Some of us single women desperately want to understand what men think about women, or what they really mean when they say certain things. Sometimes us single ladies even fantasize about swinging a large crowbar upside a gorgeous man’s head, just to get a glimpse of his innermost thoughts as they spill across the floor.
But I digress.
We just want their secret decoder ring, seriously.
It’s frustrating as hell not understanding what men really think about women, or better yet, what a certain one thinks about you in particular.
“I swear, I’m totally listening to you.”
Decoded: “I was just wondering if that brunette over there is wearing a bra.”
“I’ll call you.”
Decoded: “I’m not going to call you. Well, I might if no one else is around, but probably not.”
“I’m not really looking for a relationship right now.”
Decoded: “I just want to get laid. You up for that?”
“I really like you.”
Decoded: “You’re fun and attractive, but I’m not even close to wanting to commit to anything or anyone. However, we can have lots of sex.”
“I’m going through some shit right now…”
Decoded: “Feel bad for me so you don’t focus on all the mean shit I’m putting you through.”
“You’re going to make someone very happy someday.”
Decoded: “But it won’t be me.”
“I’m really unhappily married.”
Decoded: “I’m looking for a sidepiece.”
Men, it would be so much easier if you said what you mean. There is nothing worse than guessing and getting all worked up wondering if a guy is into us or dropping some sort of a bomb on us. Trust me, you’d get laid a lot more often…
At noon, a crumpled-up paper bops me in the forehead and Dex’s smiling face peeks over my workstation wall. “You want to get some lunch?” he asks.
Remnants of my lunch are already spilled out across my desk. An empty cup of yogurt with a plastic spoon sticking out of it, a few bites left of a turkey sandwich, an empty snack bag that a few hours before held almonds, a half-full bottle of water, and the empty wrapper of a chocolate fiber bar.
He laughs. “You already ate, I see.”
“I started lunch…” I clear my throat and frown, “at ten.” It was more like nine, but it’s really none of his business, is it?
“Okay, I’m going to grab something.” He stands there and stares at me like he wants to say something else but can’t.
I take a sip of my water and nod. “Okay, I have a ton of stuff to finish here so, working lunch, you know?”
The truth is that I really want to finish what I’m writing and head to the art department for some idea on fun images to go along with the article. Decoded: I want to go see Nate.
And as soon as Dex is in the elevator and out of sight, I do. I run to the art department with my copy in hand and, of course, trip over my own feet on the way in.
No one even looks up at me.
Nate sits at his computer with his drawing tablet and pen in front of him. His ear buds are in and I can hear a hip-hop rhythm beating out from where I stand. I tap him on the shoulder and he pulls out one headphone and smiles at me. “Hey, Jane. What’s up?”
“I just finished this funny little column and I was just wondering about some images and—”
“Yeah, well,” he grimaces. “I have a ton of stuff to finish right now. Gail will have it on the docket when it’s publishable and Caleb will put one of us on it.”
“Oh, yeah, right.” I know how it all works; I’ve worked here for years. I wanted an excuse to come and say hello, to see how he is. I think I’ll just be honest. “I know. I just wanted to come down and see how you were doing. You want to grab some lunch or something?”
He looks back at his screen. An image he’s working on in Photoshop is zoomed up. I can’t tell what it is. “I’m going to have to pass on lunch.” He points to whatever it is that is magnified on his computer and doesn’t give any explanation.
I can feel my face fall.
He notices and quickly stammers, “Um, but a bunch of us are going for drinks after work today. You should come.”
“Yes!” I say a little too fast. I lean back right after and let my shoulders go slack, pretending it’s no big deal. Inside, my heart is racing right out of my chest.
“Okay, then.” He grabs onto the end of his ear bud and goes to place it back in his ear. “I’ll see you later.” Then his ear buds are in and he rolls his chair back under his desk and gets right back to work.
I feel a little silly standing there watching the back of his head, so I back out of the office and wave.
Again no one even looks up.
I rush out into the hallway and a plan starts forming in my head. I just worked through lunch, I’ll take the hour I was supposed to have and hit some of the stores down the block. If I want Nate to notice me, I can’t show up to after-work drinks dressed the way I am right now. I need to buy something that shows off my curves. Something that screams, you should have stayed at the damn baseball game.
I grab my purse off my desk and head out shopping. I think Julia would even be proud of me when I tell her all this two weeks from now, when she’s onto her newest conquest and has forgotten all about the accident and getting caught cheating. She’s slept with the last five guys I told her I was interested in, and one she set me up on a date with, right after I went on a date with him. If they weren’t together any longer, why shouldn’t he be fair game? He was my Kiss Cam guy.
I change in the bathroom after most of the people clear out of the office and head to the bar. My new halter-top is sexy and my pants are tight and look like painted on leather. I even take out my bun and let my hair fall out around my shoulders and down my back like a wild mess.
My stomach rolls with ocean waves as I step on the elevator. I’m nervous and excited. I’m not sure what I’m hoping to accomplish tonight. I’m not sure where my head is at right now, but I know my heart is pounding and my palms are sweating and all I can think about is him saying he should have stayed at the game. He should have stayed and talked to me. And how at the dinner party even Dex knew the kiss Nate was telling everyone about was the kiss with me.
