Mike, Mike & Me (13 page)

“You know you’re not going to cheat on Mike,” she told me when I called her from the office to remind her I’d be home late. “There’s nothing wrong with going out and having a little fun with a platonic male friend.”

“He’s not even my friend, Valerie. He’s just some guy I met.”

“Well, he might become your friend. And you can never have too many of those.”

No, you couldn’t. Everybody needed friends, I told myself.

But I couldn’t help thinking about Harry and Sally in that movie I’d just seen. Harry claimed that it was impossible for a man and a woman to be “just friends.” And by the end of the movie, that theory was proven.

Okay, granted, it was just a movie. I mean, I saw
Batman
last week and I don’t exactly anticipate any leotarded Caped Crusader sightings here in Gotham in the near future.

“Besides,” Valerie went on, “you and Mike are having trouble. For all you know, he might dump you and move to San Francisco. It’s good to keep your options open.”

“Valerie! Mike is not going to dump me.”

She was silent. I knew she was wearing that tight-lipped, raised-eyebrowed y
ou never know
expression of hers.

So here I was, and there was my possible future platonic friend, sitting at a table by the window munching tortilla chips and salsa.

“Beau!”

He really looked happy to see me. Or maybe it was more relieved.

He stood and clasped both of my hands in his, then pulled out a chair for me. “I was worried you weren’t going to show.”

“Why would you think that?” I asked airily, sinking into the chair, telling myself that my weak knees had nothing to do with those awesome dimples of his, or the fact that we were practically holding hands.

“You’re late,” he said, letting my fingers slip from his grasp all too soon. “And I’m paranoid.”

He was paranoid? He thought I was going to stand him up? Thank God for Valerie, who wouldn’t let me. The last thing I’d want to do was stand up a sweet, gorgeous guy like this.

Not that this was a date.

Because it wasn’t.

It was an
appointment.

The thing about the phrase
stand up
is that it implies a date.

I hoped he didn’t think that was what this was. Maybe I should tell him that it wasn’t.

“I, um, got stuck on the N train,” I lied, because he was still waiting for an explanation. “Why were you so paranoid?”

“Because when I told you to call me if it didn’t work out with your boyfriend—”

“Or if I was casting a sitcom—”

“Or if you were casting a sitcom, right…well, I never expected to hear from you again. And when I did, it happened so fast I think I convinced myself the call must have been my imagination.”

“Oh…well, obviously, it wasn’t, so you can relax now.” I smiled, hoping he couldn’t tell how nervous I was, and hoping he didn’t think this was a date. Maybe I could pretend that I was casting a sitcom.

My mind raced with possibilities as Mike said, looking somewhat sheepish, “You know, I don’t normally react this way to a woman on a first date.”

First date?

So this
was
a date. Dammit.

You know, this was all Valerie’s fault.

If she hadn’t told me to call him, I wouldn’t have gotten the idea in the first place.

“I guess it’s just that you’re so beautiful,” he went on, sounding crazily sincere. “The second I saw you sitting there in the airport, I wanted to talk to you. And then you said you had a boyfriend, and I figured that was it. I was positive you had gone home and thrown my card into the garbage.”

“Why would I do that?” I asked, kind of shrilly.

“Because you have a boyfriend.”

“Oh. Right.”

Him
again.

You know, this whole thing was more Mike’s fault than Valerie’s. Mike, and that stupid Silicon Valley job offer of his. He had called me at least three times since he first told me about it, and every time, he claimed to be wavering on whether to accept it. He didn’t ask for my advice; he almost acted as though any input I gave him was strictly incidental.

Last night was the last straw, when he accused me of sounding like I didn’t want him to take this great opportunity. When I admitted that he was right, I didn’t want him to take it because I wanted him to come to NewYork, he blew up at me. He told me I was being clingy and unreasonable.

I hung up on him.

Then, without thinking things through, I spontaneously dug out the business card and dialed the number on it. I told myself that the would-be sitcom star probably wouldn’t even remember me, but he did.

Meeting tonight for a drink was his idea.

Meeting here, at La Margarita, was mine. They had two-for-one happy-hour drinks, a bonus since I was broke and I figured we’d be going dutch, since it couldn’t possibly be a date, since I had a boyfriend.

