Settling Up (12 page)

T
he next few
weeks blew by in a whirlwind of outings with Mack during the day and dates with Adrian at night. I felt like I had it all. (Well, except hair, that still hadn’t come back all the way.)

As it turned out, I began to doubt that I had only met Adrian because I had given up the list. Maybe I had always been just about to meet him. It didn’t seem to make sense. Like Mack had pointed out, it was kind of ironic because Adrian met it all. Every single all-of-it. Throughout our dates in those weeks, here’s what I learned about him as it pertained to my
original
list:

1. He must be physically attractive.
Yes, yes. Oh my goodness, yes. The man was gorgeous, dreamy, and constantly made me aware of whether there was a wall or railing nearby to use when I needed to catch myself as I swooned.

2. He must be fluent in at least three languages.
Spanish, French, and Italian. Plus mathematics!

3. He must be at least six feet tall.
Six three.

4. He must read at least ten informational books each year for either professional gain or personal betterment.
Not only did he read books about math, like me, but he loved to read mysteries and thrillers. Not the kind you’d get in the grocery store, either -- the hard-backed, New York Times type.

5. He must maintain a positive relationship with his family, unless they are crazy or dysfunctional and his removal of himself from the situation only speaks to his rationality.
Absolutely loved his family, two sisters and a brother, parents in California. Plans to visit them often.

6. He must be a professional, having maintained a position of employment for at least five years (with timely promotions along the way).
Had tenure at UC Berkeley. Wanted a lighter class load and more money, so started shopping around to become more competitive and gain leverage with his university. In the end, he couldn’t turn down my university’s offer.

7. He must have started accruing retirement funds as well as a supplementary Roth account or mutual fund holding.
Check
.

8. He must treat others with kindness, even those who are not as fortunate or who are tasked with waiting on/serving him.
Yes, that smile was enough to make everyone he came in contact with feel special.

9. He must have a car and have kept his car in good condition to show that he respects his belongings.
Mercedes, M class, spotless.

10. His car must be of a respectable color (no bright yellows or electric blues).
Silver
.

11. He must hold at least a Bachelor’s degree from a respectable university, but a Masters would be preferred (Doctorate would be a bonus).
Masters. Check. Doctorate. Check.

12. He must be able to hold a conversation. (i.e. listen as well as he shares.)
Yes, although I think I ended up mumbling and staring/drooling during most of our conversations.

13. He must smell clean, but not overly cologne-y as well as not pitting out.
Check. Check. Check.

14. He must be neat, a few piles or pieces of clutter are okay.
He lived in a neat apartment downtown, overlooking the stadiums, no piles or clutter. Plus, his office was ridiculously organized. He even had a number-based organizational system for both his books and paperwork.

15. He must make healthy food choices most of the time (the occasional hot dog at a baseball game can be overlooked).
He packed his own salad most days and ate organic “whenever he could”.

16. He should (at the age of thirty or more) limit his drinking to about two a night, with food.
While he appreciates wine, he also knew his limits well.

17. No tattoos or piercings that will be embarrassing when we’re old and on the beach with our grandkids.
None that I know of so far.

18. He should wear clothing that is age appropriate.
Only complaint about clothing choices = too hot.

19. He should have a nice laugh and a bright smile.
*Whimper*

Betsy’s eyebrows shot up as I finished, ticking off each item on the list and explaining how Adrian fit it to a T.

“He basically meets every single item, plus some. I haven’t added it all up (lie), but I’m pretty sure if I did he would get one-hundred-eleven percent compatibility.” I shrugged.

Betsy rolled her eyes. “Who are you? Bilbo Baggins?” She bit at her bottom lip. “I thought you threw out the list.”

“I kind of memorized it.” I cringed. “Plus, the great thing is that none of it matters because even if he had a whole-body tattoo and made three dollars a year, I’d still feel the same way about the guy. He’s seriously my perfect man. Like I think there’s a stamp somewhere on that perfect professor body of his that says, ‘Made for L.S.’”

