Last Girl Ghosted(4)

He’s here, I text Jax quickly. Gtg.

Is he hot?
Are you? Hard to say. Your nose is too big, eyes weirdly black at a distance. When you scan the room, your gaze meets mine. I smile but don’t wave. Maybe not hot in the classic sense. But something that has been dormant within me awakens.

That moment, it freezes. Everything around us pauses, seems to wait a beat. I feel my breath in my lungs as you push toward me through the crowd.

Just as you reach me, the guy in the next seat miraculously leaves and there’s a space for you to slip right into it, and you do.

I like your smile; it’s a little lopsided, sweet.

“Beauty and the beast,” you say, by way of introduction.

I blush stupidly. “Adam?”

We shake hands. Your grip is warm and solid, gaze intense.

“Nice to meet you, Wren.” Your voice is deep, almost a rumble. Then, after a quick assessing glance around the bar, “Is this the kind of place you usually like?”

There’s a gleam of amusement, mischief in your eyes.

It’s weird. You’re so familiar, as though I’ve known you for years. A light clean scent wafts off you, the late autumn chill from outside still lingering on your clothes.

“No,” I admit.

“Then why choose it?” It could be confrontational, peevish. Instead, it’s purely curious.

“I didn’t. My best friend Jax—she thought it was a safe place to meet a stranger.”

Your eyes linger, searching my face for I’m not sure what. Then, “Is there a safe place to meet a stranger?”

“Maybe not.”

Your smile deepens, and you lift an easy hand. The bartender rushes to do your bidding, coming quickly from the other end of the bar; you’re that kind of guy I think. A natural air of authority. People rush to do your bidding. You order a Woodford Reserve on the rocks, then look to me, inquiring. I shake my head, lifting my glass.

“But we’re not strangers, are we?” you say when the bartender has left.

I feel a little rush of uncertainty. “Are we not?”

You rub at that powerful, stubbled jaw. “It definitely doesn’t feel like it.”

“No,” I admit. “It doesn’t.”

When your glass comes, you lift it to me and I clink it with mine. The smile on my face is real, all my nerves and tension dropping away.

“To strangers who somehow already know each other,” you say. Your tone is easy, posture relaxed. You’re comfortable in your own skin.

“I like that.”

“So do I.”

We’re shouting at each other over the din. You talk a little bit about your work in cybersecurity. I tell you that I’m a writer—which is the truth but not the whole truth. We are leaning in close to hear each other. My throat is starting to ache a bit from yelling.

Finally, you say, “Should we just get out of here?”

“Where do you want to go?”

Is this just going to be another Torch hookup? Because I’ve decided I don’t want to do that again. Maybe it’s the way of it now, like Jax says. But if it is, then I’d rather be alone.

“Anywhere but here,” you say.

We don’t go back to your place or to mine. We just start walking, which, when the weather is crisp and the city sky is that velvety blue, is my favorite thing to do. We wind through the East Village to Lafayette, passing Joe’s Pub and Indochine. We cross Houston, wander through the garish lights and shuttered shops of Chinatown and end up on the Brooklyn Bridge, that lovely relic of Old New York.

We log miles and sometimes we’re talking about your childhood—lots of travel, about mine—isolated, unhappy. But sometimes an easy silence settles. And it’s the silences that excite me most. The ability to be quiet with someone, there’s a delicious intimacy to that. In Brooklyn Heights we stop at a quiet bar near Adams where low jazz plays, and people talk quietly, huddled together in cozy alcoves in the near dark.

“This is more like the kind of place I like,” I say.

“Me, too.”

You talk about work again. You own a cybersecurity firm, are new to the city after traveling extensively since childhood—first for your father’s work, then for your own. Various locations in the US, Europe, and Asia. I take in details—the expensive cut and material of your jacket. The manicured nails. How you stare when I speak, listening intently. You wait until I’m done talking, take a long beat, before answering or commenting. How you haven’t touched me, not even casually, though we’re very close together.

“I have an early morning,” I say finally. I don’t want to break the spell between us. But neither do I want to get glamoured into doing something I’ll regret. It’s too easy to give in to the natural impulse. Better to cut things short.

If you’re disappointed or offended, it doesn’t show. You look at your watch, a white face, with black roman numerals. Analog in a digital world. For a technology expert, a man who owns a cybersecurity firm, you haven’t even once looked at a phone.

“Where do you live?” you ask.

“Right around the corner actually.”

“Can I walk you home?” You lift your palms, maybe reading my expression. “That’s it.”

I nod. “Sure.”