An added bonus: I had never been to La Margarita with said boyfriend. He had an inexplicable aversion to Mexican food. You’d think he’d have gotten over that, living in the Southwest, but he hadn’t.

This Mike, however, claimed to love Mexican. The waiter appeared before the boyfriend angle of the conversation could develop any further. We both ordered frozen margaritas and chicken chimichangas with refried beans.

“Gotta love a girl who knows how to eat,” Mike said with an approving laugh. “Can I tell you how glad I am that you didn’t order some fat-free salad?”

“Me? I never order fat-free if I can help it.”

“Good for you.”

I got the feeling there was a fat-free woman in his past, but I didn’t know how to ask without prying.

Our drinks were on the table in record time, another reason I adored the place.

“Cheers,” Mike said, raising his glass.

“What are we drinking to?”

“New York. The greatest city in the world.”

Wow. Was that perfect or was that perfect? I grinned. “To New York.”

We sipped our drinks and smiled at each other.

There went those dimples again. Sigh.

Not wanting to blatantly check him out, I casually noted his black T-shirt tucked into a great pair of orange baggy pants.

He was hot, definitely, and an awesome dresser.

“So, anyway, why
did
you call me?” he asked, in a strictly no-bullshit manner that caught me off guard.

“I don’t know, exactly,” I answered honestly. I added, “I’m not casting a sitcom for Janelle, if that’s what you were thinking.”

“Damn.” He snapped his fingers. “Then I guess giving you my head shot and résumé is out of the question?”

“You brought your head shot and résumé?”

He burst out laughing. “I was kidding. Do you think I’m that much of a loser?”

“Hey, you never know.” Actually, I didn’t think he was a loser at all. I merely
wished
he was a loser, so it would be easier for me to call it a night before the sun actually set.

“So if you’re not going to give me my shot at stardom…why did you call?” he asked again, obviously unwilling to let me off the hook.

“I don’t know…I guess because you were new in town, and I figured you might be kind of…lonely.”

“That was nice of you.” Dimple time.

I have to say, he certainly didn’t
seem
lonely. He seemed like the kind of guy who radiated confidence and charm…the kind of guy anyone would want to be around.

Okay, so maybe that was why I called him. Maybe I simply couldn’t resist his charisma.

Or maybe I was just royally pissed off at my boyfriend and this was my retaliation.

Who knew?

After a pair of margaritas, who cared?

Mike was easy to talk to, and I was having fun. That was all that mattered.

He told me about his Midwestern childhood and his college years at a Big Ten school where he played football and studied acting.

“That’s unusual, isn’t it?” I asked, trying not to slurp the last of my second drink. “Being in theater and sports?”

I was thinking of Gordy, who had a bachelor of fine arts and an aversion to any nonsexual activity that involved sweating and white sneakers.

“Yeah, well, I was a communications major and I had to take a drama class to fill a requirement freshman year. Next thing I knew, I had a knee injury and a minor in theater arts.”

“What happened? You fell off the stage?”

He smirked. “No, the injury was from football. I was sidelined my last year of school, which gave me time to focus on the acting stuff.”

“So you came to New York to be a star?”

“Doesn’t everyone?” He grinned. “Actually, I came to New York because I had to get the hell out of the Midwest.”

“Why?”

“Have you ever been to the Midwest?” he asked dryly.

I shook my head. “Is it that horrible?”

“Worse.”

I laugh at his expression. “So it was just too…what? Dull? Conservative? Quiet?”

“All of that, and less. Plus…” He hesitated.

“Plus, what?”

“Plus, I went through a bad breakup. I was engaged to my college girlfriend, and…it just didn’t work out.”

There it was: the info I’d been tempted to sniff out earlier. I wondered if she was the one who ordered fat-free salads.

“You dumped her?” I asked, figuring no woman in her right mind would dump a guy like him.

“Other way around.”

“Really.” I tried not to act stunned. Of course, I knew that women weren’t the only ones who got dumped. I mean, look at poor Lloyd Dobler in
Say Anything,
my former favorite movie of all time. He gave the beautiful Diane Court his heart and she gave him a pen.