“Okay okay. Calm down. I trust you. Well, not so much about the whole body tattoo.” She scratched at her forehead and squinted one eye. “Or the three dollars, but I can tell you really like him.” She continued washing the lettuce she was holding, eyeing me warily. “You’ve been spending a lot of time with Mack, too. What’s happening with that?”

I shrugged. “We’re good. Great, actually.” I smiled, chuckling about Mack’s Dick Van Dyke impression from our movie night yesterday.

Mack, while still a fan of musicals and classics, was more into the sixties and seventies films instead of the forties and fifties variety like me. He said we had a lot of ground to make up if we were going to share all of our favorites and so we had instigated a Friday eve Film Feature. If we were at my place, I got to pick the movie, and vice versa. Between the beer, popcorn, and fighting for more space on the couch (Mack liked to spread out), it was becoming my favorite night of the week.

“I’m getting him to give rock climbing a second chance.” I smiled, but then bit my lip. “I have to go with him as part of the deal, but it’s a step in the right direction.”

Betsy watched me. “And does Amazing Adrian know about your Magnificent Mack?” She cocked an eyebrow in my direction.

I wrinkled my forehead and pulled in a deep breath, wobbling my head from side to side. “Not technically. I mean, he knows I have friends.”

Betsy coughed and said, “one friend” into her hand, smiling sweetly to cover it up.

I swatted at her. “You’re my friend. And Rachel. Plus, Jess. She and I went shopping the other day.”

“You shopped?” Betsy’s eyebrows shot up.

I dipped my chin, once. Proud that I hadn’t turned into puddle-of-Lauren (what Bets calls it when I get sick of shopping), but it still wasn’t my most favorite activity. “I distracted myself by calculating the sales prices of the items near where she was shopping.”

“Okay, so you have three friends. You’ve proven me wrong.” Bets smiled. I knew she cared that she was counted as one of my friends and the way her eyes creased at the edges in a smile showed me that she really was proud of me for branching out and meeting new people. ”But don’t you think Adrian should know that one of your best friends just happens to be a super-hot-hunky guy?”

I shrugged. “I guess. But it doesn’t matter what Mack looks like. We’re just friends.”

Bets pressed her lips together and turned her attention back to the lettuce she was washing.

“We really are!” I stepped toward her. “Seriously, Betsy. Sure, he’s a good looking guy, but all I see when I look at him is my friend. He makes me laugh. Plus, he doesn’t feel that way about me.”

“You sure about that?”

I nodded emphatically. “First of all, he’s the best friend I’ve had since… well, you.” I flicked one finger in her face.

She rolled her eyes. “So? Josh is my best friend. You can have both.”

“I don’t want to lose him when we break up. Plus, it doesn’t matter because of my second reason,” I released a second finger from my fist. “He’s still in love with Tess. I can’t compete with that.” I stood there, holding my fingers in between my face and hers.

She started flicking her own fingers toward me. “One, why are you so sure you’ll break up? What if he’s the one? He certainly seems to get you. And two, maybe you’re misreading the situation with Tess. Of course he’s not going to say anything bad about her. What kind of person would that make him?”

I shook my head. “You don’t get it, Bets.” I looked at my hands, dropped them down in front of me. “I’ve never had a friend like him that wasn’t related to me by blood. I don’t want to ruin it by starting to think of him as more than that. We’re too different. I can see it all falling apart the moment we tried to make something happen. Plus! You don’t know him. He really doesn’t like me in that way. I promise you.”

“Just saying.” Betsy put down the lettuce and put her wet hands on my shoulders. “You’re not the greatest at reading signals, sis. So don’t hinge all your bets on that assumption. Okay?”

I nodded. “Okay.”

“And tell Adrian about Mack, would you? The longer you take to do so, the more it’s going to seem like you were hiding it.” She arched an eyebrow at me, tossing the washed lettuce into a big bowl.

