans in a bit closer and mutters, “If you would believe it.”
“She describes them as weapons?” I ask.
“I think she’s dating men with monster dicks.” The last word trails off, and both of us know she didn’t intend to have that sentence leave her mouth.
I laugh, unable to contain the surprise at her saying such a ridiculous statement.
“This isn’t how I imagined tonight going,” she says.
I lean back, eyebrow lifted and hands shoved deeper into my pockets, quickly trying to mask my now semi-erection at her mention of dicks.
“And how did you imagine tonight going?” I ask.
“Tech talk,” she says. “Of course.”
“Of course,” I echo.
“Not at all talk to do with willies.”
The word leaving her mouth spurs me on again. I avert eye contact.
“Hey, you brought it up,” I mumble.
Fran gasps dramatically and I worry something’s happened for a second, but instead her blue eyes stare back at me. “I would never,” she says.
“So, dicks are off the table?” I ask.
“They were never on the table.”
“That’d be weird if they were.”
“Well, sure, how would you feel with a bunch of dicks just rolling around on a table?”
“Are they attached to anything?”
“Men, I would imagine.”
“But they’re rolling?”
She exhales, rolling her eyes as hard as possible until only the whites show for a second before they drift back from the ceiling and to me. “Yes, I’m seeing the flaw in my logic.”
A small whine sounds from the speakers, and I instinctually look around for the culprit. It’s Randy messing with the microphone again, shrugging to the tech guy off stage as if perplexed by the silly contraption.
Fran is silent next to me, but it seems her eyes have paused at the lone snack table, long forgotten by the other group members who have moved on.
I throw my thumb over my shoulder. “Did you want a snack?”
“No,” she says.
I blow out some air. “Lies.”
“Okay, yes.”
“Want me to—”
“I got it,” she says before I can offer.
“Of course you do,” I say. We exchange small smiles, and she pushes past with a bit of a rougher nudge against my shoulder if I had to guess her usual strength. “I’ll save your spot,” I call after her. Her side glance is all I need to know she’ll be returning.
Fran’s exit takes all of her with it: the floral scent of lavender and roses, along with the heady feeling in the air that I didn’t even know existed. It feels less warm, emptier with her gone. It gives me time to breathe in cool air instead of the weighted humidity surrounding us.
When I finally open my eyes to scan the crowd, I notice more eyes than I expected aimed toward Fran, peering out from their own conversations to see the perky blonde girl with a pink dress and boots. It’s only natural. This is New York. You don’t stick around in the heart of the city and attend meet-ups if you’re in a committed relationship, and to see someone who looks like Fran hanging out in a basement like this is a novelty. The occurrences of talking to women with soft hair and long legs like Fran or Emma are few and far between for the workaholics in our industry, unless you’re one of those women to begin with.
Fran’s too busy peering over the sweets to notice the gazes she attracts. She turns back around to stare at the stage with a large cupcake tucked between her index finger and thumb, guiding it toward her mouth as if all the world’s problems are going to be solved with that one, sumptuous cupcake bite. We meet gazes right when her lips curve over the top of the cupcake, plump and dipping low into the frosting. My jeans feel tighter and my head swims.
As the frosting stains the top of her red lips with a subtle layer of blue, I want nothing more than to get a reaction from her. Something, anything to see that smile, to make her laugh while she looks so vulnerable with that food in her mouth. In an act of defiance toward everything, I throw her a quick wink.
Her eyes widen and the cupcake drops.
11 Francesca
The whole HA meeting is spent drifting around each other, continuing to ask the unspoken question of how cleverly can we touch by accident. How often can I sneak in a comment without sounding too needy? How can I steal a glance at his perfect jawline without seeming like a creep?
The anticipation is like watching Survivor when the teams try to make fire for the first time. Is that a spark? It’s hard to tell, but damn if the anticipation isn’t worth a full hour of reality television.
Hips only inches from each other, arms crossed with Owen’s much larger biceps occasionally bumping my shoulder—it’s like we’re ignoring the fact that we are standing much too close together by shifting away after each small nudge.
The speaker finishes his lecture, and for the second week in a row, I’m baffled by the sheer number of words I did not take in. Networking? General maintenance? Leadership? All I know is that my hands smack together of their own accord after I hear everyone else start to clap. I’m too distracted by the fact that I now have to carry on a conversation with Owen again, and apparently, I can’t properly hold a conversation without mentioning trouser snakes.
“Oh, and don’t forget: if you don’t have a partner yet, you can see either Emma or myself.” Randy’s hand points out Emma, who’s sliding her way through the crowd, waving like the bloody queen. She makes her way to us, and thank god, because I’m afraid the next conversation between Owen and me might revolve around some other genitalia.
“Haven’t said hi yet,” Emma says, sounding exhausted. “Hi!” Her greeting is cheery, but the sentences are punctuated by large blows of breath. “Sorry, I decided to start volunteering. Didn’t mean to leave you hanging!”
I laugh. “Just in time to see me next week.”
“Oh no!” she pouts. “Well, what are your plans afterward?”
