How Long You Should Wait to Have Sex: a Novel (12 page)

“No, not dates. I mean with my wife. We used to take this picnic everywhere. It’s been a long time since I’ve had the chance to enjoy it. It’s not the kind of thing you eat alone.” Then, in a humorous tone he adds, “I hope you don’t mind that I’m using you as an excuse to indulge in my favorite picnic?”

He’s so cute when he gets all shy about wanting to share the various parts of his life with someone. This is a quality I look out for, which I think some women overlook. My theory is that there are only two types of guys, those who like relationships, and those who don’t. I get so annoyed sometimes listening to women complain about a guy who won’t commit when he’s usually given her every signal from the very start that he’s not a relationship guy. At the same time, a guy like John, who’s been married, and who loves sharing what he enjoys with a woman, also makes it unabashedly clear. He’s a relationship guy, and I just have to show him that I’m a relationship girl, by acting accordingly, unlike last time.

It’s a sunny day, which in San Francisco doesn’t necessarily mean hot, or even comfortable. Today we got lucky, it’s borderline warm. The sun kisses my neck lightly, without inducing a sweat, and the wind isn’t blowing our food around—although it is blowing my hair stragglers into my mouth every time I open it to eat an isolated piece of fruit from the fruit salad. This is my strategy. I will slowly eat one piece of fruit at a time, while he makes a significant dent in the main courses, and then I will take credit for having eaten slightly less than half of the food with him. To be honest, even one piece of pineapple feels like more than I can stomach right now, but I force it down in the name of love, chewing for as long as I can stand to keep it in my mouth.

“Did you try the Brie?” John cuts me a slice, slaps it on a piece of bread and hands it over.

I take it. What choice do I have? I look at it, daunted, wondering how I’m going to get it down.

“It’s un-pasteurized, which makes it illegal and delicious,” he explains excitedly.

“Wow, John, I don’t know if I wanna risk going to jail just so I can eat a piece of cheese.” See, that’s PR magic at work. You find a reasonable excuse why you would but can’t do the thing that you have no desire to do in the first place. He laughs at my ignorance.

“You can’t go to jail for eating it. Just for importing it, selling it, and probably buying it. So basically, I risked my freedom so that you could have that piece of cheese.” Shit, he one-upped me with the excuses. Now I have to eat it.

I take the smallest bite possible of the cheese, avoiding the bread, which has an exponential fill-factor.

“Yummm,” I exclaim enthusiastically, “I can taste the skullduggery.” He cracks up. I am not even lying, though. It genuinely is amazing. And the fact that he broke the law to get it actually does add to the flavor and excitement of eating it. But I really can’t stomach anymore of it right now, so I put it down on my napkin.

“I’m full,” I apologize.

John looks honestly disappointed, “I was sure this would be your favorite.”

“It is! It’s delicious! And I’d love to eat more in a few hours, but right now, I’m just really full.”

“You only had three bites!” John implores. What? Was he counting?!

“I was counting,” he adds, in jest. Do I come clean, or do I let him think I have an eating disorder? This is not as easy of a decision as I would have thought.

“I’m anorexic,” I blurt out, unapologetically.

The look on his face helps me realize that it wasn’t the right choice.

“Okay, I’m not anorexic,” I concede, “which by the way, you should’ve known from the fact that no anorexic has ever come out and openly admitted her anorexia out loud, short of being in a 12-step program!”

He laughs.

“It’s just that… I had a late breakfast.”

“How late,” John probes. I’m pretty sure I know what he’s getting at.

I giggle and go back to plan A, “Okay, maybe I am anorexic.”

“Were you eating when I called?” he pries, amused, “because your mouth sounded full when you picked up the phone.” Ooh, outed! I knew that would come back to bite me in the ass.

“Fine! I was eating. But I came anyway, because I just didn’t want you to have to eat alone. Which you have to admit is really nice of me. I’m here purely out of compassion for you. So, you’re welcome.”

“That is so generous of you!” John jokes, with no knowledge of the fact that this is the second time I’ve heard him use that joke. Then he adds, “Which reminds me to ask: what was that yell all about?”