“Okay on that, too. I’ll tell him. But he’s going to be fine with it. I know he is. That’s just the type of guy Adrian is.”

“
A
guy
?” Adrian’s tight forehead furrowed into wrinkles and he stroked his chin with his hand. I’d only seen him do this one other time, when he was tasting a bottle of wine that he ultimately decided had gone “corked” (wine people speak for bad). He had sent that bottle back. “The one you’ve been spending most days with?”

I swallowed, wondering if it had always been that tough to make saliva go back down my throat. This wasn’t looking good. Maybe Betsy had been right. My eyes held him as I waited and hoped.

“Yeah. Didn’t I mention that? I’m sure I did.” I tapped my fingers against my lips.

“And you want me to go out to dinner with the two of you?” His eyebrows lowered as he clarified.

I nodded. “Or, you could look at it as him coming to dinner with us.” I tilted my head as I attempted to put a better spin on it.

Adrian continued to rub his hand over his chin. “He’s important to you?”

“Very.” I nodded solemnly, but then added, “As a friend.”

He moved his hand, rubbing his whole face now, but then he nodded. “Okay. Yeah, I’d like to meet him. Let’s do it.”

I smiled. “Good! You won’t regret this!” I felt a weird pit form in my stomach as I hoped that I wouldn’t either.

M
ack hadn’t seemed overly excited
about the dinner with Adrian either, so I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw his blond, hulking form enter the restaurant. I smiled, stood, and watched him approach.

He was dressed up (like way up) in a really great gray suit and blue shirt, with a yellow tie to top it off. The blue in his shirt made those slate blue eyes pop and the way his blond hair was combed neatly to the side made me want to squeeze him into an extra tight hug for putting so much effort into this dinner.

I did not squeeze him extra tight, though, because Adrian stood next to me as he noticed Mack was in fact who I was looking at, the one we were meeting. I tried to see his face, watch him as he took in my friend, but I couldn’t sense much peripherally. I settled on pretending everything was okay.

“I’m so glad you guys are both here.” I scrunched up my shoulders to hide that I was mentally counting in an effort to lower my blood pressure.

Mack sat across from me and Adrian took his seat next to me after greeting each other. They both dipped their chins noncommittally and opened up the menus sitting in front of us. I jabbed out with my foot, hitting Mack squarely on the shin. He jumped and looked up at me. I narrowed my eyes at him, mouthing, “Be nice”.

He rolled his eyes, but put down his menu and asked, “So Adrian, how are you liking Washington?”

Adrian let his menu lower and raised his gaze to Mack. “Oh, it’s just great. Lots of rain, sure, but the scenery is quite breathtaking.” He wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “Funny, though, that I moved up here to put less hours in at work, and yet for
some
reason I find myself staying at school much longer than I should.”

Mack’s eyebrows raised and he nodded, his head jutting forward. This was a classic where-are-you-going-with-this? Mack face and, to be honest, I felt like making the same face. Adrian wasn’t putting super long hours in at the university and our dates happened out in the city (I’d only been to his place a handful of times, and even then only for a half hour here and there), not in his room.

But there was the fact that Adrian seemed almost possessive about me, something I’d never experienced before (and had only really seen in movies or read about in books) and that made my stomach flutter and my cheeks grow hot.

“And what do you do, Mark?” Adrian asked.

“It’s Mack,” both Mack and I said at the same time, smiling at each other as our words melded together.

“Oh, sure.”

“Well, I’m working at a casino right now during the day about half of the week, I bartend at night mostly every night, and I also volunteer at the local homeless shelter whenever I have a free few hours.”

I nodded along, knowing all of that, having not only been to both places Mack worked, but also having gone with him to the shelter one night to help serve dinner.

“A heart for the homeless, huh?” Adrian nodded respectfully. “Because of personal experience or something?”

