Chapter Twelve
“So is this like an officially sanctioned date?” Chris asks playfully after the waitress brings us two Diet Cokes.
I press a finger to my lips. “Shh…”
“So this date is off the record then?”
“A secret date,” I whisper. “A secret business date with the first Trophy Husband candidate.”
“We don’t even know if I’ll make the cut.”
“You will so make the cut. How could you not?”
“The odds are one in four, McKenna. And that’s just for the first round, for the initial date.”
“You’ll get there. I’m not worried.”
“I guess I’m getting a leg up on the others right now.”
“You are indeed.”
“Speaking of legs up, I was thinking we should still probably shoot that promo.”
“Really? Why?”
“One, I have access to the studio and my videographer is on retainer with the network show so it won’t cost us anything. And two, it’s sort of like a fallback. What if I don’t make the cut?”
“You will!”
“But, just in case. And, even if I am one of the five, your viewers might not pick me for a second date. So, we’d have to resort to the old-fashioned way to keep promoting each other, with promos, know what I mean? Because I definitely think there are great synergies between our shows –”
I cut him off. “Did you actually just say synergies?”
He rolls his eyes, aware of his faux pas. “F*ck, I did.”
“That is like the ultimate corporate marketing term.”
“I know, I know. That is so embarrassing,” he says, then pauses. “But, it’s not nearly as embarrassing as you not having played Guitar Hero until two days ago. I mean, I had to teach you a game they don’t even make any more.”
“What can I say? I’m a throwback. I like vintage tees and old standards for music.”
“What’s your favorite old standard ever?”
“Ever? As in all time?”
“Well, yeah. That would be ever.”
“It’s totally cheesy. You’ll laugh.”
“Try me.”
I take a deep breath. “Can’t Help Falling in Love by Elvis.”
He doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, and I tense. Have I scared him? Does he think that means I’m some crazy, clingy girl?
Then he leans into me, and presses his forehead against mine. He is so damn cute, it’s killing me. “That is an awesome song,” he says in a soft voice, and I can barely take it anymore, being this close to him. I want him to kiss me again so badly, it’s like an ache that longs to be soothed. I want him to run his hands in my hair, to pull me closer, to savor my lips on his. The desire to be near him is so overwhelming that it’s fogging my brain, and all I’m seeing, thinking, feeling is this wish to erase any distance between us. I have to pull away. If I stay any closer, I will fall into his arms, and God only knows what kind of hurt I’d be setting myself up for.
“So yeah, let’s shoot a promo this week,” I say, and like that – now you see it, now you don’t – I am back-to-business McKenna.
We spend the next fifteen minutes sketching out ideas, then we move on to other topics, trading tales from college, telling stories of favorite concerts we have been to. He loves live music and tells me he has been to 227 concerts in his life.
“You count?”
He nods proudly.
“You actually count?”
“I keep a piece of paper in my desk listing every concert I have ever been to.”
“Why?”
“It’s the engineer in me, McKenna. What can I say? I like to count, to keep track of things.”
“I so need to get a hold of that piece of paper.”
“And for that I am keeping my desk under lock and key when you come over.”
“Hey, where do you live? You never told me.”
“Russian Hill. Corner of Polk and Green.”
“I love that neighborhood. There is a great little kitschy gift shop a few blocks north on Polk Street where I got this ring,” I say, then hold out my right hand. A silver band with pink and white flowers etched on it is on my index finger. A half dozen thin black plastic bangles rattle a bit on my wrist. Chris reaches for my hand, gently touching the ring. His fingertips graze the top of my hand as he moves along from my finger to my wrist, touching my bracelets now. I am hypnotized with his touch, tugged into an orbit around him, because he is the focal point of my body and mind right now. His hands are strong and soft and they make my skin warm all over, as if I’ve been lying out in the sun, soaking in the delicious rays. He strokes the inside of my wrist so briefly, but enough for a tiny whimper to escape my lips as my mind flashes forward to other things he might be able to do with his hand. I press my thighs together, so I don’t grab his hands and test my theories.
