The food court at ikea was virtually deserted, because it wasn’t like many people wanted to eat their weeknight dinner at a furniture store. Nick sat across from Lily at an empty table, unable to understand why he couldn’t say no to her. Lily poked around at her meatball for a second, then laid down her fork.
“Okay,” she said, placing her hands flat on the table. He tried his hardest not to devour her face with his eyes and took a deep breath to steady himself. “So, tell me, how do you do it? What’s your secret?”
“Huh?” He blinked, pulling his gaze away from her lips. “My secret?”
“How do you talk to people and flirt with them? You were so smooth with the way you encouraged Henry, and he called you a ladies’ man.”
“Whoa, nah. I’m not a ladies’ man. Henry saw me talking to a woman outside of our building one time, and it was because she was asking if I was registered to vote.”
“Henry probably saw the two of you together and assumed you were flirting. You have this way about you.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s relaxed and unassuming. And you actually listen when people talk, like you care about what they have to say. Not to mention your body language.”
Nick glanced down at his posture. “My body language?”
She leaned forward and lowered her lashes. Deepening her voice, she said, “Is it crazy that I want to kiss you?”
He blinked, mesmerized by the look on her face and surprised by the sudden turn in conversation. His eyes were drawn to her lips again, and damn if he didn’t inch closer to her on instinct.
Then she sat up straight, backing away. “That’s what you said to me in my apartment, and then I basically jumped on you . . . and then you ran away because you remembered you didn’t want to get involved with anyone.”
It wasn’t a complete lie. Nick had casually dated—if you wanted to call it that—here and there when he worked for World Traveler. When both he and the person he was seeing knew he’d leave in a couple weeks, and that things could never get serious. They knew that once he was gone, there wouldn’t be much further contact. In fact, the women preferred it that way. They saw Nick as an opportunity to have an exciting fling with a foreigner, and they could go back to their normal lives once he left. Of course, that all ended once he’d started emailing with Lily. He’d been so stuck on her that once he’d moved to New York, the thought of entertaining someone else hadn’t even crossed his mind.
“Like I said, I don’t really want to date either,” Lily admitted. “I haven’t had the best luck in the past. My sisters are always trying to set me up, and those dates end in varying degrees of disappointment. Violet is getting married at the end of August and I bet her and Iris that if I could find my own date to the wedding, they’d have to stay out of my love life for good.”
Nick thought of the emails she’d written to him about going on dates with models and businessmen to please her sisters, and how those dates often left her feeling unhappy. He didn’t like that it was still happening.
“Why don’t you just say fuck it and go to the wedding by yourself?” Nick asked. “They should leave you alone regardless.”
“You don’t know my family,” Lily said morosely. “Winning the bet is what will stop them. So can you help me?”
Nick knew she wouldn’t take no for an answer, and he couldn’t say no to her. A bad combination.
“I’m no expert,” he said. “I’ll tell you the same thing that I told Henry. Be yourself.”
She gave him a look. “Being myself means being awkward.”
“Someone might find that endearing.” He found it endearing.
She shook her head. “Do you want to hear about what I’m like when I’m myself when flirting? Once, I went to a happy hour with my coworker Dani and after a few margaritas, she dared me to go talk to this guy who was sitting at the other end of the bar. He was tall and really cute and kind of looked like Jonathan Majors. Anyway, when I got to his table, my mind went completely blank. Then I glanced down at his Corona and blurted the first thing that came to my head.”
“Which was?”
“I once read an article that said back in the 1980s, people thought that Corona beers had urine in them because of its odd yellowish color. But it turns out that someone at Heineken had started the rumor to hurt Corona’s sales. So I asked him if he knew that if he were caught drinking that beer forty years ago, someone might tell him that he was drinking pee.”
Nick snorted a laugh but stopped at the miserable look on Lily’s face. “Wait, you’re serious?”
“Yes,” she groaned. “He just shook his head, and it was very clear that he did not want to keep talking to the girl who told him he was drinking urine.” She leaned her elbows against the table and sighed. “I wasn’t joking when I said I’m bad at flirting. I honestly wish I hadn’t come up with the bet. Like I said, I don’t want to date anyone.”
Nick hated to see her look so dejected. Instinctively, he reached out and gently squeezed her hand in reassurance. She blinked, then he realized what he was doing and quickly snatched his hand back.
He cleared his throat. “It could have been worse.”
“Oh, I’ve experienced worse.” She laughed to herself, although her feelings of humor didn’t reach her eyes. “Do you want to hear something really embarrassing?”
“Sure,” Nick said. He’d listen to whatever she told him if it made her feel better.
“Last year I met someone online,” she said. And Nick’s stomach fell right down to his ass. “I liked him a lot, and I thought it might go somewhere, but he ghosted me. Even though it ended badly, emailing with him made me realize how nice it was to talk to someone I actually liked. That’s when I decided I couldn’t be set up by my sisters anymore, so I came up with the bet.” She forced a smile. “I know it probably sounds pathetic.”
“It doesn’t.” Nick’s mouth was completely dry. “I would never think that you were pathetic.”
He was going to tell her the truth right now. He had to tell her.
“He probably feels like shit,” Nick said. “I know he does . . . and I know that because—”
“Oh yeah, I hope he does feel like shit,” she said, interrupting him. “Or, I don’t know, I at least hope he regrets not getting the chance to meet me. To give us a real shot. Sometimes I think about what I’d do if I ever saw him in person.”
Nick swallowed thickly. “What would you do?”
“I don’t know. I’d probably be too angry to say anything. Honestly, I hope I don’t meet him. I just want to move on and erase the whole thing from my memory.”
Nick nodded weakly. He realized then that there would be no good in telling Lily the truth. He’d only be selfishly trying to clear his own conscience. Lily didn’t want to meet Strick. What she wanted was to go forward and forget their emails ever happened. He’d separated himself because he’d felt embarrassed and shitty for lying to her, and he knew that further inserting himself into her life wouldn’t result in anything good. And in the process, he’d still hurt her. The best thing that he could do now was help her get a date to her sister’s wedding so that she could find happiness with someone else.