My heart hammered uneasily at the question. It was rude. And ignorant. And was Adrian implying that Mack looked like the type to have been homeless at one point in his life? Swallowing my hopefully incorrect assumptions, I put a hand on Adrian’s arm. “No, he’s just very —“

But Mack cut me off. “My wife grew up poor and they were homeless on a few occasions.”

Talk about not seeing the trend line in a linear equation. Duh! Mack had told me about Tess living in her parent’s car when things had gotten really bad, but I hadn’t put two and two together. My eyes widened as I nodded and scolded my reasoning skills. Adrian was also looking quite interested in Mack’s statement, but for an altogether different reason.

“Your wife?” were the words that followed, a smile spreading across his face and he settled back, letting his arm drop from it’s my-woman-not-yours position across my shoulders.

I gulped. Uh oh. Adrian had calmed down once he heard that Mack was married, but once he found out he wasn’t anymore it would be awkward all over again. I felt like I was standing in front of two dark, dank passages, both equally unappealing, jockeying back and forth on the balls of my feet. If I let him believe Mack was married, maybe a little of the caveman protectiveness would dissipate, making tonight a little easier. But if I let him believe something that wasn’t true, I might lose his trust when he found out the truth, making for a probably even-more uncomfortable moment.

I bit my lip, undecided.

“Yep.” Mack nodded. Now it was his turn to jab his foot into my shin under the table. He gave me a quick shake of his head as Adrian went back to perusing his menu.

Okay, I would let it go. For a while.

We’d just ordered appetizers and drinks when Adrian excused himself to go to the restroom. As soon as he was out of earshot, I leaned forward.

“What the heck man?”

Mack smiled at me, calming the frizzy feeling leaking from my pores. He raised his eyebrows, put out a steady hand for me to focus on, and said, “Laur, this guy has threatened-male written all over him at the moment. I can tell he likes you and if him thinking I’m still married puts him at ease, I can be married.” He shrugged.

“But you’re…” My words petered out. I really didn’t want to say, “not married because your wife is dead” and apparently I didn’t have to.

He only nodded. “I know. And he’ll find out sooner or later, but we haven’t said anything that’s technically a lie yet, so just drop it, will you?” He crumpled up a napkin and tossed it at me.

I laughed and batted the thing away. “Alright. So what do you think?” I bit my lip as I waited.

Mack blinked a few times. “Yeah. As I said, he seems to really like you. Plus he seems like your list, incarnate, so…”

I smiled, but couldn’t help noticing the downward slope to Mack’s tone as he talked. I’m sure bringing up Tess was tough and here I was inviting him out with my new boyfriend. Ugh. I could be so dense sometimes. Maybe I needed to start thinking about setting Mack up with someone. Maybe even that damn Carol lady from the climbing group. I supposed I could get over my weird jealousy if she was interested in Mack. I was about to bring him in on those thoughts when Adrian came back to the table (and he still thought Mack was married, so I figured bringing up a potential girlfriend might be slightly awkward and confusing).

Our drinks showed up along with a basket of swizzly breadsticks. We each grabbed one and crunched happily, while taking sips of our drinks.

Adrian brought up how he was dealing with a difficult student in one of his classes who seemed to be missing so many instructional pieces. He wondered who before him had dropped the ball and said he wished people would act as professionally as he and I did, took their jobs as seriously.

He was loosening up (complaining about other peoples inadequacies always seemed to put him in a better mood), his arm was no longer claiming me like property, and he even let out a few hearty laughs. But as soon as the waiter came by with our stuffed mushroom appetizer and we all reached our forks in for a taste, Adrian’s smile faded and his laughing stopped abruptly. I watched his face, saw his eyes locked on Mack’s left hand.

“I thought you said you were married.” Adrian tipped his chin up as his gaze narrowed in on the man across from me.

I tried to keep it all in, but guilt piled up behind my teeth, in my throat, and it all burst out before Mack had a chance to respond.

“She’s dead. She died,” I wailed. It wasn’t a yell, exactly, but I think I was getting pretty close. My shoulders dropped with the weight of being caught.

