HOLLY
After saying good-bye to Jessie and Nat (and mouthing an exaggerated Thank you to them when Sven wasn’t looking), I follow him to his car, parked about a half block away. Ick. A white BMW. I don’t know why, but I find BMWs annoying. They don’t cut me off in traffic quite as often as Audis, but pretty close. Somehow, he didn’t seem like the type to buy a …
What is wrong with me? I am on a date with the guy I have had a crush on for months, and the little voice in my head is already trying to find fault with him.
Wait, is this a date? Is he just driving me home because Nat asked him to? I mean, he did come to the bar and hang out with me, but lots of my friends showed up tonight. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything. How can I figure out if this is an actual date?
“So…” I begin awkwardly as he clicks his car alarm and opens the passenger door for me. “Are you hungry? If you’re still awake, we could go get something to—”
Sven leans in and kisses me hungrily. So I guess he was hungry—just not for food.
I’m so not mad at that. Yay! I’m on a date!
We immediately begin pawing each other out there on the street. Disgusting, lustful open-mouth kissing that makes any accidental spectators look away uncomfortably, and makes your friends disdainfully advise, “Get a room.”
“Do you want to go somewhere a little more private?” Sven asks me between hyperventilated breaths.
“Mm-hmm,” I mumble as I come up for air between kisses. We pull away from each other just long enough for me to get into the car and for him to close my door and walk around to the driver’s side …
Where I am already leaning over from the passenger’s seat, waiting for my next kiss. Sven gets in and pulls me onto his lap. The make-out session gets even hotter. I unbutton his shirt as he unzips the back of my dress and unhooks my bra.
Yikes. Slut alert.
I pull away from the tongue trading, smile, give him a closed-mouth kiss, and return to my seat. “I would love to see your apartment.”
Sven grins and turns on his car. “We’ll be there in five minutes.”
We make out at every red light. At one point, the car behind us honks angrily. Green light.
We make out after he parks, we make out as we walk the pathway to his apartment. We stop kissing at his doorstep only long enough for him to find his keys.
As he fishes around in his pockets, I notice I smell like … what the hell is that? Patchouli?
Never mind. He finds his key, opens the door, and pushes me up against his doorway.
I wrap my legs around him, and he carries me through the dark living room to his bedroom.
Wait—right to the bedroom? We’re not even going to make out on the couch for a little while? Aren’t we going to do a little bit of the dance of seduction?
“Do you want to slow down a little?” I ask as he moves his hands up my dress.
“I don’t need to. Do you?” he asks as he pulls my dress over my head in one quick maneuver.
Fortunately, I’m wearing pretty underwear. I mean, no, it’s not the red lace I just bought, because I didn’t know he was coming to opening night, but it’s still … Oh, hello, he’s really good at that.
Let’s just say the next thirty minutes are very nice.
* * *
Which I wish I could say about the thirty minutes after that.
I am lying in Sven’s bed in pitch dark, waiting for him to return from the bathroom. He jumped up the moment we were done, said, “Can you excuse me for a moment?” then left me in the dark to run a shower.
First off, that’s weird. But also, he didn’t ask me to join him. And now I smell like whatever the hell cologne he was wearing. I lift my arm to sniff. Yuck.
But wait, I think I’m also smelling rotten food. What is that? Pizza? Very old pizza? Very young blue cheese? Dirty socks?
I sit up and look around. My eyes have adjusted to the dark enough to see his floor is completely covered in clothes. God knows what’s under those clothes. I hear the shower go off and lie back down as Sven takes his time coming out of the bathroom.
The moment his door opens, I am slammed with the stench of that cologne. Seriously, how have I not noticed that before? It makes Axe body spray seem subtle.
Sven lies down next to me and puts out his arms, silently inviting me to rest my head on his chest and fall asleep.
I kiss him once, then take my spot. I must say, I sure like this spot.
Except his heart is beating fast enough to rocket out of his chest and onto the ceiling. I move my ear over to listen. “Your heart’s thumping like a jackrabbit.”
Sven doesn’t respond. Both of us just lie there awkwardly in silence.
“Would you mind going to your own bed?” Sven asks me out of the blue.
I pop my head up, more shocked than I guess I should be. “You want me to leave?”
Sven quickly sits up, clearly relieved to have me off of him. “It’s nothing personal. I just have a problem falling asleep with someone in my bed. It’s not you, it’s me.”
Well, of course it’s him. WTF? Who doesn’t want to have a naked woman in his bed? Hell, in a few hours I’ll be ready for Round Two. Does this mean nothing????
“I normally I wouldn’t ask,” Sven says apologetically. “But it’s not like I’m really kicking you out. You’re just next door. You can just go home, shower, we’ll both get some sleep, and then in the morning you can come back and we’ll have some more fun, and then I can make you breakfast.”
Wait, I’m the one who needs the shower?
Twenty-two-year-old me would have gotten emotional. Would have wondered what she did wrong.
But I’m too old for this.
I immediately get up and grab my clothes. “You smell like a wet grave,” I announce as I throw my dress over my head, not bothering to take the time to put my bra back on. “And your room smells like a combination of cat litter and feet.”
“Okay, never mind. You’re mad. You can stay.”
“Can I?” I ask sarcastically as I shimmy into my underwear. “You know … I have to ask, no judgment,” I begin, with judgment seeping through my pores, “as good-looking as you are, what on earth makes you think it’s okay to have sex with a woman for the first time, then immediately jump out of bed, shower, then ask her to leave?”
He tells me something in Swedish.
“Oh, my fucking God!” I exclaim as I yank my bra off the floor and storm out of his bedroom.
“Wait,” he yells from the bedroom, “I’m trying to think of how to translate my explanation into English.”
I grab my purse and let myself out. “Instead, why don’t you tell me how to say ‘Go fuck yourself’ in Swedish.”
Pretty sure he answered me as I slammed his front door.