My stomach twists, and I feel like I can’t get air for a moment. As if my lungs are crushing me from the inside out. I flash back to all the lies I’ve told over the years. To all the fables I’ve carefully constructed to seem as if I really am this person. This what-you-see-is-what-you-get person. But I’m too many people. I’m Eponine. I’m Ava. I’m the woman who claims her brother’s favorite books for her own. I’m the running coach. I’m the jokey, happy friend. I’m the goofball who steals her roommate’s phone. I am the person who can’t say out loud why she loves Patrick so much, how he helped her, how the very possibility of him alone got her through all the years when she was chased by what ifs. I am the girl who stopped feeling things for real after Aaron.
And I am tired of that girl. I’m ready to start saying goodbye to her. I take another small step and speak a simple truth to my best friend. “Actually, I’m going out with Davis Milo tonight.”
Her eyes widen with shock, and her purse slides down her shoulder, the bag dangling dangerously close to the cobblestone sidewalk. She yanks it back up. “Oh. My. God.”
“Why do you say it like that?”
“You’re going out with your director?” she asks, as if it’s not computing.
This is what I get for telling the truth? She’s berating me? “I was just joking,” I say, regressing in an instant. Because it’s so much easier than dealing.
“You were not,” she says, waggling a finger at me, but her tone shifts from shock to eagerness, and she’s not going to let me slip out of this unscathed from honesty. “Is there something going on between you two? Do you like him?”
I shrug and hold my hands out as if to say I don’t know. Because I don’t know what’s between us. I barely understand what’s happening. “Do you think it’s terrible that he’s my director?”
“Hello? Pot. Kettle. I fell for my mentor last semester and nearly got kicked out of school. No, I don’t think it’s terrible at all. I think it sounds like it could be incredibly hot, and I want to know everything. Spill,” she says authoritatively.
I don’t know that I can tell her everything. I’m still reeling from having told her anything at all. But I tell her we’ve kissed more than once, and I tell her that I want to find a new dress for tonight.
A new dress for a new date with a new man.
“What kind of dress?”
“Something that’s unbearably sexy but that leaves a lot to the imagination.”
“I know just the shop.” She grabs my hand and takes me to one of her favorite boutiques and then finds a dress that’s equally perfect—perfect for me.
Davis
A rush of cold air invades the restaurant. The guy in the untucked shirt perched on the stool next to me whips his head around, but I doubt it’s because of the chill. I grin privately, take a drink of my scotch, then place the sturdy glass on the smooth chrome bar at Vertigo, a new fish restaurant in Soho that Michele raved about. Anticipation winds through me, as a picture of Jill forms in my mind. I lick my lips then turn around.
She’s handing the hostess her coat as she scans the restaurant. Then she finds me, and her eyes lock on mine. My blood heats as I take her in. She’s more stunning than I imagined, and I swear she’s more beautiful every single day. She’s wearing a black knit dress that hugs her body and hits right above the knees, exposing several inches of her bare legs that are then covered up in the sexiest black boots I’ve ever seen. I toss a twenty on the bar without turning around and walk up to her.
Placing a hand on her lower back, I plant a chaste kiss on her cheek. “You’re playing dirty dressed like that. But I’m behaving myself and it’s killing me,” I say.
“I’m so impressed with your self-control,” she teases.
“You should be. It’s excellent, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“Oh, I’ve noticed.”
I turn to the hostess. “Is our table ready?”
“Yes, Mr. Milo. Right this way.” She leads us through the restaurant with its white tiled floors, sleek silver tables and gray leather booths. “The one you reserved,” she says, and lays the menus on the table in the back. I gesture for Jill to slide in first to the curved booth.
“Thank you very much,” I say to the hostess, who gives a quick nod, then leaves.
I sit down as Jill smooths out her skirt, then fingers the crisp white tablecloth. “Nice tablecloth,” she says in a knowing voice.
“Isn’t it, though?”
Then she looks me over, her eyes flicking from my green-and-white checked shirt to my dark pants. She leans closer, her soft breath on my neck, her pineapple scent taunting me as her long hair brushes against my shoulder.
“You look very handsome,” she says in a soft voice, almost as if she’s nervous to be giving compliments, as if she’s not used to it.
“You’re beautiful,” I tell her. “I hope you’re not tired of hearing it from me.”
She shakes her head in answer, a small smile tugging at her lips, and all these little gestures remind me that this really is a first date. But the moment is shattered when the waiter appears.
“Can I start you off with something to drink?”
I turn to Jill. “Belvedere and soda?”
She smiles instantly. “You remember.”
“Of course.”
“And are you going to have Glenlivet on the rocks?”
“You remember too,” I say, and I tell myself not to read anything into it, but it’s too late. It already makes me want her even more. All of her. I turn to the waiter and give him our drinks order. He leaves.
“I remember everything about having drinks with you at Sardi’s,” she says in a sweet voice that damn near melts me.
“You do?”
She nods, and I wait a beat, thinking she’ll tell me next that it was because I cast her, because I gave her her first big break. But instead, she says, “Because I was with you.” Then her hand is on my shirt, and she traces lazy circles around one of the buttons, whispering in my ear, “I want to kiss you, but I’m afraid to do it in public.”
“Why?”
“Because I worry if someone might see us.”
“And so what if someone does?”
“Davis,” she says in a chiding voice.
“What? I don’t know why it’s a big thing.”