Skye’s romantic advice, while time-tested and all but guaranteed to succeed, lacked one tiny but crucial ingredient: a scrap of human dignity. I had to face facts. Despite what the beer commercials aired during the Super Bowl would have one believe, getting a man trashed and then leaping on him like a panther from the trees is not going to enhance one’s long-term sexual magnetism. If Flynn didn’t want to be with me, I certainly wasn’t going to beg and/or slip him a roofie.
I decided to stick to my original plan: play by his rules, new and unfathomable though they were, and beat him at his own game with my frosty poise. If he wasn’t attracted to me, I’d still get out of this with the tattered remains of my self-esteem, then leave the state. And if he was attracted to me…well, he’d have to do some serious groveling to prove it. I was thinking along the lines of roses, rare gems and many lavish apologies.
Either way, I had the upper hand. My plan was diabolical in its simplicity. Foolproof. Right?
“What time is it now?” I leaned into the cool breeze blowing off Lake Weyburn as we strolled along the shore.
Flynn checked his watch. “We’re five minutes closer to death than the last time you asked that. What’s going on with you?”
I took off the baseball cap he’d insisted I wear (along with half a bottle of sunscreen) and let my hair whip around in the wind. “Nothing. I just want to make sure we have time to change before dinner.”
“We do.” He stopped his progress through the sand and plunked down on the dunes, tugging me down next to him. Sunset at the lakeshore. Very romantic. Now if only we could drum up some sweeping background music and two adults who could discuss a relationship without making reference to cars, home repair, or other Time-Life book topics.
We sat in silence and watched the waves.
He would always be my first love, but the problem with that title was that it was a one-shot deal. We could never go back to the way things were when we were younger. He’d changed and I’d changed…but had we changed enough to overcome the flaws that wrenched us apart in the first place?
He cleared his throat. “Okay. If the reservations are at eight, we should get going.”
“Yeah.” The flaming summer sun reflected in his eyes, but I saw twin autumn pools underneath, deep and still and cool.
“I’m starving,” he warned. “Is this place going to be some post-modern dive where you can only get wheatless pasta and vegetarian sushi?”
I struggled to my feet, ignoring the outstretched hand he offered to help me up. “It should be great. Leah recommended it. She said it reminded her of some organic fusion bistro in San Francisco.”
He shook his head and tossed me his sweatshirt. “Well, that answers that question. Any chance we can pick up a pizza on the way?”
Normally, I would have gotten swanked out in some fail-safe, black-on-black outfit, but upon returning to Flynn’s place, I discovered that my Saturday night packing job had been as disorganized as my thought process. My options were limited to what I’d “borrowed” from Skye’s bureau: sweatpants, T-shirts and lingerie. Oops. Should have skipped the Cubs game today and hit the mall. Ever resourceful, I threw on a simple gray silk chemise. Technically underwear, but who really allows themselves to be hemmed in by such arbitrary categorizations?
Doing the best I could with my overachieving hair, strappy silver sandals, the could-pass-as-a-dress chemise, and a lot of false confidence, I tried to transform myself into a sultry siren à la Catherine Zeta-Jones.
When I emerged from the bathroom, Flynn, who had completed his wardrobe and grooming routine in four minutes flat, was kicked back watching ESPN. He turned his head and took his time looking me up and down. This is what he said:
“Aren’t you ready yet?”
Then he turned back to the game.
I would bet the Roof Rat that Catherine Zeta-Jones has never heard “Aren’t you ready yet?” in her life.
I retreated to the bathroom, stared at myself in the mirror, and wondered what was going on with him now. The chemise, though bearing a Victoria’s Secret label, was a perfectly respectable slip that fell to just above the knee. And okay, my skin was alternately sunburned and chalky white, my hair was in a state of anarchy, and I was still flatter than Lara Flynn Boyle. But I looked the same as I had last night and he’d wanted me then.
Screw it. I was done letting him jerk me around. Hell would freeze over before I’d humiliate myself in front of him again.
