Loathe to Love You (The STEMinist Novellas #1-3)(45)

His eyebrow lifts.

“I mean—maybe you just wanted to . . . as friends, and . . .”

The eyebrow lifts higher.

I clear my throat. “I . . . Is this a date?” I ask, my voice small, suddenly insecure.

“I don’t know,” he says carefully, after mulling it over for a second.

“Maybe it isn’t. I . . .” I didn’t want to make it weird. Maybe you just think I’m a nice girl and wanted someone to have dinner with and I totally misread the situation and I’m so, so sorry. It’s just, I think I like you a lot? More than I can remember liking anyone? It’s possible that I projected and— The waiter comes to pick up the check, which interrupts my spiraling and gives me a chance to take a deep breath. It’s all good. So maybe it wasn’t a date. It’s fine. It was fun, anyway. Good food. Good soccer talk. I made a friend.

“Can I ask you a question?”

I look up from the hand-wringing currently going on in my lap. Is it whether I’m a needy, dangerous stalker? “Uh, sure.”

“I don’t know if this is a date,” he says, serious, “but if it isn’t, will you go on one with me?”

I smile so wide, my cheeks nearly hurt.



* * *





The pistachio gelato melts down my cone while I explain why Neuer is a much better goalkeeper than he’s made out to be. We walk around Tribeca side by side without touching even once, block after block after block, the night air balmy and the lights fuzzy. My shoes are not new, but I can feel a nasty blister slowly forming on my heel. It doesn’t matter, because I don’t want to stop.

Neither does Erik, I don’t think. Every few words I bend my neck to look up at him, and he is so handsome in his shirtsleeves and slacks, so handsome when he shakes his head at something I said, so handsome when he gestures with his large hands to describe a play, so handsome when he almost smiles and little wrinkles appear at the corners of his eyes, so handsome that sometimes I feel it, physically, viscerally. My pulse quickens and I cannot breathe and I’m starting to think about unnerving things. Things like after. I listen to him explain why Neuer is an incredibly overrated goalkeeper and laugh, genuinely loving every minute of it.

At the ice cream place, he didn’t order anything. Because, he says, “I don’t like to eat cold things.”

“Wow. That might be the most un-Danish thing I have ever heard.”

It must be a sore spot, because his eyes narrow. “Remind me to never introduce you to my brothers.”

“Why?”

“Wouldn’t want you to form any alliances.”

“Ha. So you are a notoriously bad Dane. Do you also hate ABBA?”

He looks briefly confused. Then his expression clears. “They’re Swedish.”

“What about tulips—do you hate tulips?”

“That would be the Netherlands.”

“Damn.”

“So close, though. Want to try again? Third time’s the charm.”

I glare, licking what’s left of the sticky pistachio off my fingers. He looks at my mouth and then away, down to his feet. I want to ask him what’s wrong, but the owner of the coffee shop on the corner comes out to retrieve his sidewalk sign and I realize something.

It’s late.

Very late. Really late. End-of-the-night late. We’re standing in front of each other on a sidewalk, over twelve hours after meeting for the first time on . . . another sidewalk; Erik probably wants to go home. And I probably want to be with him a little longer.

“What train do you take?” I ask.

“I actually drove.”

I shake my head, disapproving. “Who even drives in New York?”

“People who have to visit construction sites all over the tristate. I’ll take you home,” he offers, and I beam.

“Geniuses. Kind, ride-giving geniuses. Where are you parked?”

He points somewhere behind me and I nod, knowing I should turn around and begin to walk by his side again. But we seem to be a little stuck in this here and this now. Standing in front of each other. Rooted to the ground.

“I had fun tonight,” I say.

He doesn’t answer.

“Even though we forgot to get croissants at the bistro.”

Still no answer.

“And I am seriously tempted to buy you a life-size cardboard cutout of Neuer and— Erik, are you still doing that thing where you don’t talk because I’m technically not asking you a question?”

He laughs silently and my breath hitches high in my chest. “Where do you live?” he asks softly.

“Farthest reaches of Staten Island,” I lie.

It’s supposed to be my revenge, but he just says, “Good.”

“Good?”

“Good.”

I frown. “It’s a toll of seventeen dollars, my friend.”

He shrugs.

“One-way, Erik.”

“It’s fine.”

“How is it fine?”

He shrugs again. “At least it’ll take a while to get there.”

My heart skips a beat. And then another. And then they all catch up at once, a mess of overlapping thumps, a small wild animal caged in my chest, trying to escape.

I have no idea what I’m doing here. Not a clue. But Erik is standing right in front of me, the streetlight a soft glow behind his head, the warm spring breeze blowing softly between us, and something clicks within me.