Then again, after Lloyd professed his undying love and superior upper-body strength hoisting a Peter-Gabriel-blasting-boom-box for hours on end, Diane had a change of heart. Who wouldn’t?

And who wouldn’t offer a second chance to the appealing jiltee sitting across from me?

“It was a few weeks before the wedding,” Mike told me after a prolonged sip of his drink.

“Ouch.”

“Yeah.”

“So…” He drained what was left of his drink. “I had to get the hell out of Dodge.”

“To get away from her.”

“Basically. So here I am. And I hate to break it to you, but this is my first date since the separation. Boy, does it feel good to be over
that
hurdle.”

I took a deep breath. It was now or never. Never was preferable, but I couldn’t stand the guilt for another second.

“Mike,” I said gingerly, “I hate to break it to
you,
but…”

“But what?”

“But you aren’t exactly over that hurdle yet.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, this isn’t really a
date,
per se.”

“It isn’t?”

“No.”

He laughed. “What is it? Don’t tell me it’s an audition after all, because I really didn’t bring my head shot or résumé, and I sure as hell didn’t prepare a monologue. Although I feel like I just gave one.”

I managed a small, tequila-fueled laugh. “It isn’t an audition. It’s just…dinner and drinks.”

Too many drinks, at that. Was it getting warm in here, or was it just me? I felt flushed.

“Dinner and drinks is my favorite kind of date.”

The dimples made an appearance again, dammit. Whew…I was definitely warm, and he was definitely hot.

“Yeah,” I told him, “but dinner and drinks doesn’t always have to be a date, you know? Sometimes it can just be…dinner and drinks.”

“If that’s what you want,” he said with a shrug.

“That’s what I want.”

There was just one teensy problem with that.

A platonic dinner and drinks appointment
wasn’t
what I wanted. All at once, La Margarita was the Garden of Eden, and I had a fierce hankering for forbidden fruit.

“Sorry if I read you wrong,” said the forbidden fruit.

“No problem,” said Eve, staring into his bottomless black eyes, thinking that she always got what she wanted, and what she wanted right now was…

Stop it. Bad Eve!

He squirmed a little. “Do you want to leave?”

“No! Do you?”

“No. But I should warn you…I don’t know if I can do the platonic thing with you. I felt like there was something there, you know?”

“You mean like…?” I couldn’t think of a word that didn’t sound ridiculously corny.

Sparks…an attraction…a bond…

I just couldn’t bring myself to say any of those things without cringing.

“You know…like sparks,” he said.

He wasn’t cringing.

“You felt sparks?” I asked, hating that I felt them, too. Big, scary sparks.

“Yeah.”

We stared at each other for a second, and it was weird, but there was definitely a connection. It wasn’t awkward, and it should have been.

I wasn’t moved to flee, and I should have been.

An odd little sensation darted from my stomach to my lower back; the ultraresponsive region where I always feel the initial shivers of desire.

He exhaled, broke the gaze, shook his head. “How long have you been together?”

“What?”

“You and your boyfriend.”

“Oh.” Suddenly, I couldn’t remember. That definitely wasn’t a good sign. “Um, awhile.”

“Months?”

“Yes. Er, years, actually.”

“Years? That’s…that is…great.”

I sensed from his tone and the look on his face that what he really wanted to say was that it sucked, and all at once, I wanted to tell him that I felt the same way.

I wanted to point out that if I didn’t have a boyfriend, we could be a couple, and wouldn’t that be fun?

What the hell are you thinking, Beau?
demanded the part of my brain that was irritatingly immune to tequila and temptation, and stored preachy tidbits from Sunday sermons to spout at every moral impasse.
This is wrong. Keep your mouth shut. Do you hear me? Do not say anything you’ll regret later.

“My boyfriend and I are kind of having a crisis,” said my voice, fueled by the part of my brain that soaked up tequila, thrived on temptation and relied on past issues of
Cosmo
for ethical guidance.

He leaned forward, clearly intrigued. “What kind of crisis?”

He was so close I could smell the cilantro and lime on his breath, and I found myself wondering how it would taste on his lips. I heard myself mumbling some convoluted explanation about Mike’s job offer out West, and my wanting to stay in the East, but the whole time I was blabbing I was wondering what it would be like to lean across the table and kiss him.