Julie took one long look at the table tucked in the far right corner of the restaurant along the back wall, and her jaw dropped. “There’s no way!”
She and Liz stood next to the empty hostess station waiting to be escorted to their party, but she was still shaking her head in disbelief. This was getting to be too much. She’d agreed to meet new guys, and dinner didn’t seem like the worst idea, considering she’d skimped on lunch to give herself a believable sickly pallor when she lied to Elise.
Everything in my life is over the fucking top.
The lights were soft and muted. Lovely. The din of a few dozen conversations mixed in with bluesy elevator music and the clank of silverware against gold-rimmed flatware rooted her in place. She stared across the room still dumbfounded.
The tides were turning, but definitely not in her favor.
She knew her life needed an overhaul, but to go this far was the last straw.
Julie glared at Liz, who stood beside her with a smug look on her face, and stormed over to the packed restaurant door. The smell of fresh-baked bread and hearty Italian food with robust and tangy seasonings rushed through, warm and welcoming despite her hasty exit.
When Liz came flying out behind her, Julie stared at Liz with her mouth agape. Questions laced between her perfectly arched brows. “Am I a good person?”
Julie paced the sidewalk. “I mean, just tell me, Liz. Have I done something so wrong with my life to deserve this?” She was also talking to God, if on the off chance he was listening.
She pinched the bridge of her nose between her finger and thumb. “My life is literally circling the bowl, and I’m so over it. First Patrick, then Elise cock-blocked me at work today. Did I tell you that? That bitch basically told me that she won’t promote me because she’ll fail without me.”
Liz let out a loud gasp. “Are you fucking kidding me?” She was leaning on the painted brick ledge of the restaurant storefront window with her legs and arms crossed.
“No. And now, just to add insult to injury, as if my life wasn’t laughable already, this guy is the one you thought would help jumpstart the new Julie? Nico?”
Liz tilted her head to the side, lips screwed into a knot as she watched through slitted eyes as Julie paced the sidewalk.
She tried to ignore the annoyed twist of Liz’s face. Though, under the weight of her friend’s stare, a flush of heat crawled over her skin. She knew that look well--the contemplative side eye and the pursed full lips that screamed disapproval.
Every time she mentioned her crappy life, Liz gave her a pitied look as if to get a good view of what a woe is me, pathetic woman looked like.
They were basically playing the quiet game. Julie was usually the certain failure who couldn’t stand the thick silence and would speak first, but she could tell Liz had something else to get off her chest.
When Julie arrived to her apartment earlier, Liz had welcomed her with a curt “hey,” which was so unlike her usual bubbly greeting. She was a hugger and an ear-to-ear grinner when she was with friends. No matter how long it had been since they last saw or talked to one another, they shrieked and made a scene as if it had been years.
Add in the fact, that she’d cracked her neck at least two or three times and Liz had basically been a mute the whole car ride over. It was obvious that she was peeved about something.
So, Julie let her have the floor.
“What the hell is going on with you lately? I thought you’d be happy. Amused, at least. The way you talked about him,” Liz trailed off letting the words hang in the air. “The way you described him down to his pores and painted that whole masterpiece image of him for me on the phone earlier, I thought you’d be happy.”
Under any other circumstances, she would be happy. It was just that at this juncture in her, like when everything was on a downward spiral, fairytales were too risky. And outside of Nico’s looks, everything she’d heard from his lips said he wasn’t exactly fairytale material.
“He’s actually not a complete tool. Plus, he is really as hot as you said he was,” Liz explained. The hotness factor always the trump card.
Sure, life sucks, but if you’re going to be screwed, let it be by a hot guy.
“If nothing else, maybe you’ll hook up and dust off the cobwebs, so you can finally move on.”
Julie walked the few steps over to the window. In between the second N and the A of “Nona’s Finest Italian” written on the glass, the pair of friends peered at the intimate booth in the back against the wall.
“Look at him,” Liz ordered.
Derrick and Nico were seated at a white-clothed table under the glow of dim lights. Derrick sat on one side and Nico sat across from him dressed in a slim-cut white button-down beneath a navy blazer.
“He is really cute,” Julie admitted and tilted her head as if deciding which was the best angle to really get a good look at him.
“Yes…he is.”
“He does have a nice face…and lips,” Julie continued, almost persuaded. She sighed. “And there are those eyes again.”
The two women’s faces hovered close to the glass, like kids watching puppies in the pet store window. “And even from here, I can see that they’re all dreamy and chocolaty,” Liz added.
“Yeah,” Julie breathed.
Not quite touching the glass, she traced her fingers down from his eyes to his lips. Maybe, it wasn’t such a bad idea. She could just get her feet wet a little. He couldn’t be any worse than Patrick. Nico might be a manwhore, but he had already seen her without her shirt. Maybe he liked curvier girls. And what specifically was so wrong with a man with experience?
Liz interrupted Julie’s inner debate. “Are you going to make out with him through the glass…or should we join them inside?”
It might have been the twinkle lights strung between the trees, or the fact that the sky was all lit up with stars, but the air of romance danced around Julie. Her skin buzzed with excitement, seemingly to the same rhythm as the butterflies afloat in her stomach. Suddenly, the idea of spending the evening in a five-star restaurant with a good-looking guy and good friends didn’t seem so bad.
At the very least, it wouldn’t be boring.
“Think there’s anything upstairs?” Julie asked without taking her eyes off of him. If there was even a hint at an intellect, this could work. She would make it work.