“You know, McKenna,” he says, rubbing his thumb and forefinger along one of my bangles. For a second, I think he’s going to say something about my penchant for accessories. But instead, he kind of nods at my tee-shirt, at the crown hanging off the last letter in the name of the “Scottish Play.”
“You have cool tee-shirts.”
I laugh a little.
“I noticed that about you the first time I met you.”
“You did?” I ask, not in a questioning way, but to keep up the conversation.
“That time at the electronics store, the first thing I noticed was you were hot. The second thing I noticed was you were funny. The third thing I noticed was you were really cool. And the fourth thing I noticed was you had on this cool tee-shirt with a squirrel waterskiing on it. I like a chick with a good tee-shirt collection.”
I smile. Or maybe I beam. Because I don’t know which of those four things I like better – being thought of as hot, funny, cool or stylish. I like them all, for different reasons, but I have to say he saved the best for last. He likes my tee-shirts, he likes my style. He likes what makes me me, and that’s enough for me to feel totally under his spell, body and heart.
“No one has ever said that to me,” I say with a smile, pushing my hair back, leaning my head a little to the side, deliberately flirting with him. I am doing those things behavioral scientists say men and women do when they write their “Science of Flirting” articles: sit closer, make eye contact, flick their hair. I am the “Science of Flirting” right now and I don’t care. I’m not flirting because he’s a contender, I’m not flirting because he’s my partner in crime. I’m flirting because I want to. And I am pretty sure when Chris smiles back at me, a sparkle in his eyes, that he’s flirting for the same reasons. I linger on his eyes for a moment, his Hawaii eyes, pools of green that strip me bare with the way he looks at me when his playfulness shifts to intensity.
Then I break the gaze because it’s getting late. “I should get going. My dog probably misses me.”
He pays the bill. “Since this wasn’t an official date, I’m going to skirt the Trophy Husband rules and be the gentleman here.”
We head out of the Tiki Bar and walk slowly up Fillmore. At the top of the hill, I see Erin’s maroon Prius. I point to it.
“These are my wheels.” I click on the key to unlock the car. Then I reach for the door handle. But it doesn’t open. I try again. Same thing happens. “Damn. What is up with these hybrids?”
“They have to calibrate to your heart rate.”
“Then how the heck am I supposed to drive it home?”
“I know a trick,” Chris says.
“You do?”
“Remember, McKenna, I’m a software engineer by training.”
“Software engineer. Car burglar. They’re practically the same thing these days,” I say, as I turn to face him.
“Want to give me the keys and I’ll show you?” he asks, holding open his palm for me.
But before I can pull away, he closes his fingers over mine, gripping my hand in his. That’s all it takes. Within seconds I am in his arms, and we are wrapped up in each other. His lips are sweeping mine, and I press my hands against his chest, and oh my. He does have the most fantastic outlines in his body. He is toned everywhere, strong everywhere, and I am dying to get my hands up his shirt, and feel his bare chest and his belly. But if I did, I might just jump him right here because I am one year and running without this. Without kissing, without touching, without feeling this kind of heat.
He twines his fingers through my hair, and the way he holds me, both tender and full of want at the same time, makes me start to believe in possibilities. Start to believe that you can try again, and it’ll be worth it. His lips are so soft, so unbearably soft, and I can’t stop kissing him. He has the faintest taste of Diet Coke on his lips, and it’s crazy to say this, but it almost makes me feel closer to him. Or maybe I feel closer because he’s leaning into me, his body is aligned with mine, and there’s no space between us, and I don’t want any space between us. I want to feel him against me, his long, strong body tangled up in mine, even though we’re fully clothed, making out on the street. I don’t know how it happened, but somewhere along the way I’ve grabbed his tee-shirt, my fingers curled tightly around the fabric.
He breaks the kiss, but I don’t let go of his clothes. I don’t let go of him. “I wanted to kiss you all night.”
“You did?”
