Page 2 of Changing the Playbook
“He is not.”
“Hetotallyis. Andoh! He’s doing that thing where he’s trying not to look like he’s looking. You know, the casual glance around the room that somehow always lands back on you?”She grabs my wrist. “He’s scanning… now on you… and he’s scanning… and on you…”
Against my better judgment, I peek over my shoulder. His gaze finds mine immediately, like he was waiting. This time his smile turns almost sheepish, caught red-handed, and something warm unfurls beneath my ribs, spreading outward.
“That’s it.” Maya drains her mojito with battlefield determination. “You’re going over there.”
“I’m not going?—”
“Sophie Pearson, you are going to march your cute butt over to that table and talk to that man, or I swear I will do it for you. And you know I’ll make it weird.”
She’s not bluffing. Last month she introduced me to a guy at a coffee shop by announcing I was “single and ready to mingle but also kind of emotionally constipated.” The memory alone makes me want to establish permanent residence under this table.
Usually, Idon’tapproach guys.
Typically, I’m perfectly content with my arrangement of mutual orgasms and zero phone numbers.
But something about the way he’s sitting there makes me want to know why he came to a bar alone and how he makes solitude look like a choice instead of a failure, and why he’s interested inmeout of all the girls here, most of whom are wearing less and drinking more.
“Sophie,” Maya says like she’s calming a horse, “you’ve been making eyes at each other for five minutes now. That’s a binding contract in bar time.”
She’s right. Kind of. In my limited but efficient experience with hookups, there’s usually a script. They approach. They offer to buy a drink. They make small talk that we both know is foreplay with words. They suggest we leave. I follow.
But this guy isn’t rising from his table.
He’s just sitting there with that easy smile.
Like he has all the time in the world and nowhere else he’d rather be.
Which means if I want to talk to him...
“Fine.” The word escapes before my brain can construct a proper pro/con list. “But if this goes badly, I’m blaming you.”
Maya actually squeals like we’re back in middle school, then grabs my shoulders, studying me like a general surveying troops. “Do you need a pep talk?”
“I need you to stop making this into a production.” I let out a lengthy sigh and smooth non-existent wrinkles out of my clothes.
“This is literally historic! You’re voluntarily approaching a guy! At a bar! While mostly sober!”
“Barely sober,” I mutter, but my feet are already moving. I run my hands down my jeans. “And it’s not a big deal. I’m just going to… say hi.”
I escape before she can respond, her whoop trailing after me like a victory cry. Several heads turn, and I seriously consider veering toward the bathroom and establishing a new identity. But then I catch his eye again, and he straightens slightly, and somehow my feet keep moving until I’m standing at his table.
“Hi,” I say, then immediately want to dissolve into the floorboards or develop wings and fly away.
Hi? That’s my opening line? What the hell do I do now?
But his smile widens like I’ve just delivered a keynote address. “Hi yourself.” He gestures to the empty chair. “Want to sit?”
“I…” I sink into the chair, trying to channel even a fraction of his relaxed confidence. “I mean, I don’t know. You could be really boring.”
Oh God. Did I just call him boring? Someone confiscate my vocal cords, stat!
He laughs, though—a warm and rumbling sound. “That’s fair. I could be incredibly dull. I might spend the next hour talking about my extensive stamp collection.”
“Do you have an extensive stamp collection?”
“No, but I’m starting to think I should. Really lean into the bit.” He extends his hand. “I’m Mike.”
