“There is a reason,” I said, standing. “You guys have all these fancy ways of trying to get laid when the answer is very simple.”
“Oh, yeah?” He was freakishly close to me for some reason, and I had to tilt my head back to see his face. “Enlighten me, Georgina.”
“I already did. He and I share a common interest—baseball.” I tugged Bruno and started walking. “Catching a game sounds like the perfect date to me, and on top of that, he was a nice guy.”
“He just assumed you were single, despite the fact that you were at a bar with six guys?” Sebastian asked, catching up to me in a few long strides.
“No. He asked if you were my boyfriend.”
“He did?” Sebastian tore the hotdog in half. “Me specifically?”
“Yep. That reminds me—you guys published an article about introducing a new girlfriend to your friends.”
“Hmm.” Sebastian closed one eye. “Yes. February 2015.”
“What about trying that from the girlfriend’s point-of-view? Get a guest writer with a crisp comedic voice. Meeting a guy’s friends is ripe for humor. Plus, it brings the female presence Modern Man desperately needs.”
Instead of pointing out the flaws in my idea, he seemed to consider it, which was progress. But then he said as he tore the hotdog into little pieces, “I wonder what made him think of all the guys, I was your boyfriend.”
I wasn’t sure whether he meant that as an insult, but he had a point. Sebastian and I were least likely to partner up. Then I realized with a start that I’d forgotten to fear this time away from the office with Sebastian. And that we were almost behaving like friends.
“What are you doing to that hotdog?” I asked when I noticed he hadn’t eaten a bite, just torn it up in the paper tray.
He reached in his trousers pocket and pulled out Bruno’s meds. I hadn’t even seen him pick them up. “For the brute.”
“You brought his pills?” I asked.
He stuffed them into the hotdog chunks and fed them to Bruno, who swallowed them right down without a fight. We’d done the hotdog thing plenty of times before, but always at home where I boiled them myself.
“Wow,” I said, not even trying to hide my awe. “Good boy.”
Sebastian smiled, clearly pleased with himself. “Thank you.”
I didn’t know how to respond to this new side of Sebastian. In the span of one morning, he’d cleaned vomit, taken care of my dog, and gotten us outdoors for some vitamin D. My mood had improved considerably seeing Bruno run free for the first time in a while. “No, thank you,” I said as I stepped outside the park. “Did you have pets—”
“Watch out,” Sebastian said, grabbing my arm to pull me backward.
“To your left,” a bike tour guide said into a small, handheld megaphone as he dinged his bell at me, “you’ll see a busy New York power couple grabbing some rare alone time on their lunch breaks.”
Bruno barked at the fleet, and Sebastian’s hand remained firmly on my bicep, even as the last cyclist pedaled by. A tornado of leaves followed, swirling around our feet. Bruno fell silent. A breeze blew my hair into my lipstick and Sebastian glanced at my mouth, then back up. New York City had many personalities. With the fall sun and a moment of quiet, it became serene. Maybe even a little romantic. I could see now that Sebastian’s eyes weren’t as green as I’d thought. They shaded into blue like the calm waters of the Mediterranean. Stillness in the city, and also in his eyes, was so rare and unexpected, that it almost felt wrong. Was this the calm before a storm, or were we standing in the eye of it?
As if Sebastian’s thoughts had followed the exact same course, his face smoothed, and he shook his head. “You have all these little fucking freckles,” he said. “It’s like someone sprinkled you with cinnamon to serve you up as breakfast.”
I gaped at him, but was his statement really that surprising? Like ninety-nine percent of redheaded children, I’d grown up being teased about my freckles. And as an adult, Neal would often compliment my skill for covering them up with concealer.
“Excuse me,” I said, pulling my arm back to cross it over my chest. Instantly, the warmth of his hand receded. I repeated my mom’s words of reassurance to me. “They give me character.”
“You already have enough characters for a George R.R. Martin novel.”
If Sebastian was implying I had multiple personalities, well, that might’ve been true, but what gave him the right? He wasn’t my therapist or my mother or even my friend. “Whatever.” I scoffed. “We should get back to the office.”
“Tell me the truth. Did you ask François to ask you out?”
I turned on my heel to head back. “Do you want me to tell everyone you’re acting like a sore loser?”
“I’m not asking because of the bet. I just don’t want you to feel obligated to go through with this ‘date.’” He made exaggerated and highly insulting air quotes. “What do you think, Bruno? Should she just cancel?”
“I’m not canceling a date I actually want to go on,” I said. “Geez. You’d give anything to see me suffer, wouldn’t you? You probably keep a notebook of things that annoy me.”
“Like your freckles and cinnamon.”
“Cinnamon doesn’t annoy me. Being likened to a cinnamon bun does.”
“And then there’s me,” he said. “I obviously top the list.”
“So, you do have a notebook.”
“Of course not. I keep the list on my phone for easy access.”
I trained my eyes forward but heard the smile in his voice.
We paused for a cab rounding the corner, then crossed the street. “I’m going to need proof of this alleged date, you know,” he added.
“Fine,” I said. “That shouldn’t be a problem.”
His smirk gave him away. He didn’t believe there was a date.
Well, if proof was what he wanted, I’d find a way to give it to him. That gave me even more reasons to not only go on the date, but to spite Sebastian by enjoying it.
12
Georgina
It was entirely possible my “common interest” revelation was a dud. I would’ve thought two baseball fans at a Yankees game would have lots to talk about, but with several innings left, François and I were struggling to keep the conversation going. Or I was struggling. He was just watching the game.
“Do you like beer?” I asked him.
In a Yankees cap and Louisiana State polo shirt, an odd combination I still hadn’t gotten used to, François leaned his elbows on his knees as the opposing team’s first baseman moved to the batter’s box. “I was drinking one when we met, remember?”
“Right.” I waited for him to catch on to my line of thinking, but he just eyed the mound as if he was up to bat. “I can go get us one,” I volunteered.
“I don’t typically drink before the sun sets,” he said, glancing back at me. “Do you?”
“Well, no,” I said. Did brunch cocktails count? “But it is baseball. The rules are different on the diamond, François.”
“Call me Frank.” He rubbed his nose. “I don’t want to be fuzzy for the rest of the game, but go ahead if you want.”
I hated that Neal popped into my mind on my first date since our breakup, but he’d said that same thing a lot—if you want—and in a way that made it clear he disapproved. We could hire a cleaner if I wanted, even though we wouldn’t have an issue if I just picked up after myself more. Skipping the gym was fine if you don’t mind those extra pounds, but he’d be cycling the length of Brooklyn. If that’s how you want to spend the little money we have he’d say in the same tone when I’d look up Cliffs of Moher cruises.
I doubted Frank had meant it that way—it was my own issues that made it feel combative—but how had I gotten mixed up with a guy who was too tightly wound to day drink? Baseball was not the kind of sport that required a lot of concentration, even for the most devoted fan. And it was usually better with beer because the innings could drag sometimes. But maybe I wasn’t being fair. Getting buzzed alone didn’t sound all that appealing anyway.