“How did my generosity remind you to ask about that?” I am obviously stalling.

“It didn’t, but I’ve been meaning to bring it up, and what better time than while you’re feeling generous?”

“Well the answer isn’t that exciting actually. There was a mouse.” Oh, gross, now he thinks I have mice in my place. Way to entice him to come over someday. Smooth, Sam. Really smooth.

“Really? Are you sure it wasn’t a rat?” I’m starting to think he doesn’t believe me.

“No. What’s the difference?” I play along.

“Well, what did it look like?” he taunts.

“It was brownish, and furry, and fast—with a tail. I hardly saw it.”

“And it made you happy?” Why is he still smiling?

“No. Why would it make me happy?”

“I don’t know, but your scream didn’t sound scared, so much as it sounded joyous.” My face goes pale. He laughs at me compassionately, “It’s okay for you to be excited that I called, Samantha. When you said you’d go out with me, I was screaming inside, too.” He says all the right things.

~

When we’re done eating, he leads me by the hand to the water’s edge, where we casually stroll beside the breaking waves. To see us, so comfortable around each other, you might not have recognized that we had only known each other since yesterday. Of course for me, this was already the third time we were hanging out, but he was only on day two of the Samantha Harper experience. Somehow, he still acts as if he’s known me intimately for years.

“I’m sorry you wasted your romantic picnic move on a day when I wasn’t hungry.” Why would I bring that up? He’s probably forgotten the whole thing by now, so I have to assume I brought this up because I don’t like to let a person forget so easily the ways in which I’m an idiot. Thankfully, he has his own interpretation of my statement.

“So you agree that it was romantic?” he’s the one taking a little self-booster now. I can respect that.

“Romance is one of your best qualities, so far,” I say, in hopes of encouraging more of it with positive reinforcement.

“It’s your fault, you know. Ever since I found out you’re exactly what I’m looking for, I’ve been forced to step it up.”

I wanna be flattered, but I’m a little confused right now, “So at what point did you find out?”

He thinks about it, and then, “I think it was the moment I saw you.”

Okay, so now I’m a lot confused, as that was not the answer I was hoping for. If he had said, “This morning when I saw you”—fine. Or, “I fell for you when you made that joke about being anorexic”—okay. Or even, “It was the moment when you turned me down for sex, and I realized that you were gonna make me earn you.” Any of those would have been acceptable answers, because all of them would have come
after
the moment that changed things in this do-over. But if he knew from the moment he laid eyes on me, then why didn’t he call me after I had sex with him?!

“So what happened next?” I retort, half-forgetting that he has no idea what I’m talking about.

“Next, I got to know more about you, and found out how much we have in common, and I knew I was fucked,” he says whimsically.

Still it seems clear to me that for some inexplicable reason, he just feels more strongly about me because I didn’t go home with him last night.

“Do you think you would still feel that way about me if I’d gone home with you last night?” I pry, because curiosity has put a muffle on my good judgment.

“Definitely!” What a liar! “I mean, it’s for the best that you didn’t, though.” Okay, not totally a liar. But still, why does it matter?

“Really? You think it would’ve made a difference?”

“No. I’m just glad we didn’t, because you seem really great, and I want to get to know you better.”

“And everyone knows it’s impossible to get to know a person
after
you’ve had sex!” I’m joking to his face, but inside, I’m not really.

“It’s just different,” he justifies unemotionally. “I think you feel different. Don’t you?”
No. I still liked you after we did it.

“How do you mean?”

“I don’t know. It’s like once you do that, then that’s what the relationship becomes all about. And then it’s harder to see if there’s anything else there. And I like you enough that I wanna find out what we could be.”

Wow, that was actually a good reason. I mean, if that’s how he sees it, then no wonder he gave up on me so fast. Now I feel stupid for having secretly gotten mad at him over not calling me in an alternate reality that he doesn’t even know existed. Now I feel stupid for doubting him, and even stupider for having jumped into bed with him last time.

I think he can feel me calming down, and opening up my heart to him, because he pulls me close and holds me in his arms. I feel good. Warm. And actually cared for by a guy I just met last night.

