In a New York Minute(54)

Chapter Fourteen

Hayes



“You did all this?” I probably should have opened with something smoother, but the spread in front of me was too amazing for my brain to catch up to my mouth. Luckily, Serena laughed, glass of white wine in her hand as she waved me in, an entire restaurant-worthy vegan meal laid out on the long white dining table just off her kitchen.

“I did, yes!” she said, completely unfazed by my clunky entrance.

“I brought red,” I said, lifting the bottle in my hands. “Sorry.”

“Perfect for after dinner,” she replied with a flirty wink.

“Thank you for having me over,” I said as she took the wine out of my hands and walked into the kitchen. I stood there for a moment, assessing the scene. Candles lit. Serena in a lacy white off-the-shoulder top and ripped jeans, feet bare. Casual, yes. But also wildly sexy, in the most intentional way possible.

Everything with Serena, down to the smallest detail, was deliberate. And tonight, I knew it was all done for me, but it only made me feel tense, stressed. It was the opposite of how I’d felt with Franny during dinner a few nights ago, and I couldn’t stop circling back to that. I was here on a date, romantic and intimate. But the place I really wanted to be was back on the roof deck of my office, surrounded by potting soil and composting supplies, with Franny and her beautiful curls and bright eyes and big laugh.

“I was just looking at the final seating arrangements for the gala,” she said, tracing her hand along my collar, interrupting my thoughts. “I put us with a fun group.”

“I like fun,” I said, forcing a smile onto my face.

“Well, thank god,” she said, stepping back to grab another wineglass off the counter, handing it to me. “My ex-boyfriend was a buzzkill, and I’m still learning that it’s okay to live exactly how I want.”

She said this decisively, without hesitation, and motioned for me to take a seat at the table, in front of a delicious-looking beet salad.

“Would it be okay to ask why you and your ex split?” I asked, sliding into my seat and pouring her more wine.

She waved me off. “Please, Hayes, I’m an open book. I literally shared my last microneedling appointment on a Facebook Live.”

“That’s a face thing?” I asked as she reached forward to clink her glass against mine.

She nodded. “Anyway, I broke up with him when I realized that I liked the idea of us way more than the actual us. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I think so,” I said, taking a sip of wine. Her words hit me unexpectedly, almost like she was looking inside my brain and could see what I was thinking—that this was exactly how I felt about the two of us.

“We looked great together. We did all the right things. But, god, when we were alone, we had nothing to talk about. It never felt easy. And I was bored. I hate being bored.”

She looked directly at me, and in a panic, I blurted out, “We’re going to be growing lettuce at our new office.” Which was the completely wrong thing to say in the moment. But I needed to get out from under the feeling that was brewing in me.

I’d been so hung up on this idea of being “incompatible” in relationships that I never took a second to think about what it really meant to connect with someone. I wanted it to be easy, like Serena has said. But more than anything, I didn’t want to be bored. I craved the excitement, the passion, and all the highs, of course. Yet I wanted to be with someone for the deep, dark lows and the hard stuff too. I was looking for a roller coaster, a relationship that left me wanting more, always ready to go again. But could I handle that? And could I even be that for someone else? I wasn’t sure, and I took a giant sip of wine, focusing on Serena’s story about her latest training run, and pushing aside questions I’d rather not think about.

An hour later, satiated and slightly buzzed, Serena and I stood next to each other at the sink. I rinsed; she loaded the dishwasher. I clicked the faucet off as we finished, and Serena put a dishwashing pod in and shut the door, actually hitting it closed with her hip—like some sort of starlet in a movie—before pressing a couple of buttons and setting the machine whirring. She casually draped a hand on my neck, nails scratching gently where hair met skin. “So,” she said, her voice lower than I’d ever heard it, her face tantalizingly close to mine, “what should we do now?”

*



“Wait, you had a nice dinner, which she made. And you started making out in the kitchen. And then because it was going well, you panicked and left?”

Perrine said the words through a mouthful of lettuce.

I let out a long sigh. I’d been replaying the entire date with Serena in my head since I’d left her apartment last night. “Okay, first of all, I did not call it ‘panicking,’” I said, giving her The Look. “It was really nice. I just realized last night that she’s not who I wanted to be with. And once that hit me, I knew I couldn’t stay. So when she invited me into her bedroom, I told her I had to go home.”

I didn’t mention to Perrine that Franny had also been in my thoughts the entire time, and that I’d been comparing every move Serena made to her. I couldn’t stop thinking about the way Franny had made me laugh the other night at my office—at myself, and the world. And how then, later, our conversation had shifted to things that were deeply personal. I was never bored when I was with her. In fact, I couldn’t think of anything else when she was around. And also, apparently, when she wasn’t.