I didn’t expect the question, so I just shrug. “I’ll head home. I’m thinking of walking. Might be ace to explore the city a bit, I’d wager.”
“Fun!” she says with a large exasperated smile.
It’s silent for a moment, but I still feel Owen; I could feel his presence miles away. His brown eyes find mine, and I let them search me. I don’t know what he wants, but I can see the pupils shifting between mine, his brow almost furrowed, as if trying to read my mind. My lips part of their own accord like they want to say something, but even I’m not sure what wants to be said.
Will you walk with me?
Let’s explore the city together.
What a thought: not having to wait another week to see him but instead spending time with him now. The night is young, and sitting down to yet another sea animal documentary feels like such an anticlimactic end to this evening of small talk.
Owen’s eyes narrow. Can he feel what I’m thinking?
I open my mouth to start, “Do you—”
“I could walk too,” he says, laughing at the tail end when we both realize we were thinking the same thing.
“Really?”
“I’m feeling a bit of adventure. How many blocks?” Owen asks.
“I haven’t checked.”
A logical woman might look at Owen with his perfectly curled, deliciously messy raven black hair, his sensible glasses, and perfect jawline and think, ‘Carrie Bradshaw who? Tonight, I will be a Samantha.’ At least, maybe other fans of Sex & the City would think that. But, no. Not me. I know better than to fall for one man’s looks alone. I have conviction.
So why is it that my brain malfunctions and blurts out, “Let’
s do it.”
We finally leave the basement after Emma wraps up a conversation with Randy. Outside the hotel lobby, members disperse, calling for rideshares, walking the one block over and disappearing underground to the subway station, and then there’s Owen and me, standing close but not too close—just enough for our elbows to accidentally touch.
Though, admittedly, I do it on purpose, because I can’t stand a single second where I’m not touching those bulky arms. I mean, those things melt women’s hearts, and he doesn’t even know it.
“See you tomorrow, Emma,” Owen says, giving her a small side hug. She returns the gesture, and I hate how much I notice the tension in his arms as he squeezes her side, like pulling back the safety because blimey look at those guns. I give a wave as well after he lets her go.
Emma smiles back to us, waving and giving a particularly sweet smile in my direction—the kind that pinches near the eyes, as if she’s overjoyed.
“Have fun you two!” she calls.
I open the navigation on my phone, viewing the distance from here to my apartment. It’s about a forty-minute walk—longer than I anticipated, but not impossible. Though, with Owen, I might melt before I get home.
As we walk away, I wonder just how practical taking a car would have been. More expensive, to be sure, but with that, I could have just said ‘Tally-ho!’ a couple streets over and pretended to call it a day. As it is, I’m having a slight panic attack at spending the next hour with Owen. It seems the butterflies in my chest can’t decide whether this was a good idea or not. More like bumblebees unsure whether to pollenate. Yeah, me too.
It’s half a block before we speak, and when his voice finally sounds, it’s like a gong breaking through the noises of the city and into my ears.
“So where’re we going?”
“My flat,” I say.
He shakes his head. “Okay, and where is that?”
I hesitate then ultimately tilt my mobile toward him. He narrows his eyes in concentration then nods slowly as if he committed the directions to memory. “That’s close to the coffee shop.”
“Straight out of a sitcom,” I mutter.
“What?” he asks with a chuckle.
“Well I have this theory that I’m in a sitcom.”
“And as the main character, what do you want to see in grand New York?” he asks.
“What do you want to show me?”
He shrugs. “We can go the tourist route.”
“No,” I say, kicking a tiny pebble to the opposite edge of the sidewalk as we pass by a corner bodega. “Show me the things only locals know about.”
“Oh, right, the hidden alleyways where you can buy weed,” he says with a grin.
I shove his shoulder. It only makes him grin wider.
“Okay, take me there.”
He chuckles. “I was kidding. We’re not buying weed.”
I tap his forearm again. It’s hard and tenses under my touch. Like Popeye, but hot. Okay, so not like Popeye…
“I didn’t mean let’s buy weed,” I say. “Take me somewhere else.”
“Where?”
“To the parties,” I say. I look out in front of me for the first time since the last block. The buildings are so tall. It’s hard to see anything past the next street or two because the world is so overshadowed by the buildings. At least the setting sun is partially blocked; otherwise I would be blinded by it. “To the Broadway.”
“The Broadway?”
I point a finger at him in warning, and he laughs.
“Is New York like that?” I ask. “Just…a mystery?”
“No, not really,” he says. “You get used to it. Let’s take a left up here.”
I glance down at my phone to view my GPS, and his intuition is correct. I pocket it once more.
The lamps are bright down this new street, but it wouldn’t matter—the buildings light up the world more than any additional light could attempt to manage. I wonder whether these buildings are flats or office spaces, whether people are still working, and what important jobs they hold that make them work so late to begin with. Though, who am I to talk? With my lack of a social life and attempt to make a good impression at my new company, I’ve been working longer days as well. Maybe it’s just the city spirit rubbing off on me.