“Let’s get a bottle of red wine,” I suggested the minute we sat down at Café Guaio.
The low ceilings, dim lights, and dusty brick walls lent the place an intimate, speakeasy atmosphere. Black and white photos of the Rat Pack adorned the entryway and little green tendrils of ivy twisted to the ceiling.
Flynn had donned one of his newer gray T-shirts for the evening, and as a couple, we looked very grim and very goal-oriented. We were really applying ourselves to the task of having a pleasant evening.
“You want red wine?” he asked. “I thought you didn’t like red wine.”
“I didn’t like red wine in high school because I always drank too much of it and threw up. But I like to think I’ve gotten a little more sophisticated since then.”
While he flagged down the waiter and ordered a Shiraz, I glanced around at our fellow diners. They all appeared to be in full Catherine Zeta-Jones mode. Our table remained the lone desert island of tension in a sea of celebration and general joie de vivre. This whole “slowing down” thing didn’t seem to be working out so well.
The wine arrived just as I was about to head to the ladies’ room to escape the awkward silence between us.
Flynn filled both our glasses halfway and we clinked them together, meeting each other’s gazes with equal parts speculation and suspicion. “Here’s to building a solid foundation.”
Gag.
I took a small swallow of wine and tried to dredge up something to talk about. Something other than: sex, betrayal, cars, houses, bass players, and small business failure rates.
“Hey! Would you like to hear the story of how I got lost in the catacombs in Rome?”
By the time a server finally deigned to take our dinner order, I was somehow, inexplicably, on my third glass of Shiraz. I wasn’t really hungry anymore, but I was feeling much more sociable.
“You know what?” I asked the server, who politely waited with pen in hand. “I’m just going to have a peach martini.”
Flynn raised an eyebrow. “You sure that’s a good idea?”
“I have more good ideas before nine A.M. than most people have all day.” I took a delicate, ladylike sip of the wine and tossed a saucy grin his way.
“Fine. It’s your funeral.”
A warm rosy flush spread through my body, smoothing down the sharp ridges of tension. I poured myself another glass, dribbling a spotty pink trail on the tablebloth. “Oops.”
Flynn refrained from comment, but gave me a very pointed look.
“What?” I demanded. “Do you have something you’d like to say?”
He half-smiled and toasted me with his water glass. “I know better than that. There’s no point in telling you to do anything right now, because you’ll either ignore me or do the opposite. You’re contrary enough when you’re sober, but now? Forget it.”
I gasped in outraged modesty. “That’s not very chivalrous.”
He pushed my hair away from the open flame of the candle. “But it is true.”
The waiter reappeared with my martini and Flynn’s steak. I rocked back into my chair, swamped for a moment by the swirls of smoke and music and light. The conversations going on around us blended into one thick hum.
By the time he finished his meal, I was practically Dorothy Parker: wry, chatty, with bon mots galore. Perhaps wine was the true secret to social success.
“Wow,” I said out loud, “Dale Carnegie must have been a raging alcoholic.”
He stared at me. “What?”
“Oh…” He couldn’t hear my inner monologue. Right. “Yeah, see, I was just thinking about how to win friends and influence people, and…”
“You and the red wine. Some things never change.” He shook his head. “I think you’ve had enough, tiger.”
I rolled my eyes. The world went spinning off its axis. “To pura—to para phrase William Blake: ‘You never know what is enough until you know what is too much.’ ”
I had had way too much. I kept my eyes closed during the ride back to Flynn’s apartment, trying to ignore the cloying sweetness of the fruity martinis rising in the back of my throat.
He frog-marched me into his bedroom like Fred Astaire slogging a doped-up Ginger Rogers. I winced and rubbed my eyes as he snapped on the glaring overhead light.
“Ugh. Mayday. Turn it off.” I gave up trying to balance on my sandals and leaned back against the closet door.
“Hang on one second.” He crossed the room to the lamp on the bedside table. The room went soft and muted as he turned off the overhead light.
