Page 50 of Fake Date with the Mountain Man

The walls feel like they are pushed to their limit trying to contain the tension that’s filling the apartment. Ryan takes a long look at my face and draws his eyebrows together in confusion.

“I thought maybe we could grab dinner,” he says cautiously.

“I’m going to pass.”

“Why do you seem so pissed?” he asks.

I scoff and roll my eyes. “Are you serious? You practically ran out of here this morning and then I didn’t hear from you all day. I know it was sort of weird that you stayed the night, but you made it so much weirder by treating me like one of your one-night stands afterward. That’s not how friends act, Ryan.”

Ryan takes a step forward with his hands out in front of him, palms forward as if to surrender. He stands close but doesn’t touch me. It’s like he’s trying to figure out how to soothe an angry dinosaur that just materialized in front of him, but has no idea that dinosaurs ever even existed. When his palm makes contact with my arm, it’s the lightest of touches.

“I had to go help Hunter with that desk.” He says this like I understand exactly what it means.

“What?”

“The desk…I told Hunter I’d help him get it out of his old cabin this morning. Didn’t I tell you that last night?”

I shake my head.

“Marlow, I’m sorry. It had nothing to do with you. I just panicked because I overslept.”

“Oh,” I eventually manage in a skillful show of articulation.

“And I couldn’t really call or text you because I was in the middle of the woods with Hunter and…” he pauses and motions to the sofa, “my phone was here.”

We both laugh faintly. It’s a half-hearted proclamation of retreat, a signal that we are both feeling uncomfortable and are unsure of what to say.

“So…dinner?” he asks. His palms slide up and down my arms softly. I want to lean into him and feel his arms around me like they were last night.

“You want to go out?”

We’ve never gone out to eat together unless I’m begging for forgiveness for my drunken mistakes over lunch. It’s outside of the little safety bubble we’ve created for ourselves. But so is sleeping in the same bed, so I guess maybe that bubble has already popped.

“Yeah, I figured we could spend some time together outside of our houses,” he says.

The feels an awful lot like him backing off. At the very least, it feels like him redefining the terms of our friendship so something like last night doesn’t happen again.

“Yeah, we wouldn’t want to end up sleeping together again.” I mean this as a light-hearted quip, an agreement to his new terms, but it comes out strained and wrong.

Ryan rubs a hand on the back of his neck and stares down at the floor. “Yeah, about that…”

“You don’t need to say it, Ryan. It didn’t mean anything. You were just too tired to drive home.”

“That’s not - ” he starts. “Fuck, Marlow…”

The word makes me jump a little. Not because he yelled it, but because it comes out breathy and desperate and growly,like something just deflated inside of him and I’m listening to the release. It’s the most raw, emotional sound I’ve ever heard. There isn’t a single thing that I can say in response. Instead, I stand there as straight and rigid as a board, just watching him.

“What is this, Marlow? What do you want from me?”

“We’re friends,” I stutter out with an amazing lack of conviction.

Ryan plants his hands on his hips and scoffs as he looks away. He repeats the word ‘friends’ as if it is venom stuck in his throat. When his gaze settles back on me, I feel myself shrinking away.

“I went to happy hour for you. I pretended that we weren’t leaving together like you wanted. I came over here and admitted that I can barely stand not to touch you, and you acted like you felt the same way. Then you pulled me into your bedroom and spent the night in my arms. I don’t think I’m out of line to think that we were headed somewhere more than friends. But then I come over here to ask you on an actual date so we can talk about all this, and your first reaction is ‘it didn’t mean anything?’”

I stare at him in stunned silence. How did I get this so wrong? How did we both get it so wrong?

My mouth is open, prepared for words that never come. Ryan’s expression softens as he takes a step toward me. We’re closer now than two people in an otherwise empty room would typically stand.

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