“He’s actually not an idiot. Derrick says he’s a college boy and has a good job. Might be a momma’s boy, though, but you could wean him out of that,” Liz said, as if it were the same as convincing him to change his post-gym underwear.
“Nico and Julie,” Liz muttered, as if testing their names together on her tongue.
“I know. It’s so hot.” Julie sighed. “I’ve already tried it a few times. Nico and Julie have a nice ring to it. Depends on what his last name is though,” she mused, feeling like a teenager again, doodling and trying on names like outfits.
As she said his name to herself, inside the restaurant, Nico and Derrick looked over toward the window.
She wanted to cower and duck away, but where was that going to get her? Instead, she hiked up her big girl panties, smiled, and gave them a small wave. She could play with the beautiful player for a night. “Let’s go in.”
The way Nico’s eyes appraised her as she and Liz approached the table left her thankful she’d given Liz free rein to play dress-up. After a few minutes of going back and forth, they’d settled on a black pencil skirt with a waist-cinching low-cut red blouse that gave her at least the semblance of sexy and classy. She’d opted to forgo a jacket, even though by this time of year, the air conditioning in every restaurant was on full blast.
She allowed her eyes to wash over him for the longest moment. A few chill bumps in exchange for those hungry eyes was well worth it.
Both men stood chivalrously to allow them into the booth, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from Nico.
He was taller than she remembered. Much taller. He had to be something close to a foot taller than she was because she was wearing heels and he still stood head and shoulders over her. She studied his sharp features and his clean cut dark hair, and though she didn’t think it possible, he was more handsome than she imagined. Magazine Photoshop gorgeous. Catalog smolder perfect.
Her heart stumbled and struggled to beat as a tightness squeezed low in her belly. This wasn’t the shower fantasy she remembered from the gym parking lot, but even dry he made her wet.
“Hey, Jules.” Derrick leaned in for a hug. “This is Nico Farfalla. Nico, this is my lady, Liz, and her friend Julie Laurich.”
While Derrick made the introductions, Julie and Nico exchanged a perfunctory handshake, but their mutual stare never wavered. His large hand was warm and strong, his deft fingers long and gentle at once.
“Have we met?” Nico held onto her hand while he narrowed his gaze in question. He bit on his bottom lip, almost like he was picturing her face in a different setting.
He doesn’t even remember me.
Julie could barely concentrate on his question while her hand was still in his. Her hand burned in all the places his skin touched hers.
Liz slid into the booth beside Derrick, but Julie stood planted in the aisle as she waited for a waiter to pass.
Behind him was a fleshy woman in a royal blue wrap dress with poor spatial judgment. She tried to squeeze in between the narrow opening in the aisle, and her hip sent Julie into a tailspin.
With her left hand, Julie latched onto Nico’s shoulder for balance. If it were the other way around, they’d have gone tumbling down, but he was as unbending as a cactus in a desert windstorm. And as steady as he was, his unwavering grip left her shaken somehow.
She hit the hard wall of his chest with both hands. With only the thin fabric of their shirts between them, she was hyperaware of the man underneath the shirt. The hard muscle dunes climbed and dipped over his chest. He smelled fresh and soapy and a little bit woodsy, which made her think of him in the rain again—damn the shower fantasy again. She had to quell the urge to rip the shirt right off of him.
When she met his gaze, a pair of bottomless brown eyes was trained on her, but she quickly looked away.
A smash and dash was sounding better and better by the second.
She looked at him again. Though, with Nico, she wasn’t sure she’d have the willpower to dash. If she was going to do this, she’d have to pull out all the stops.
“You might not recognize me in all these clothes, with makeup and all this fabulousness.” She fanned her hands up in broad strokes, freeing them from his grip, toying with him. “But yes, we’ve met. Twice. Briefly.”
The right corner of his mouth lifted into a sexy grin and a delightful low gravelly laugh rumbled from him as he slid into the booth beside Derrick. Somehow it made Julie happier to know that she had been the cause of such a beautiful sound.
“So, Julie?” he said, patting the space next to him. “Seriously, are you going to tell me how we met, or are we going to have to play twenty questions for me to get it out of you?” That smile trailed the hard tawny line of his jaw to the softened corners of his eyes.
“I’ll give you a hint,” she conceded, sliding in beside him. She was enjoying this game far more than expected. She parted her lips. “Both times there was a car involved. Most recently, there was rain and a car and yelling, but it wasn’t a lover’s quarrel.”
“Ah. A riddle.” He played along, resting his cheek on his forefinger, which Julie found to be adorable.
She playfully leaned in closer to Nico, her nose fighting to choose between the earthy aroma of pasta and buttery bread and the inviting woodsy freshness of Nico’s cologne. They were so close their knees touched. Quickly, she shifted, moving her legs away. She was drawn to him.
He squinted his eyes and studied her for a moment. “That was you in the car last night?” Recognition colored his beautiful face. “The one going crazy in the gym parking lot, with the stained shirt?”
“How lovely of you to remember. Last I checked, a gentleman does not remind on point a woman’s less ladylike moments, but to each his own,” she chided him. Ah sarcasm. “But, to answer your question, yes, one and the same.” Julie laughed as she watched him struggle to reconcile the two mismatched images of her.
“I do clean up well. It’s okay for you to say it. I’ll admit, I looked and felt like shit yesterday.”
Nico raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, but I knew there was potential. For sure.”
At his honesty, the four of them joined in laughter.
“Right? That’s what I said,” Liz added as she gave Julie a half-ass kick under the table. “Bet you never thought you’d see her again, did you?” She glanced over at Julie and winked.