“So,” he starts in, “why don’t you have any plans on your birthday?”

“I do. They’re throwing me a surprise party later.”

He laughs, “Leave it to you to know about it.”

“Wanna come?”

“Really?” I’m surprised to find out that he’s surprised that I would invite him. Little does he know, that he is just the proof I need to show my judgmental co-workers that I can fix anything! That said, I don’t want it to be a total ambush, so I decide to warn him about one little thing…

“You should know, my parents are gonna be there. So before you answer, I just wanna put the premature meeting of the folks on the table.”

He laughs, “I would love to meet the people who made and molded you into the quirky little package that you are. Yes! Let’s do this thing!”

Wow. That’s a lot more enthusiasm than even I was expecting. And he is so not afraid of meeting my parents! This has never happened before, which begs the question, “Is something wrong with this guy?”

No! He’s just sane, and realizes that parents are people, too. It doesn’t have to mean anything… That said, if it does mean something, that’s not a bad thing either. Now let’s just hope my parents don’t scare him off from the whole idea of dating me. Can’t worry about that now, I need this win. I can’t believe he’s coming to the party with me! If I had known it was this easy, I would’ve stopped sleeping with people ages ago!

Chapter 14

Knowing about your own surprise party is a great opportunity to be awesome. This time, when my boss calls to ask me to perform the awful task of going into the office on a Saturday, I couldn’t be more cheery.

“You’re the boss. I wanna do whatever is gonna make you happy!” I’ll bet he never knew I was such a “Yes Man” before.

When Lacey calls to finalize our plans for tonight, I tell her about my errand at 7:30, and that I’ll meet her at the restaurant at 8pm. She insists on picking me up, I imagine because she’s responsible for getting me to the surprise party. Only problem is I’ve already made plans with John to pick me up and run the “errand” with me.

“Oh, and by the way, I invited him to join us for dinner.”

“Are you sure that’s what you want?” she says, exactly like she did last time.

“Yeah, it’s my birthday. I want him to be there.”

“Sure, as long as you don’t think it’ll be too uncomfortable,” she says again, uncharacteristically understandingly.

Ohhhhhh. That’s what she was talking about last time. She knows that my boss and my parents and all my co-workers will be there. This wasn’t about her at all. She really sincerely is concerned about whether or not I’m ready to introduce a guy I’ve known for one day to pretty much everybody in my life. That is so sweet and thoughtful of her to try to warn me. I’m just realizing how torn she must’ve been at this point between wanting to tell me and not wanting to ruin the surprise.

In normal circumstances Lacey would be right, too. I would want to get to know John better before introducing him to my whole world. But this time it’s different. I know how impressed my boss and my friends will be that I pulled off this feat, and actually found my guy on the night I determined. Also, I’ve already warned John that my parents would be there, and he seems okay with it. Let’s just hope they don’t embarrass me too much with asking him weird questions or telling him about all the dumb things I did as a teenager.

“Thanks for worrying about it, Lacey, but I think it’ll be fun for John to start meeting people.”

“What do you mean by ‘people’?” Lacey demands.

Oh, crap, did I just give away that I know about the surprise? Think fast, Sam.

“Oh, um, I just meant you—since you guys didn’t really get to talk at the bar—and hopefully things will continue to go well, and he’ll meet everyone else soon after that.”

“Yeah…” she hesitates to warn me again, I can tell.

I don’t want her to blow it, so I cut her off at the pass, “Listen, I should go get ready.”

“I really think we should head over to the restaurant together,” she insists. She’s clearly concerned about getting me to the office for the surprise.

“It’s okay. John is coming to pick me up. But I’ll text you right when we’re leaving.”

“Fine!” she seems annoyed. “But don’t forget, cuz if you don’t text me when you leave, I may not be at the restaurant on time. And I don’t want to leave you waiting for me on
your
birthday.”

“You know what, I’ll even text you a second time as I get to my office to pick up that thing. I can give you a play by play, every step of the way, if you want.” I don’t mind helping her pull off this surprise.

“Yeah, do that. Give me the play by play. When you leave the house, when you get to the office, when you leave the office, I want to know your ETA the whole way.”