With a Prince: Missed Connections #2 Read online

  “Definitely on Thanksgiving. It will be so fun to have you here.” Julie did a couch shimmy. “You can be my sous chef.”

  “Oh, thank God,” Amy said.

  “I thought I was your sous chef,” Ice protested.

  “You were being all bitchy about it, how you’re in med school and that’s a full-time commitment and it’s not like having a job where you can just screw around when you’re not working and blah de blah—” Julie broke off with a squeal when Ice tossed a throw pillow at her face.

  “We’ll see,” I said, because they were all looking at me.

  “Did I mention Daniel has a Viking fridge?” Julie pressed.

  “Three times,” Amy said, and Ice held up four fingers.

  “Well, it has plenty of staging room,” Julie explained.

  “I don’t even know what that means,” Ice mused.

  “And he has a built-in wine fridge, too!”

  “Why do you care about a wine fridge?” Amy waved her hands in the air. “We can bring win and we’ll only be there for a few hours.”

  “You might. I’ll be there all day Thursday, most of Wednesday, and for a while on Tuesday. It’s likely fully stocked with something lovely for the cook to drink while cooking.”

  “Can we not talk about drinking?” I asked. Wow, did my head hurt. At least my stomach had settled. I’d probably eaten 3,000 calories, but right then I just couldn’t care.

  “Have some more tea.” Amy snagged the pot from the warmer she’d set up on the coffee table and poured. “Herbal. It’ll help.”

  “Sure,” Julie said, her cheer undaunted. “Let’s talk about which guy Ice has decided to bring.”

  “Haven’t,” Ice replied. “Next topic.”

  “Brad said he’d love to come,” Amy said brightly.

  “Yay,” I said.

  “Whee,” Ice said at the same time, in the same tone.

  “Why don’t you guys like him?” Amy demanded, scowling.

  “I like him,” Julie offered.

  “You like everyone.”

  “True.”

  “We like him fine, Amy.” Ice patted her knee. “It’s just…”

  “He was on the short list for Chicago’s most eligible bachelor, you know,” Amy pointed out. “He’s a major catch.”

  We exchanged looks. “I mean,” I picked my way through the words, “do you think he’s the One?”

  “You know, Marcia, you can date a guy and enjoy being with him without worrying about whether he’s your one true love.”

  “As long as he continues to maintain his point score,” Ice noted.

  “Not true,” Amy objected. “The Rules don’t cover behavior after round four. From then on, it’s a different ball game. Different criteria to consider.”

  “I disagree.” Julie got up and returned with the laminated copy of the Rules that we kept behind our stockpile of feminine supplies, on the premise that no guy who spent the night would ever look there. It wasn’t exactly a Rule that we didn’t talk about the Rules, but one of Charley’s main beefs with me was that I had told Daniel about them so he could manipulate them in his favor, which she considered a fundamental betrayal. “No sex with any man who has not advanced to round four, which requires maintaining a score of 4.0 or better following round 3,” Julie read. “That means he has to maintain a score of 4.0 or better going forward.”

  “But that’s just to have sex with him,” Amy argued.

  “No.” Julie tapped the sheet. “I think the Rules clearly state that round four is simply the final stage, not an endpoint. ‘Requires maintaining’ implies an ongoing state.”

  “Forever?” Amy sounded aghast. “Like until death do us part? No way a marriage can withstand that kind of expectation.”

  “I expect it.” Julie brandished the sheet. “Ice—you and Charley drafted these. Weigh in here.”

  “Hmm.” Ice had the thick fall of hair over her shoulder, idly combing her fingers through a tangle in it as she thought. “In point of fact, Charley made up the first version, and it was considerably less complicated—and applied only to who we had sex with, which were almost always one-night stands.” She gave us a wry smile. “We were eighteen and off the leash for the first time. We were all about having fun and weren’t thinking about the long term then.”

  I had been, I realized. Dating and meeting guys had never been fun for me. I’d only done it so I could find my future husband. Which had turned out to be a singularly unsuccessful approach.

  Ice cut her gaze to me. “What do you think, Marcia?”

