Page 80 of Flirting with Forever

He took three more steps forward and took her by the shoulders. “You think you were the only one who was humiliated, Mary?” He squeezed her shoulders once, firmly, and then stepped back from her, pressing his fingers to his forehead in deference to the headache. “You want to know how I felt? I’d scrambled across town to be on time for the date, so I was still in my work clothes, sweaty and smelling like fried chicken because one of my clients works at a Crown Fried Chicken and it was the only place she could meet me. So, then, there I am, in a fifteen-dollar haircut, twenty-nine dollars in cash in my wallet, at a restaurant expensive enough for me to have to charge dinner to my credit card, on a date set up by my mother. Mymother. God bless her, Mary, but what man in his right mind isn’t humiliated by a date set up by his mother?” He paced away from her, still pressing his fingers against the headache. “My mother is a lot of things, but reality-based is not one of them.” He turned to her. “You know how she described you to me? A beautiful, bubbly blonde who loves to chat about movies and music. She said you liked going to the beach and pilates. She said you were thinking about starting business school.”

“That’s all true—”

“She made you sound like you were about twenty-five years old, Mary. I thought to myself,John, the rumpled work clothes and cheap haircut won’t matter to a twenty-five-year-old. She’ll be impressed that you even have a full-time job. That you made it through law school. If it’s a match, hopefully you can start taking her to happy hours at more affordable restaurants, and she’ll be impressed that you know how to life-hack your way through this fucking city.”

He paced again. “You say you felt like a million bucks? Mary, youlookedlike a hundred million. A billion. My first date in six months, and I’d been expecting a softball. Someone who I could maybe impress with a law degree until I could get comfortable enough to flirt with her. But in walks this—” he waved his hands in the air, searching for the words “—sophisticated creature in some sort of dress...heels...your hair...” He trailed off, not adept enough to actually describe how she’d looked. “And then you saw me across the restaurant and smiled at me with that fucking smile of yours.”

“What’s wrong with my smile?” Mary croaked.

“Nothing. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. It’s the best fucking smile in the universe. But you know what that kind of smile says to a man like me across a restaurant? It says,I will devastate you, you poor schmuck. And then there you were. The most gorgeous woman in the entire restaurant, on the entire block, in the entire goddamn borough, and you were sitting down to dinner with me. Fried-chicken suit and all.” He pressed at his forehead again, trying to smooth away the ache. “I said the first thing that came to mind. It was fucking stupid. I immediately regretted it. I had no idea it would shape our entire relationship.”

“You...you mean that you meant thatliterally? You weren’t calling me old? You were saying that you were literally expecting someone younger?”

“It’s not an excuse. It was a rude thing to say, and I wanted to staple my mouth closed the second I said it. But yes. I meant it literally. I don’t care about our age difference, Mary. It’s negligible anyways. Only six years.”

“But...” She looked deeply confused. “I heard you tell Tyler that we’re in different stages of our lives. Like I was three moves away from winding up in an old folks’ home.”

“That’swhat you took from that statement? Oh, God.” He threw his arms up at the universe. “I have the worst freaking luck for you to have overheard that. No. That is not what I meant. I was standing in your beautiful kitchen, staring at your hanging collection of copper pots when I said that.”

“What do my pots have to do with anything?”

“I have one cast-iron pan, Mary.One.And I use it for literally everything. I have one sharp knife. Four cups. Two mugs—”

“So?!”

“So? What I mean is that you’re in this place in your life where you can host dinner parties in your two-bedroom apartment. I mean, my God, you had a candle the size of my forearm next to your gigantic bathtub. You probably drink red wine in that bathtub and listen to audiobooks. Mary, I don’t even have air-conditioning! My big splurge last year wasRuth. A rescue cat! We’re atdifferent stages of our lives. That’s what I meant. You’re a put-together, affluent woman. I’m still scrambling to pay off my student loans. It has nothing to do with age. It has everything to do with who we are.”

He was starting to deflate. He’d never expected to lay it all out like this to Mary. He’d never even wanted to.

John strode over to his couch and plunked down. He lowered his forehead to his fingertips and rubbed at the ache.

“Not attracted to you?” In for a penny, in for a pound. He might as well clear it all up now. There was nothing else to lose. Their friendship was most likely shot to shit. All he was going to get from her were a few tipsy kisses last night and a goodbye in a few moments once she’d said what she came to say. “You want to know why I never look you up and down? Because ithurtsto look at you.” He leaned back on the couch and closed his eyes, his face tipped up toward the ceiling. “Being around you is like being parched while there’s a glass of lemonade sitting right there, within arm’s reach. I have to talk myself out of gulping you down pretty much every second we’re together. I’d never be able to sip. That’s why I don’t look you up and down.”

John felt a soft, light touch at his arm and his eyes flung open. She’d padded over without him realizing it. She stood next to the couch, her eyes on her own fingers, which played with the sleeve of his shirt.

“You’re in a T-shirt,” she whispered. “And shorts.”

“I was going to go for a run before work. Before it got too hot outside,” he defended himself. “You’re in shorts too.”

“I’ve never seen you in anything but your fancy clothes. And your pj’s once.”

He blinked. If he was interpreting the expression on her face correctly, then she was looking at him rather softly. It was confusing. Weren’t they fighting? Wasn’t she just about to say goodbye?

With one pink-socked foot, she nudged at his shin. “You have hairy legs,” she whispered.

He looked down at his legs. Looked back up at her.

She took a deep breath. “This is how I look without makeup.”

“There’s no need to brag, Mary.”

She laughed and rolled her eyes and went pink in the cheeks. “This is a big deal for me, John. To stand here in laundry-day clothes and wet hair and no makeup and no sleep. The world isn’t kind to pretty much any women when it comes to how they look. But especially not ‘women of a certain age.’ Ain’t that right, Ruth?” Mary scratched at Ruth’s head where she twined between her feet, but when she straightened again, her face was deadly serious. “My motherconstantlyreminds me how old I am. How time is running out for me. Dying alone is right around the corner. It’s been getting harder to ignore her. And I hate to think it’s because she’s right.” Mary shuddered. “I’m not naive. The world isn’t as accepting of you if you’re over thirty-five and single. Hell, even Sebastian and Tyler, two of the most open-minded guys I know, partnered up with people a decade younger, or more, than them.”

She took a deep breath and nudged at his shin again with her toes. “So, yeah. This is it. This is what I look like with no makeup on. After too little sleep. Thirty-seven and a beer too many. Whatcha see is whatcha get.”

Her bare legs were close enough for him to knock his knee against hers. If he reached up, he could loop a finger through one of her belt loops. Instead, John tried to calm his tumbling mind and piece together everything she’d just said to him. Her age, her mother, his apparent lack of attraction this morning.

“You’re telling me all this because...” He was pretty sure he already knew the answer, but he really, really didn’t want to misunderstand.

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