Now Hajar’s face changed. She looked at Ambrose. “I thought you stayed in last night.”
“I did,” he said quickly. Jenna put a hand on her hip, physically contesting this. “With Jenna. Actually.”
Now everyone looked tense. Except for Ira, who was wagging away, trying to get to Ambrose.
“I’m going back to work,” I said delicately, moving to step around the dog.
“I should, too,” Ambrose said immediately. “The boss is a real bear about lunch breaks.”
He wasn’t getting away that easily, though. “Were you really with this girl last night?” asked Hajar as I slipped past her. Ira, having no luck with Ambrose, tried to follow, his nose bumping my leg. “You lied to me?”
“I didn’t lie,” he said. “The plan was to hang at her house and watch a movie. And—”
“He stayed until three a.m.,” Jenna finished. “Him and his dog.”
Hajar looked at Jenna. “Well, did he tell you we were together this weekend? He went out to eat with my entire family.”
Clearly, this was news to Jenna, who responded with, “So you’d already done that when we met on Monday at the movie theater?”
I was clear of this threesome now, free to go. I felt bad for Ira, though, his stretched-out leash still tangled around one of Jenna’s ankles, looking from the girls back to Ambrose like a confused child.
“Monday?” Hajar demanded. “You said you had to stay home with your sister.”
“Who then decided she wanted to go to a movie,” Ambrose said quickly. Glares at him from both directions. “Ladies, I did go to the movies Monday and I stayed in last night. I haven’t been untruthful to anyone here.”
“Oh, so you don’t lie,” Jenna said. “You just don’t tell the whole truth.”
“Is there a difference?” Hajar asked.
“Well, if we’re splitting hairs,” Ambrose said, “then yes. It’s vast, actually.”
“Vast?” Jenna repeated, whether because she didn’t get the sentiment or the word itself, I wasn’t sure. Hajar, over the semantics, just loosened the top of her drink and threw the contents at Ambrose, then walked away.
Whoa, I thought as Ira dove for the ice cubes. Jenna unwound his leash from her foot, then shifted the basket to the other arm.
“Well,” Ambrose said, rather magnanimously, smiling at her, “and then there were two.”
“You’re an asshole,” she replied. Then she walked away as well.
In the silence that followed, I wished more than ever that I’d abandoned this scene when I had the chance. I was embarrassed enough; I couldn’t imagine how Ambrose felt. But as he crouched down in front of Ira, shirt stained wet with cola, and scratched his ears, he appeared largely unaffected, as if this kind of thing happened all the time.
“She left you a note,” I told him, just to say something. “Jenna. Before, when she came by.”
“Oh, thanks.” He stood again, then checked Ira’s bowl. “But I’m pretty sure whatever it says no longer pertains.”
I nodded, then started toward the office. A moment later, he fell into step behind me. I said, “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” So agreeable. I was beginning to think this was a regular occurrence.
“Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
I stopped and faced him, shielding my eyes with one hand. “Juggle two girls at once. It clearly won’t work, at least not for long. And you can’t enjoy getting busted.”
“Well,” he replied, “I don’t consider it busted. I didn’t lie to anyone, nor did I make any promises about exclusivity.”
“But it was clearly assumed.”
“That’s on them, not me.” I cocked my head to the side, making it clear I doubted this logic. “Look, I like hanging out with girls, plural. Commitment doesn’t really work for me.”
“Maybe because you’re always hanging out with girls, plural?” I suggested.
“No,” he countered, “because it’s too serious. Everything gets, like, heavy, immediately. And all the questions: Where are you going? Who with? When will you be back? Why haven’t you called? What’s that glitter in your hair?”
“Glitter?”
He sighed. “Let me put it this way. You know that feeling, when you very first meet someone and there’s a spark, that undeniable attraction, and everything about them seems new and interesting and perfect?”
A boy on a beach, his hand outstretched. White shirt billowing in the dark. “Yeah,” I said. “Sure.”
“It’s the best, right? Like magic, that awesome.” I nodded. “So why, if you could, wouldn’t you want that all the time, every time?”
“Because,” I said, then realized immediately this was not an answer. I swallowed, taking a breath. “Then you only have beginnings, over and over again. Nothing substantial.”
“But substantial is complicated. Substantial,” he said, pointing at me, “is questions about glitter in your hair, or why you won’t tag along shopping, or whether you find her friends annoying.”
“So you don’t want anything that lasts,” I said, clarifying. “Only a bunch of magical first nights and days, strung along one right after the other.”
He smiled. “Doesn’t sound bad, does it? All the upsides of dating, none of the down.”
“Except when you get a drink thrown at you,” I pointed out.
He shrugged. “Shirts can be washed.”
We started walking again: it had been over an hour for each of us, and while my mom wasn’t exactly a bear, she would notice.
“Let me guess,” he said. “You think I’m terrible.”
“Not necessarily. It’s just . . . not my way, I guess.” I thought for a second. “What’s funny is that Jilly was just saying, basically, that I need to be more like you.”
“Really?” I nodded. “How so?”
I paused, wondering how exactly to say this, what I wanted to reveal. “My last relationship—my boyfriend—it was basically all one perfect early beginning. We met at the beach, clicked immediately, spent a whole night talking. Then we were long distance, so there was never a chance of anything getting old.”
He was quiet, listening to this. “Sounds nice.”
“It was.” I swallowed again. “Anyway, I haven’t dated since. I haven’t wanted to. And she maintains it’s because my expectations were set so high, right off the bat. Like no one will ever compete.”
“Do you think that?”
“I don’t know,” I said. This was the truth. “But maybe going into things hoping they will is the wrong approach. Like, if I date someone expecting nothing, I’d be better off.”
“I don’t expect nothing of the person,” he corrected me. “Just the relationship.”
“You’re just having fun, though,” I said. “No ties. No forever.”
“Ugh, no.” He winced. “And who wants to be tied?”
“I didn’t mind it with my boyfriend,” I said. “Which is exactly why your way wouldn’t work for me.”
He considered this. “Sure it would. You just have to do it.”
“Oh, right,” I said. “Because it would be that easy for you to change your ways, totally.”
“I could,” he said, confident.
“Ambrose. You’re seriously saying that it would be no problem at all for you to decide to date only one person, with an eye toward the long term, starting right now.”