I threw myself down on the bed. “I can’t walk another step in these heels.”
He sighed and crouched down next to me. “You’re impossible.”
“It’s part of my charm.”
He tried to figure out the complicated criss-cross straps of my sandals. “Do me a favor, Geary. Next time you decide to go swimming in wine, wear more practical shoes.”
“Sorry.” But I couldn’t even get it together enough to lift up my head, let alone slip my toes out of the designer stilettos. “That Stuart Weitzman is a crafty one.”
“Okay.” The nerves in my feet tingled back to life as he tossed the sandals to the floor. “I’ll be back in thirty seconds. Try to not to fall asleep or do any permanent tissue damage while I’m gone.”
Half a minute later, he was shaking me awake. “Hang on a second. Drink this before you pass out.” He shoved a glass of water in my face.
I scowled up at him. “Huh-uh. I’m tired.”
“I know you are, sweetheart, but if you don’t hydrate, you’re going to be even more miserable in the morning.” He stroked the hair back from my temples.
I knew he was going to keep hounding me until I complied, so I sat up and drank. Then I rolled over onto my stomach, tugged the hemline of my silk chemise down, and propped my face up on my hands. “Hey. You want to know a secret?”
He looked guarded, a man with one hand on the fire extinguisher and one hand on the emergency brake. “Probably not.”
“Remember those tattoos we got in high school? I still have mine.” I yanked down the low-cut back of my dress to expose the masterpiece in question, a little red heart overlaid with a black capital F.
He glanced at it, then studied the wall behind my head as if committing the wallpaper print to memory. “Of course you still have it. Where did you expect it to go?”
“I could have had it removed,” I pointed out. “Body mutilation is so last millennium. Lots of people had their tattoos lasered off. But I didn’t.”
He nodded. “Good to know.”
I pressed my cheek against the comforter. I could smell the alcohol on my own breath. “Do you still have yours?”
He seemed to be counting the floorboards. “Yeah.”
I bounced into a sitting position. “Let’s see.”
“You want to see it?” He looked skeptical, but began untucking the gray T-shirt from his khakis. “Why do you want to see it?”
“Because every time I wear a midriff-baring top or try on clothes in a communal dressing room, someone asks what the F is for in the heart, and I have to go through this long explanation. I just want to make sure the other half is still around.” I folded my legs, dropped my hands on my knees, and waited.
But he had gotten derailed earlier in my story. “How often do you wear midriff-baring tops?”
I shook my head and braced myself against the ensuing dizziness. “That’s not the point of the story.”
“They have communal changing rooms for women?” He seemed fascinated by this prospect.
My patience ran out. “Shut up and take it off, baby.” I tugged at the hem of his shirt and he acquiesced, slowly pulling the shirt over his head.
I tried not to stare. Our encounter last night had been a breathless, blazing dance in the dark, but now I had an opportunity to really ogle him. And the view from here was pretty damn good.
There it was, bold and clear against his back. The thin black circle with a lowercase f inside. The trademark f, we’d called it. The anarchy f.
“That still looks fabulous.” I leaned over and bestowed a loud, wet kiss on our trademark.
He froze for a moment, then pulled away and stood up. “Okay, that’s enough of that.”
Foiled again. He was backing toward the bathroom, and I sat back and sighed. Didn’t even make a token effort not to stare. “Why?”
He held out yet another glass of cold tap water, then leaned against the wall and folded his arms over his bare chest. “Because you’re in no condition for any of this. I thought you were passing out?”
“No. That was a vicious rumor.” I drank the water and tucked my bare feet under the pillows. “I’m so glad you still have the tattoo.”
Now he was smiling back at me. “Why?”
“Because of Brunelleschi,” I said earnestly.
He sat down next to me and wrested the empty glass out of my hand. “God, I can’t wait till you sober up. What the hell are you talking about?”
“Well, you see…” I said. And that was when I threw up.