Page 55 of Canadian Boyfriend

“This is still low-stakes, right?” I whispered.

“Yes,” he said. “It… has to be.”

“Yes.” I was far from an expert on relationships, but I knew enough to know this couldn’t be one.

With that out of the way, we were suddenly kissing each other like it was no big thing.

Making out with Mike Martin was like being a teenager again. Well, it was like being what my idea of a teenager was. I’d never been a proper teenager. The point was that I could kiss him forever. He seemed to concur. Last night we’d made out on the couch—chesterfield—for a long time before finishing our drinks and saying good night. We seemed to be settling in again for the long haul.

I’d had the two “boyfriends” in New York—fellow dancers I slept with, one because I wanted to and one because I didn’t know how to say I didn’t want to. And there had been Ian, of course. Which I realized was not a huge sample, but with all those guys, kissing had been a prelude. Depending on the scenario, kissing was either an appetizer, a pleasant but minor experience to whet the appetite, or an item on a preflight checklist meant to be moved through as quickly as possible.Ladies and gentlemen, please secure your tray tables and pucker up to prepare for takeoff.

For the record, I’m not blaming the guys here, or at least not entirely. Spending a ton of time kissing was not going to happen when there was something else lurking that you were either excited to get on with or anxious to get over with.

But with Mike Martin, kissing felt like the whole point.

It probably didn’t hurt that he was really good at it. He would hold my face and look at me like I was a delightful gourmet snack and then… snack. Itwaslike snacking, long stretches of deep kissing interspersed with little nibbles and momentsof backing off for sighing and smiling. But then something would flash in his eyes, and his mouth would come down on mine again.

Don’t get me wrong. There weresensations, sensations in areas of my body far from my lips, and those sensations ramped up, became more urgent. But we both knew we weren’t going there, so we just kept kissing.

Eventually things started to wind down. Like we’d run out of steam. Or maybe we’d generatedtoo muchsteam, and we instinctively agreed to head for the off-ramp. Like last night, the process of disengagement was remarkably not-awkward. We kissed for a while, and then we stopped kissing and went back to what we’d been doing, and it all seemed totally organic. Last night it had been sipping champagne by the Christmas tree, and now it was me being de-skated by Mike Martin.

“This is like being a kid at a shoe store,” I said as he undid my laces.

“This is a full-service experience.” He grabbed my boots and started putting them on.

“Well, I would expect nothing less. I did pay for the ‘learn to skate with an NHL star’ package, after all.”

“Anything for the Chihuahuas,” he said as he pulled on his own boots, hopped to his feet, and extended a hand.

“Ah yes, the Chihuahuas. I do it all for them.”

I had the sudden, crazy thought that maybe he wouldn’t drop my hand after I found my feet, but of course he did.

“I want another dog,” Mike said as he held the basement door for me. “Ireallywant another dog. Maybe not a Chihuahua, though.”

“Why don’t you get one?”

We de-geared ourselves, and he motioned for me to followhim upstairs to the kitchen, where I sat on one of the stools at the island and he flipped on the kettle.

“Sarah wasn’t into the idea of more animals,” he said as he grabbed the milk from the refrigerator. “She didn’t have a choice about Earl 9, because he and I came as a package deal, but Earl 9 is low maintenance. I made the mistake of floating the idea of a second dog in front of Olivia, and…” He winced.

“You and Sarah had a fight?” I wasn’t sure if I should be asking that, but I wanted to know. Mike Martin seemed to have no problem talking about Sarah in front of me—not that there was any reason he should—so I was following his lead.

“No. She was right. Who was going to walk the dog when I was on the road?”

He was staring at me intensely. Was I meant to actually answer the question? “Sarah?”

He pointed at me. “Yep. And I got that. I mean, I’m a hoser, but I have a grasp on reality. If you’re not home, you can’t walk the dog. So, no, no fight.”

He gave me another weirdly intense look, and I had the overwhelming urge to apologize. Maybe I was becoming an honorary Canadian. But I didn’t want him to think I was fixated on sources of conflict in his marriage. I didn’t want him to think I thought about his marriage at all. Mike Martin and I were friends who kissed sometimes. Or sort-of-employer and sort-of-employee who kissed sometimes. I understood that, and I needed him to know I understood that. “You made such a face, it looked like you were remembering something unpleasant. I thought maybe you’d had a battle over the dog. Also, for the record, I’m still not buying this hoser thing.”

“Nope, no battle. She was right. If I was making a face, it was only because I’ve come to realize…”

“What?”

He waved a hand dismissively and went back to the fridge. “Sorry. You don’t need to hear my Things I Realized Too Late About My Marriage sob story.”

Uh, yes I did. I totally did. “No, it’s OK, hit me.”

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