“This place really never sleeps, does it?” I nod my chin up to the lit windows above us, desks pushed against them and filing cabinets visible even from down here.
Owen’s head follows my direction, peering up. The angle accentuates his neck, his throat bobbing with each step, a cord of veins wrapping up to meet his jawline, smooth and sensual and begging to be touched. The shoulders built to connect it all are so muscled you can see it through his jacket, the collar of it brushing right at the start of his hairline, fluffing up the tufts in the back. A small wind catches it. God, are men allowed such glorious hair?
“Nah, that’s just what advertisers want you to think,” Owen says. “All those people are asleep at their desks. Real tragic. Nothing gets done here.”
“All those copiers left unattended,” I muse, falling into his make-believe.
“And just some rascals scanning prints of their asses.”
I can feel my face grow hot—not because of the idea of executives scanning themselves, but of Owen’s arse. I bet it’s tight. I bet it’s perfect enough for a little squeeze.
He looks back to me, and I already miss observing the beautiful length of his neck, though his smile compensates for the lack of it.
I like it when we joke. Owen seems kind. Unfortunately, all men seem kind at first, but this feels different. This isn’t like David with his constant self-deprecating humor, just waiting to get a laugh in about him, him, him, nor is this like Rory where his humor consisted of poking fun at my expense—my hair, my dress, the way I asked him how his day was, like it was an inconvenient sort of question for him to answer.
A part of me wants to know what it’s like to use small talk with Owen. Is he the type of man to talk about his life, or does he brush it off until the next, more interesting subject comes along?
“How was your day?” I ask, testing the normal, everyday question out, like new words on my tongue I haven’t uttered in years.
“My day was good,” he says, smiling. “Started some new projects. Went to a meet-up. Now walking through a dark alley with a stranger.”
I like this too much. It was a very David-ism to say “It was a day” then keep doing whatever distraction kept him from holding a conversation. It’s weird how intoxicating it can be to feel a connection with a man simply talking about his day.
I didn’t notice we changed directions again. I’ve just been following Owen. I reach into my jacket pocket and look at my mobile—still on track, so at least he’ll have a decent alibi if he tries anything in this alley. But, with the way he’s remaining distant, just far enough to not overstep any bounds, I somehow trust him, even if it’s just a little. My brain screams Bad idea! but there’s another, kinder voice saying, It’s fine, dear. I think my shoulder angel is an old lady, and if I need to outfit Lara with a halo and wings for the role, I’ll do it.
The sidewalks are lined with black bags, piled three or four high, lumped together in tiny constructed walls of rubbish.
“You take one corner and it goes from glorious to…well, this,” I say.
“If we didn’t have sidewalk trash bags, it would just be street trash.”
“That’s oddly poetic.”
He laughs.
“I never really liked men who write poetry,” I say.
His nose scrunches with a smile. “Nah, me neither. I’m a buy flowers the day before kinda guy.”
“I never enjoyed grocery stores either,” I say. “They inconveniently put the milk all the way in the back and it’s like, come on, mate, I just want to have cereal for dinner.”
“You’re missing out on a great opportunity, though.” I find his eyes staring into mine, and I try not to let myself fall into them wh
ile also not allowing myself to fall onto the sidewalk. “Put in earbuds and just zone out. I’ve always done the grocery shopping, even as a kid.”
“My mum always did it.”
“Were you and your mum close?” he asks.
“Oh, are we getting into this type of talk? The deep family stuff?” I say.
“I’d like to.” The tone is low, lustful for more. It’s like every bit of his playful charm settles into its rightful place as a serious man. He wants to bypass the small talk. I, on the other hand, am quite fond of simple, social niceties simply because it keeps those types of conversations at bay. I like the shore. I’m not fond of the unpredictability of waves. I’ve drowned in a man’s attention before, and I know where it gets me.
“Us British prefer small talk,” I say with a small laugh.
“Well I’m an open book.” Yet another statement that sends me reeling, my heart pounding, torn wide open by such honest words.
“You’re just nosy.”
Oh, the grin I receive in return, like a lazy Cheshire cat rewarding me. But unlike the fabled cat, his smile is knowing, and with a quick pull of his eyebrows inward, I can see that there’s more to it than that. Is it curiosity?
“Humor me for a moment,” he says.
“Alright.”
“What happened?”
I let out a mocking laugh of derision. “Pardon?”
“Your exes,” he says. “Something happen?”
“That’s offensive and you know it,” I say.
“Come on, you’re gonna play it that close to the vest?”
I hadn’t noticed the alleyway had cleared of rubbish. Just dim light, the soft floating sounds of a classical sonata floating out of a half-open second-story flat, oddly deserted yet not abandoned, as if the street itself is holding its breath in anticipation.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” I jest, returning a smile of my own.
Owen arches an eyebrow, pausing so that I’m forced to stop and look back at him. His head is cocked to the side, inquiring with a hint mischievousness. It’s his smile, the slight bend to it that makes it so inviting and enticing to appeal to. It’s dangerous, almost. Not in an old woman shoulder angel yelling, Run away! sort of way, but like a man so confident in every action he takes.