When I looked up, I expected Mack’s face to be a crumple of anger and surprise, but instead his face was wrinkled into a crinkly Mack smile. The kind his face morphed into a lot when we were at his sister’s house.

“You are a hot mess, Lauren Sinclair.”

I was about to laugh and fall into our comfortable banter, but I realized that there was still a hunched and uncomfortable Adrian sitting next to me, needing a heck of a lot more information about this whole wife business.

Mack took care of it this time, with arguably better diction… and results.

“My wife passed away a few years ago from complications with a pregnancy. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything at first, it’s still very tough for me to talk about.”

Because I couldn’t hold my tongue, I blurted, “His wife, Tess, was perfect and it’s hard for him –“

Mack put a hand out to stop me. “Thank you, Lauren.” He looked back at Adrian. “I wasn’t trying to be dishonest, it’s just easier sometimes if people still think I’m married.”

Adrian nodded, his face grim in resolve. He looked at Mack’s hand. “I understand. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you, now can we please talk about something less depressing?” His crinkly Mack smile returned and I felt my stomach settle.

I was so proud of him for opening up about Tess to Adrian. Besides me, he was one of the only people he’d told recently. It had to be a good sign, that he was moving past his feelings of guilt and pain. Heck, maybe it even meant that he liked Adrian almost as much as I did. Either way, it felt like a victory, felt like I was helping the man who’d done so much for me lately.

I wanted so earnestly to wrap my hand around his and squeeze tight, but I figured that would be counterproductive in the Adrian department as he was finally seeming settled again.

Instead, I simply sent my warmest I’m-proud-of-you-friend smile across the table at Mack, complete with a tiny thank-you-for-saving-my-butt eye widening. Mack returned my expressions with his not-a-problem head dip and we moved on to other conversation as our food showed up.

I
shoved
my hands in my pockets and leaned my body against Mack’s as we waited out front for Adrian to get his car.

“Thank you for coming tonight.” I looked up at Mack in the lamp lit street outside the restaurant.

“You are very welcome. He seems like a nice guy, Lauren. I’m happy for you.” He shuffled his feet and looked down at the ground. “What you said back there, about Tess being perfect… You know no one’s perfect, right?”

I squinted up at him. “I suppose. She just seems so close, the way you talk about her.”

He bobbed his head. “You know, I’ve been thinking that if we only do Feature Film Fridays, we’re never going to make it through all the ones we need to watch. Any thoughts about adding in a Movie Madness Monday as well? At least this week.”

“Well, you know my love of alliterative phrases. I’d say it has to be a yes.”

He nodded. When Adrian’s silver car pulled up, Mack took a step away from me. After stumbling for a second without my sturdy wall-of-Mack to lean on, I regained my balance and saw Adrian walking toward us, his car door left open in a let’s-make-this-quick gesture.

Mack stretched his hand out toward Adrian, who took it into a tight, not-really-moving handshake. Really. It wasn’t moving up and down, but just seemed as if they were squeezing tighter and tighter as they looked into each other’s eyes (Mack’s steel gray ones and Adrian’s melty dark ones). I noticed that while Adrian was a tad taller than Mack, my friend had a little more size on my boyfriend. Or was it just the suit he was wearing? I couldn’t tell in the light.

“Great to meet you,” Mack said as he broke away from Adrian and pulled me into a one arm hug, planting a warm kiss on the top of my head. “See you around, Laur.”

I waved at him and stepped closer to Adrian, threading my arm through his. He opened the passenger door for me and I slipped into his car. The quietness of the night seemed loud compared to the silence inside the car once the Mercedes doors closed, sealing us in.

“Thank you so much for tonight, Adrian. It means so much to me that you two got along. Mack’s had a really tough go of it and he’s been such a help to me. I just…” I realized I was babbling, so I turned to face Adrian’s dark form in the car.

He laid his hand gently on top of mine as he started driving. “Lauren. I need you to stop seeing him.”