Page 13 of Flirting with Forever

“I have not found that to be true in my own experience,” John replied, comfortable with these kinds of conversations with Marissa after almost five years of coming to Fellow’s on Friday nights. “I’m a cocky asshole and women pretty much flee from me.”

Sometimes literally.The image of Mary striding out of the restaurant flashed through his mind. He’d felt like such an utter dolt standing there, watching her go. But could he blame her? He could not.

“You’re not a cocky asshole,” Richie chimed in, apparently recovered enough from his unexpected interaction with his crush to be able to speak again. “You’re a self-assured dick. Whole other animal. Highly repellant.”

“I’m a self-assured—What the hell is the difference?”

“The difference is that a cocky asshole knows he’s an asshole and uses his assholish swagger to charm and otherwise assert sexual dominance,” Marissa said, pushing her glasses up her nose. She’d once told John that she’d studied anthropology at SUNY Downstate, and John could suddenly see that aspect of her intellect sparklingly clearly. “Self-assured dicks don’t even realize they’re being dicks until after they’ve hurt everyone’s feelings.”

“Oh.” John frowned. “That...actually sounds pretty accurate.”

“It’s like the difference between watching a circus dude juggle fire and watching a dragon breathe fire,” Richie mused. “One of them is doing it for a show and one of them is doing it because he was born that way.”

“Are you telling me that I was born a dick?”

He felt his phone buzz in his pocket but ignored it.

Richie tipped his head from one side to the other. “Well, the jury’s still out on nature versus nurture. All I know is that scowl of yours isn’t there by choice. You’re a dick, John. Accept it.”

John shook his head good-naturedly and let the conversation move on to bigger and better topics.

I was expecting someone younger.

His own words played in his head and he was grateful that Richie and Marissa had one another’s attention and didn’t see the grimace his face pulled into when he remembered what he’d said to Mary when he first met her. What an idiot.

John wasn’t sure that he’d ever had reason to talk to someone like her before. Women of her caliber were rare and exotic, spotted occasionally hailing cabs in DUMBO or brunching in Park Slope. Everything from the gold of her hair to the cut of her dress had screamed money. No. Not screamed it. Screaming implied gaudiness and she was anything but gaudy. No, Mary’s appearance merely whispered money. It was the quiet, soothing melody behind her entire countenance. People as rich as Mary seemed to move through the world with their own soundtrack.

He was obviously not worthy of the brilliant gold gloriousness of someone like Mary Trace. He’d known that the second she’d walked into that restaurant. And he’d known that she would know it soon enough as well.

But he’d have liked to have lasted more than a single sentence before he’d ruined his chances. Pleasant conversation and a good-night kiss on whatever picturesque stoop led up to her home would have been nice. It wouldn’t have been long before she realized that dating a defense attorney who lived in a studio in Bed-Stuy meant weekend trips to see his aunties in the Bronx, not ones that landed them on the beach in the Hamptons. She was sharp, so it wouldn’t have been long before she realized that his desire to cook for her would have been fueled mostly by his inability to pay for fancy Brooklyn brunches. She would have no doubt tired of waxy carnations and started to wish for lilies and orchids.

His phone buzzed one more time and he ignored it again. Texting her back when he was in this mood was a bad idea. No. Better to just leave it alone.

No question the whole thing had been doomed from the beginning.

Still. He wouldn’t have minded that good-night kiss.

“GOTANYBODYGOODon the line?” Mary’s best friend Tyler asked from where he lay on his living room floor, a couch pillow under his blond head and his feet crossed at the ankles. He had his eyes closed, so Mary wasn’t positive how he’d even known she was texting someone.

“No. Just struck out again, actually. My friend set me up with this guy, but apparently he’s a drug dealer.”

Tyler cracked a navy blue eye. “Some friend.”

Mary laughed and waved a hand through the air. “She’s well-meaning. Just a little...out of touch. I think she’s probably late fifties and a little bit on the optimistic side. She’s one of my artisans.”

“Who are we talking about?” asked Serafine St. Romain, or Fin for short, as she sauntered in from Tyler’s kitchen. Fin was a singular presence. She was tall, spooky-eyed and blazingly beautiful. Plenty of people doubted Fin’s skills as a psychic and energy reader, but Mary wasn’t one of them. She fully believed in Fin’s clairvoyance.

Fin plunked down on the floor next to Tyler, curling up like a clumsy kitten next to him. He hummed in pleasure, eyes still closed, and absently played with Fin’s long dark braid.

Mary smiled at the sight the two of them made together. Preppy Tyler and hippie Fin. Such a strange pair, made all the more interesting by how blisteringly in love they were with one another. Mary envied them in a good-natured way. Though it might have bothered some people that her entire group of close friends had paired off together, first Sebastian and Via and now Tyler and Fin, Mary was just happy for everyone.

Mostly.

She’d originally been friends with Sebastian and Tyler. If it was unusual to have two male best friends, Mary had never thought much about it. They were good friends, caring, funny, kind. Sebastian had fallen in love with Via, a counselor at his son’s elementary school, and Fin had come along into their group as Via’s best friend and foster sister. Tyler and Fin had had a long road toward finally being together, but when it had happened a few months ago, Mary had breathed a big sigh of relief. She’d suspected all along that the gorgeous and enigmatic Serafine St. Romain had the power to truly wound her goofy, preppy, crude, generous best friend. She was glad it had worked out the way it was supposed to.

It didn’t pass her notice, however, that both of her fortysomething-year-old best friends had ended up with women a decade-plus younger than they were. It wasn’t until she’d learned that Fin and Tyler were truly together did it really hit her. She might be on the losing end of a certain social equation. Because it seemed to her that once over thirty, men rarely dated women their own age. And even less datedolderwomen.

She’d just started toying with the idea of starting to date older men, much older men, when Estrella had come along and proposed her thirty-one-year-old son.

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