Before the elevator door slides closed, I hear a deep voice ask me to hold the door. I do, of course. Then I verbally abuse myself in my head because it’s Dex that ends up stepping in the elevator with me.
His eyebrows hit his hairline when he sees me.
We stare at each other for a minute until I can’t take it anymore. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
He leans against the elevator wall and cocks his head to the side. Neither of us has pressed the down button, so the elevator door closes but it doesn’t move at all.
“Are you going out somewhere?” His eyes are locked on my shoes, and a smile plays on his face.
I stand straighter. “Nate asked if I wanted to go gets drinks with everyone after work.”
His smile gets suspiciously bigger.
I cross my arms over my chest, feeling vulnerable.
“I see,” he says.
Neither of us has yet to press the down button.
His eyes slowly trail up my legs and stomach and torso until I jam my hands on my hips and purse my lips at his stupid grinning face. “Come on, Dex. Do I look that bad?”
He blinks at me.
“Please, tell me the truth.” This friendship we have is a strange one, but I know he has a ton of things running through his head right now—I can see them dancing around in the large open space he has between his ears, and I need to know all of them.
“You want the truth?” he asks, rubbing the back of his neck.
Maybe, but only if the truth is that I look pretty. But, instead of saying that, I close my eyes and say, “The God’s honest truth.”
Instantly I feel the warmth of his body as it gets closer to mine. It tingles a
nd zaps like electric sparks down the front of me. I breathe in quick when the sound of his voice whispers softly against my ear, “You look good enough to eat.”
He hesitates. It feels like a breeze as he shifts around me to press his lips against my other ear. “Smooth enough to lick.” Blood boils in my veins. It feels like I’ve been ignited on fire. I can’t even breathe.
“Bad enough to slide those shiny pants down your ass for another spanking.”
He’s at my neck now. His lips moving hot against it but not close enough to actually touch. “You want to hear how you look so fucking good and I want you so fucking bad? I can still hear you coming in my head.” His hands flutter like wind up to my waist, but they never land, never make contact. “You want to hear how I remember what it’s like inside you, how I think about it all the time? If you were mine, I’d make sure I ruined you for all other men. And you’d never think about that stupid dickhead and that baseball kiss again.”
I open my eyes and he backs away with a crooked smile on his lips. He reaches out and presses the down button and the elevator starts to descend. I don’t know if he’s serious. I’m not sure if he’s teasing me, but my body is hot and sweaty and the elevator is spinning around me. I can’t stop watching his mouth. I want it to move. I want to hear more.
But he doesn’t say anything else.
My voice cracks when I talk. “Hey, you look pretty would have been just fine, too.”
He stares at me and his smile slowly fades. “Yeah, Nash, I could have said that, but you asked for the God’s honest truth.”
The elevator doors open and Dex steps out into the lobby and leaves me standing, breathless, inside.
Chapter 24
I’m the last one from work to arrive at Brothers Grimm. I gave myself a time out after Dex left me in the lobby of our office and sat in one of the bathrooms until my breathing steadied and I didn’t feel so queasy. I closed my eyes until I pushed Dex Vanstone out of my mind. His words should not matter to me. He’s not my Mr. Perfect, Nate Cross is.
A warm flood of relief overtakes me as soon as I spot Nate sitting at the bar. He’s propped up on a stool, leaning an arm over the bar top. The collar of his shirt sticks up and its hem is no longer tucked into his pants. My fingers itch with the need to straighten his clothes and touch his skin, to run my finger along the angles of his jaw and slide my hands across his chest to unwrinkle his shirt. Of course, I won’t, though—that would be way too awkward.
I wait by the entrance, unsure what to do. It looks like he’s having an intense conversation with Heath and someone else from the art department whose name slips my mind. As they talk, they slug back a shot and chase it down with beer. Heath laughs at something that’s said and Nate attempts to smile but fails.
Nate holds up his hand to get the bartender’s attention and orders another round. I watch, still standing at the door by myself.
I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear and try to come up with a plan of what to say when I walk up to him. As I’m thinking, my eyes travel around the room. The place is mostly filled with everyone I work with. There are a few unfamiliar faces but the majority of clientele here tonight are writers and designers from the magazine.
I pull out my phone and snap a few quick images. I post all over social media and caption the pictures with: Post work booze up and drinking enough to make your colleagues more tolerable. #beergoggles. I have to remember that for my next pitch, because it sounds like a really awesome article to write. I go back and tag Gail in all the posts.
Nate finally glances over in my direction and I wave a frantic hand at him and start rushing over.
He juts his chin up to me in some weird sort of acknowledgement and continues in his conversation with the people around him.
“Hey,” I say when I reach them. “Sorry, I just got out of the office. What’s going on?”
Nate’s eyes glaze over.
“Nate’s nursing some heartbreak,” Heath says, bending close to my ear to whisper to me. “He and Julia had a fight after her accident.”
They had a fight? She was screwing a prince behind his back, that’s a hell of a lot more than a fight.