“Yeah, that key thing was just an excuse. Sometimes you just have to hit the button a few times to get the car to open.”
I laugh. “So you said that to kiss me?”
He nods. “Totally.”
“I’m glad you tricked me,” I whisper, as he bends his head and kisses my neck, blazing a trail of sweet and sexy kisses down to my throat, and it’s almost sensory overload the way he ignites me. Forget tingles, forget goosebumps. That’s kid stuff compared to this. My body is a comet with Chris. I am a shooting star with the way he kisses me. I don’t even know if I have bones in my body anymore. I don’t know how I’m standing. I could melt under the sweet heat of his lips that are now tracing a line down my chest to the very top of my breasts, as he tugs gently at my shirt, giving himself room to leave one more brush of his lips, before he stops.
He looks at me, and the expression on his face is one of pride and lust. He knows he’s turned me inside out and all the way on.
“That was so unfair of me,” he says with a wicked grin, as I finally loosen the grip on his shirt. The fabric is wrinkled in the middle of his chest, marked by my need to hold him close. “Getting a headstart like that on all the other candidates.”
How can there be any other guys after a kiss like that? It’s a kiss to end all kisses, it’s a sip of lemonade in a hammock on a warm summer day. It’s a slow dance on hardwood floors while a fan goes round overhead, curtains blowing gently in the open window.
If he feels half as much for me as I do for him, then I want to sail away with him in the moonlight, and that scares the hell out of me. I have to extract myself before I let this go any further. I don’t mean the contact. I mean the way my aching, broken heart is reaching for Chris.
I channel my business self. My other side. The strong, tough side that won’t be hurt ever again.
“I should go,” I say.
Then he clicks on the car opener and I hear the doors unlock. He opens the door for me and I slip into the front seat. He’s about to close the door when I say, “Do you want me give you a ride home?”
He shakes his head.
“But Russian Hill is at least a couple miles from here. Let me drive you.”
“I’ll walk. I like the city at night.” Then he leans in to me, gently pushes my hair back and looks at me with a truly devilish smirk, his green eyes twinkling. “Besides, if I got into that car with you I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off of you. And we all know that really wouldn’t be fair to the others.”
“My, aren’t you considerate,” I say, keeping it light. “Goodnight, Chris.”
“Goodnight, McKenna.”
Then I drive away, watching Chris begin his long walk home in my rearview mirror. I head down Fillmore Street toward the water and he’s no longer a speck in the distance.
He’s gone.
* * *
As I drive back to the Marina, I do what girls, what women, always do in these moments. I replay the kiss. I put it on repeat in my mind. The way he grazed my neck with his hand, the way he lingered on a strand or two of hair, stroking it, touching it, like the shy but sexy Spanish guy did to Laura Linney in Love, Actually the night of the Christmas Party. She went wild inside, shivering with delight. I feel the same. I want to pull over on the side of the road. Pull over and lean my head back and close my eyes and just remember. But I keep driving, wriggling a bit in my seat as I find myself getting more turned on, getting wetter, the more I think about Chris, the more I think about what might have happened in this car if he’d taken me up on my offer for a ride home. I think about rolling up to a stop sign somewhere on a quiet street and going for another kiss. Then stopping on the side of the road and turning off the engine, then the lights, then climbing into his seat and making out in a parked car, a friend’s car no less, as he kisses me more. The kind of kiss where I let go, where I breathe out his name in a long, slow, lingering sigh that borders on a prayer. The kind of kiss that winds down my body, lips against my belly, fingertips grazing my waist. That makes me want to rock my hips into him, to let him take me places I haven’t been, as I let him inside me, all the way in. And when he’s there, it feels so right, so good, so deliriously out-of-this-world, that all I can do is say his name in a breathless, ragged kind of whisper as I struggle to form words because all the things he does have made me come undone for him.
Like a good boyfriend would do.
As I pull into my own garage I am struck by a simple thought: it would be kind of nice right now just to have a boyfriend, just a boyfriend, nothing more.