“So is lacrosse like your hobby?” I ask.
The frown is back again, his blue eyes laughingly incredulous. “Hobby? Lacrosse is my art. The fastest-growing sport in America. You’ll understand when you go.”
“Whatever.” I kick his heel, and he kicks me back.
“So what, are you taking him home tonight?” he asks.
“I don’t know, maybe.” I shrug and glance out the window. “But if you keep me here, he won’t even want to come.”
“You’re the one he won’t know how to make come.”
“Huh?”
“He’ll leave you all strung up and wanting it,” he says laughingly.
“Excuse me?!”
I kick him again, twice, and the third time he frowns and says, “Ouch,” rubbing his heel. “Play nice, Regina,” he chides.
“Well, this has been nice, but my prince charming awaits.” I almost laugh at my own exaggeration. His voice stops me.
“You taking him home or not?”
I turn and stare at him.
I don’t want to lie and say a definitive no, but I also find the idea of him thinking that other men find me attractive very appealing. “I don’t know,” I hedge again.
He reaches out and curls his hand around my upper arm. “Then I don’t know how I’ll manage to unwrap my hand from your—”
“Probably yes,” I cry. “Yes! Go bother your fuck-friends. Go show them your lacrosse stick.”
“The long one or the short one?”
I shove him, and he reaches over me, opens the door and rumples my hair. “You’re too gorgeous for him, Regina.”
“And you’re full of it.”
“I can tell he’s a loser.”
“I met him at your party, so…” I leave it at that.
He stops me again. “Hey. We’re friends. Right?”
I force myself to meet his intense blue gaze. “Yes.”
“We’re good?” A muscle flexes along his jaw as he waits for my reply.
“We’re good.”
He grins, a devastating grin. “Good. Cause I don’t want to hurt you. Alright?” His eyes are raw, clawing into me with some fierce emotion. “You need a guy who will always be there for you. One who will never let you down.”
“I know.” But where is he? I wonder. “And you need a thousand women to make you feel good, and I’m only one.”
He laughs. “Friends then.” He kisses my cheek. “You better come to my next game.”
He pats the back of my head as I turn to go back inside. My heart hurting. Then I watch him head to his table. Please don’t appear in my stupid dreams tonight, I think as I take my seat.
I think of having no one to talk to about this tonight when I go to my apartment. No one will be there. Rachel and I used to pass the Kleenex to each other whenever life threw us a curveball, when life threw me Paul and when Rachel nearly lost Saint.
There’s no one to pass the Kleenex anymore.
And even though my best friend’s reason for moving out was a happy one—she got married!—the feeling of loneliness is still strong. More than ever.
Paul helped me get over my parents’ abandonment. Rachel helped me get over Paul’s. But this time, I’m all I can count on.
I need to throw the Kleenex box in the trash, because I’m determined to be as happy as I can be.
So I drink another glass of wine and force myself to look at my date—Trent—as if nothing else in the world exists, and as if Tahoe Roth isn’t only a few tables away, looking at me through the lowered, fierce lines of his eyebrows.
*
We are heading home from the restaurant.
“I can’t believe he picked up the tab,” Trent keeps saying as we ride in the back of a cab. We’re supposed to drop me off first.
“He’s loaded, trust me, he feels relieved.”
Although to be honest, a part of me wonders if he did it merely to remind me that he was there, at the restaurant, watching me. I was good about not looking at him after I returned, except through the corner of my eye. Tahoe paying the bill almost felt like him staking some sort of claim over me. He doesn’t want to hurt me but it almost feels as if he’s determined to keep anyone else from hurting me as well.
“Huh.” Trent scratches the back of his ear thoughtfully, still looking perplexed. “Something going on between the two of you?”
“Nope. We’re friends.”
Friends who annoy each other.
And sometimes want to have sex with one another.
But never do.
I laugh inwardly at that, surprised by the sudden relief I feel.
Whatever we almost had, it’s all in the past. We’re friends.
And I don’t know why it matters this much.
In the back of the cab, I remind myself I have a guy next to me. He’s not big, not overpowering, but it’s comforting that he’s not built that way, the opposite of Tahoe. So when he opens his mouth to ask me more about Tahoe—obviously still impressed—I press my lips to his.
Then break away.
“What was that for?” Trent is stunned and obviously thrilled.
The cab stops in front of my building, and I swing open the door, shrugging with a smile.