  “Me?”

  “Yes. You take the Rules more seriously than any of us—and of all of us, your focus is most on the long-term commitment.”

  “Maybe it shouldn’t be. That hasn’t worked out so well for me.”

  “Are you still upset about Gabriel?” Amy made a sympathetic face. “Did you check the Missed Connections? He knows you like them—maybe he left you one.”

  Julie had straightened. “Gabriel? I thought his name was Damien.”

  “There’s both,” Amy said, “A Gabriel and a Damien.”

  “Two high-score meets in two days?” Ice held up a hand to high five me. “You’re on a hot streak, girl.”

  “You can put your hand down. Gabriel was this actor Charley lined up for her revenge—”

  “Thus the knock-down, drag-out,” Amy inserted.

  “Yeah, I was upset, but it wasn’t that bad.”

  “Totally that bad,” Amy stage whispered to Julie.

  “And,” I said over her, “Damien wasn’t a high score. I just—went with him for the drink on impulse. I forgot to count the points.”

  They didn’t say anything, and I caught them exchanging over-the-top looks like shocked Victorian ladies might.

  “How unlike you,” Ice remarked, smoothing her face into a fake-serious expression.

  “Oh, stop. All of you. I didn’t have sex with him, or even kiss him, really…” though there’d been that moment when he’d brushed his lips against my temple. And the way he’d touched my knee.

  “What’s that face?” Julie demanded. “Something happened.”

  “You have to do the points.” Amy folded her arms.

  “No.” I put my mug down and untangled from the blanket. “And I’m going to bed. Leave the dishes. I’ll do them in the morning. I accept whatever penalty you guys decide on.”

  “How come you don’t want to figure the points?” Ice studied me with a too-knowing expression in her dark eyes.

  “Because. Look—you guys keep asking why I got drunk with a strange guy. It’s because he wasn’t my type. He was so not the One, not that guy who’d suggest espresso and pastries at The Last Crumb.” I pointed at Amy who held up her hands in innocence. “He bought me whiskey and said inappropriate things. I can just imagine the fit my mother would have if she saw him.”

  “Maybe you should take him to lunch with you to meet George then,” Julie suggested, then opened her eyes wide when I glared at her. “Why not? It might help defuse the tension.”

  “Besides the fact that I got puking sick from two drinks with him, ditched him, and was only with him in the first place because he thought I was some pitiful matron he’d injured, not because a guy like him would be actually interested in me? Can’t think of a single reason.”

  “Don’t forget that he’s completely inappropriate,” Ice said.

  “And completely inappropriate,” Amy added.

  Julie just smiled.

  ~ 6 ~

  In the morning, though I got up early enough to do them—and feeling remarkably good, so Ice had done right by me—there were no dishes to clean. The kitchen sparkled. Amy’s tea-making supplies were meticulously arranged on the counter, but not brewing yet. She must be out for her run. In the freezing dark and ice. I didn’t know how she did it.

  A sticky note on the oven hood fluttered.

  We figure you get a bye. Next time we won’t go so easy on you. Now go have some fun, dammi
t. Love, I, A & J.

  P.S. Leftovers in fridge are for you. J.?

  It made me smile so I put it in my jacket pocket, for a remembrance. And, okay, it also made me ever so slightly misty, but I would not be crying today. Or puking. It might not be a fun—double-underlined—day, but I could shoot for that much. Lowered expectations could be a wonderful thing. Though that made me think of Amy and her doubts about marriage scores. Was it unreasonable to expect your spouse to maintain a 4.0 or better over the long term?

  Or was settling for less than that lowering expectations? Glum thought.

  Oddly enough, though I’d fantasized about everything else—our romantic meeting, the proposal, the wedding, honeymoon, even naming our children and having sleepovers with our grandchildren—I’d never given much thought to the day-to-day living with my husband. When I was a little girl and fantasized about my dad coming back for us, I’d dreamed that he’d take us away to his castle in Bavaria, which had a cook and a housekeeper, so my mom never had to cook and clean or work again. Of course, as I grew up, I recognized how silly that was. I knew whoever my dad had been he wouldn’t have a castle in Bavaria—particularly the one I was thinking of, as it’s been open to the public since the late 1800s—and he’d be just another one of the 99% like the rest of us. In adult hindsight, I could shake my head over that girl I’d been.