I try to catch Nate’s attention but he just looks away.
Heath shrugs. “Hey, you know, accidents bring the worst out in people sometimes. They make you say things because you’re in shock or scared.” He leans his elbows back on the bar. “I’m sure everything will be fine in a few days.”
Nate nods in Heath’s direction but he really isn’t listening. He motions again for the bartender to bring him another shot and another beer.
He doesn’t ask if anyone else wants anything.
He doesn’t even ask me if I would like anything.
I shift on my feet, nervously.
Heath and the guy standing next to him raise their eyebrows at me and wince. Suddenly I feel stuck in an uncomfortably awkward situation. Nobody says anything else to me, and it seems quite blatant that I’m not welcome in whatever conversation they were having or going to have.
The silence between us starts feeling suffocating. I’m nauseated by the thought of having to walk away and sit at the bar alone. Why did Nate ask me to come hang out with him if he didn’t want me around? I look up at him through my lashes. They’re the fake ones that Julia uses and I feel like caterpillars are resting on my eyelids.
Nate’s acting like we don’t even know each other, like we didn’t share a passionate kiss in a packed stadium and he didn’t tell me he should have stayed with me instead of run after Julia.
He pounds back both his drinks and shrugs. “It’ll all work out.” He spins around on his stool, turning his back to me and starts a low conversation to an older woman from marketing sitting on the other side of him. Heath joins in, agreeing with something that she answered with.
My stomach lurches and my skin feels hot and sweaty. I feel stupid. I’m standing behind them, staring at their backs like they all forgot I was here. Or worse—maybe they’re ignoring me on purpose. The bar seems instantly smaller and more crowded. I feel like everyone is watching me, but that’s silly because no one is looking at me—no one sees me at all.
I back away and bump into someone, immediately apologizing.
The woman I hit into looks at me with pure hatred in her eyes. “Watch where you’re going, you stupid bitch.” Her words are harsh and slurred together. I freeze from her anger. Half of me wants to explode at her and stand up for myself, and the other half wants to just shrink away and dissolve into nothing.
The woman stumbles away. I want to leave, but there’s nowhere else to go but home, alone. I look back over my shoulder to where Nate is sitting. He’s smiling now and his hands are gesturing excitedly about something.
I spin around, hot with humiliation. And there in the back of the bar, sitting in the middle of a group of people, I spot Dex, watching me.
His expression is completely blank, but his eyes—his eyes stare into mine like they’re trying to shout something at me that I’m just not hearing.
After a moment, he tilts his head and smiles.
He scoots his chair over and pulls an empty one over to the table right next to him.
My cheeks burn and the nauseating roll of my stomach seems to settle down.
He rolls his eyes and waves me over.
For a second, my feet don’t move. Everything I wanted for the last couple of months is sitting behind me. Ahead of me is everything I never wanted. My mistake. My nemesis. The thorn in my side.
His eyes widen in mock irritation and his hands jerk quicker, pointing down to the empty seat next to him. I smile to myself. Dex is harmless. He’s my Netflix and really chill friend.
I shuffle through the throngs of people and squeeze into the chair he grabbed for me. “Hey,” I say when my bottom hits the cool wood.
“Hey yourself. You okay? That looked awful.”
I settle myself on the chair and look up into his eyes, not sure what part he thought looked
bad, me bumping into a foul-mouthed drunk woman or Nate utterly cold-shouldering me.
Both experiences sucked to me.
Back here, the bar is darker and flickers with thousands of tiny strings of lights that hang from the ceiling and drape across the walls.
“I’m fine.” I say this because I am. I’m not even thinking about Nate anymore.
Dex leans in closer and his smile crooks and turns up at one end. “I know you are,” he says, nudging his shoulder softly into mine.
Dex makes sure everyone sitting around us says hello to me. He even introduces me to some of the faces I don’t know. The faces blur together after he orders me one drink and then another, and I find myself relaxing back into the chair enjoying talking with everyone.
I also keep finding myself getting distracted by him. The deep rasp of his throaty laughs. The way a lock of his dark hair falls across his forehead every time he smiles down at me. How he makes sure I’m involved in every conservation.
Our chairs are so close I can feel the heat radiating off his body and pulsing into mine.
And suddenly, it’s Dex I want to touch. It’s his collar I want to straighten and his shirt I want to wrinkle, not unwrinkle. I want to run my fingers along the angles of his jaw, and brush them down his throat and chest. I want to taste his mouth, his skin. I think about what he said in the elevator and I’d be lying if I say I don’t think about what we did every day since as well.
I swallow the knot in my throat as he shifts closer to me. His leg brushes against mine and it stays there, burning its heat into my skin. I know I should move away and, God, I know I need to, but I don’t want to. God forgive me, this is Dex Vanstone, but I can’t find the want to move away from him, just the unfortunate desire to claw myself closer.
I look at him from the corner of my eye. His perfect straight nose—the curve of his lips, and the way they lift into a smile when he glances back at me. No, he’s all out staring back at me and my heart races.
Are You There, Karma? It’s Me, Jane.: A laugh out loud romantic comedy Page 15