  I could also recognize that I had zero idea how a normal, day-to-day marriage worked. How could I even predict what that would be like?

  For some reason, I got a mental image of Damien at his end of his-and-her sinks, combing gel into his hair and picking out rings for his ear, asking me if I’d gotten his leather jacket back from the cleaners. Which made me snicker. Not exactly a romantic fantasy of Prince Charming in a castle in Bavaria—or even regular domestic harmony.

  But that was the point with Damien, wasn’t it? That he was not a candidate for happily-ever-after, not in any reality. I didn’t need to test his fit against the his-and-her sinks because that would never, ever happen. Expectations didn’t even enter into it.

  Regardless, I needed to focus on reality. No more romantic dreaming.

  So, once on the train, I did not look for Gabriel. Or Damien for that matter. I didn’t watch the faces at all, nor did I look at the Missed Connections ads. Instead, I put my tablet on airplane mode and read M.O. Keefe’s new bad-boy biker romance. I didn’t have any illusions that living in a trailer park would be at all romantic or that biker gangs were anything but trouble, including all the drugs, misogyny, and abuse. Somehow, though, she swept me up in it. Phone sex with a stranger. Wow. If only I had the guts for that. So far, it didn’t seem I’d had the guts for much at all.

  I brazened it out at work, reminding myself that I hadn’t really lied in the end. I had gotten sick. Nobody said anything, except to ask how I was feeling. I sat at my desk and plowed through the emails and sticky-noted paper documents that had piled up, working out my guilt and through lunch—heating up Julie’s leftover chicken stew in the break-room microwave—and staying late. Since it was a Friday and the week before Thanksgiving, people started heading home around three-thirty. By five, my floor had gone super quiet—that weird kind where you can hear the buzz of the fluorescent lights and even the shadows seem different. By six-thirty, I’d achieved Inbox Zero and felt like the only one still working in the entire world.

  A virtuous feeling, though also kind of lonely. I shut down my computer and gathered my things, putting on one coat and folding the other over my arm. It would be quiet at the house, too—Julie and Charley were working, Ice doing her weekly study group, and Amy out on a date with Brad. I liked having the house to myself, and total control of the remote, but the night before had been really nice. It seemed that kind of thing happened less and less often, that we were all home and just hanging out.

  Of course, not all the Fab Five had been there, and I felt guilty that I’d been glad Charley never made it.

  To give myself a lift, I walked through the mall part of the towers on my way out, taking my time to enjoy the music and decorations. No reason to rush home to more of my own company, so I loitered, window-shopping. Some of the stores already had their holiday displays going. By the time I finally rode down the escalators, my gaze going to the bench where he’d parked me, I realized that—despite all my resolutions to be practical—part of me had been looking for Damien.

  As if he’d crash into me again. Or be sitting there still, looking up with that crooked smile and saying, “there you are, luv, I’ve been waiting ages.”

  Instead, a woman with a pile of bags occupied our bench, texting. She stuck her phone away, gathered her things and strode off, glancing at me with a grumpy expression and a bitter, disappointed line to her mouth. Something about that decided me.

  I plopped myself on the bench, dug out my tablet and took it off airplane mode, and hit the bookmark for the Chicago Missed Connections. There was Romeo still. He might be waiting forever for Juliet to change her mind. I scanned through them all. Then looked again. Nothing.

  Well, fine. I hadn’t really expected anything, had I?

  With a sigh, I thumbed off the tablet. Time to go home, make myself something healthy to eat. Call my mom. We’d texted, and I’d told her I was really busy at work, but I could tell she thought I hadn’t called back the night before because I was mad at her.

  I wasn’t mad, though. I didn’t know exactly what I was. I rummaged in my bag to make sure I still had my phone.

  “Yesterday, she had no coat. Today, she has two,” a familiar voice drawled.

  Damien.

  Standing in front of me. No packages, just his thumbs stuck in the front pockets of his jeans, a deep blue muffler wrapped round his neck with stars knitted in with sparkly silver yarn. “Remember me?” he prompted. “The guy you ditched yesterday.”

  “I didn’t ditch you.” I stood and tugged the end of his muffler, absurdly pleased to see him. “Not your usual fashion statement.”

  He glanced down and grimaced. “My stepmum. She knits. A lot. What can I say—it’s warm and it’s really fucking cold out there, especially on the bike.”

  “You’re riding a bicycle?” I supposed it made sense, doing deliveries.

  But he laughed, raising the pierced brow at me. “Motorbike, luv.”

  Oh. I flushed. Stupid of me.

  “So, what happened to you?” he asked. “You claim you didn’t ditch me, but I came back and hung a while until Blart the mall cop made me skedaddle. I was worried about you.”

  His mall cop remark made me laugh, which was all wrong, since it seemed like I was making fun of him worrying about me. “Sorry! I’m sorry—I mean, my friends came and got me. I was, um, kind of drunk.”

  “Fuck. I knew I should’nt’ve left you. Are you okay now?”

  “Yeah.” I looked up at him, and he really did seem concerned, his eyes as somber as aqua could be. “I guess I’m just a super lightweight when it comes to drinking.”

  “Well, can’t say you didn’t warn me.” He put a hand on top of my head. “You’re shorter today.”

  “No heels.” I pointed a toe to show him my sensible boots. “Thought I’d play it safe.”

  “How’d that work out for you, luv?”

  I took it for a flip question at first, but he seemed to be waiting for an actual answer. I thought over my day, especially compared to the day before. “Boring,” I said.

  He cracked a grin. “Want to come out with me?”

  Despite everything, I hadn’t expected that. “Out—on a date?” I needed to count points. “Now?”

  “Well, sure, now—if you don’t have plans. My bike’s at the meter. Anywhere you want to go. Dinner. Show. Dancing.” He chewed his lip, worrying at the pair of rings. “I might have to draw the line at whiskey, though, the way you’re likely to drink me under the table.”

  “True. With you being such a cheap date and all.” Who was I kidding? He was a five-pointer. Maybe he shouldn’t be, but it was what it
was. No expectations. “Okay.”

  He grinned and crooked an elbow for me. Oddly, it already felt familiar, the feel of his leather jacket under my hand, the scent of cold air, city exhaust, and bay rum. A little too heavy. Maybe I could entice him into a subtler brand. For a Christmas present, maybe, I—no, Marcia. Stop picking out wedding china and just have fun. With a double underline.

  The bike looked big and I eyed it dubiously while I examined the helmet he’d handed me and he packed my second coat into wide panniers on the back. The helmet fit tightly. I found the straps and tried fitting them together like I did it all the time, but they didn’t work like a seat belt or anything. I pulled the helmet off to examine the buckle, my hair crackling and flying up. Just great. I tried smoothing it, then pulled the helmet on again, still fumbling with the straps.

  “Here,” Damien said, his own helmet already on. He took the straps from me, adjusting the slide so it was snug, and buckling it under the corner of my jaw, his face intent as he worked. His eyes flicked to mine. “Has to be tight, to work right. Don’t want to mess up that sharp brain of yours.”

  “You think I have a sharp brain?”

  “Yeah.” He tucked some of my hair into the sides of the helmet, gaze following the movement. “Smarter’n me for sure, but I’m no brainiac.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “No?” His mouth quirked in a bemused smile. “Why not?”

  “Because…” I trailed off, flustered by the way he looked at me. All around, the traffic rumbled, horns blending with bursts of Christmas music from the mall and a rock band at a bar across the street. But it felt like we stood in a bubble. “I, ah, think you’re great.”

  “Do you now?” He feathered a hand down my throat, the other thumb rubbing over my bottom lip. My lips parted and I had the impulse to kiss that thumb. Or taste him. Why not? I flicked out my tongue, a light lick, and he caught his breath, a little click and hiss. “Naughty Marcia,” he murmured, and lowered his mouth to mine.