The whole day today, I had been running errands that had gone undone the week that I hadn't been there to take care of them. She had invited me to a club for drinks after, but I had drawn the line at dinner. I needed a minute now that I was back. I wasn’t ready to jump in with both feet yet. All the cars, people, and polluted air of the city had been a welcome embrace, but it was weird. I felt almost hungover from being out in the mountains with Cameron. My body hadn’t caught up yet.
She asked about my drive back to the city as I sat. That part had been fine; it had been getting home that had been the problem. Not a problem so much as it was just weird being back. I hadn’t been alone for a week. My house not having been lived-in for the past several days hadn’t been immediately welcoming. I had gotten over it. Obviously, it hadn’t lasted, but being far away from Cameron, I had learned quickly had not changed how much I thought about him.
"So, tell me everything," she said as a server came to our table to take our orders.
"Well," I started, "we had fun."
"I know you did, but how much? Details. I want the dirt." I laughed. Usually, she was the one who kept me entertained with her date stories. I was usually the one who had the boyfriend who I did nothing but watch TV at home with. It was interesting being on the other side of the exchange.
"What dirt? I told you everything already."
"Bullshit," she said. "Something else happened. You were up there forever. It's simple math. Put two or more people in an enclosed space together, and they're going to fuck. Chances are doubled when they're both hot singles desperate for some action."
"Do you hear yourself?" I laughed. "You told me that I'd get my heart broken if I tried anything with him."
"No, you said you were catching feelings, and I told you he was emotionally unavailable. That would break your heart. Nobody took hot, casual sex off the table but you."
"Don't be gross."
"Gross? So it wasn't good? That's why you didn't want to fuck him again?"
"I didn't say that. It was," I paused as the server brought our drinks to the table. Just thinking about that night made my cheeks flush and an ache form deep inside me in the places where I wanted to feel him again. I would never tell him, but after that night, every single night since that one we had sex, I had touched myself wishing it was him. "It was good, but that's it. I don't want to do it again because I know I'm just going to fall harder for him."
"How did you... you know what? I get it. I've seen the pictures. I know what he looks like."
"It's not that, Kase," I said, even though the pictures of him online and in print did him no justice at all. He was gorgeous. Out of his work clothes with his jaw covered in scruff, he was even more beautiful than he was in the pictures, but I had talked to him and spent time with him. I'd had sex with him for crying out loud. Looking at the list of things I wanted in a boyfriend, he ticked almost every box. I was hooked. I had fallen for him because he was as close to perfect as any man I’d ever met had gotten before. "I really like this guy. I want him. I want to see him and talk to him and—”
"Marry him and have babies with him," Kasey finished for me.
"Am I an idiot? I know it hasn't been a long time, but it doesn't matter. That can change. I want a chance to see where a relationship with him could go."
"Well, what does that mean, Nat? Realistically? Think about it." I did. It meant t
he two of us taking things to the next level. It would mean a long-distance relationship unless one or both of us made tiring trips back and forth between the mountains and Provo. Unless he or I moved; me to the mountains or him back here. There was almost zero chance that he would and for me... the week at the cabin had been good. It had brought back memories, but it hadn't been nostalgic. I didn't want to live in a cabin in the mountains, desolate, completely cut off. That was what he wanted, and I didn't think he'd be the easiest person to coax back into civilization.
"I know what it means," I said.
"And?" she urged.
"And I don't know. I can’t just decide not to like him anymore and stop."
"But are you going to try anything?"
"I can't."
"That's not what I asked you," she said gently. She knew me too well after all this time. It was true. Just because there wasn't a chance didn't mean I wouldn't get it in my head somehow that it was a good idea to try. It had happened before, and I got reckless when Cameron was around me. I wanted him close, and when I had him close, I wanted him closer. Closer and closer ‘til he consumed me and I couldn't get away again.
"You're right," I said quietly.
"I'm not telling you what to do either way. Only you can make that decision, but I do care about you getting hurt because of this."
"I know. Thanks." Our food came: pasta for Kase and salmon for me. I changed the subject, asking her how work had been that week. It wasn't that her stories were frivolous; they were just far enough removed from my life that they were safe, low stakes entertainment. She had been doing hair for a wedding that day. She had heard all kinds of stories from her clients. For some reason, people thought their stylists doubled as therapists, and when she was working sets, photo shoots, or weddings, people talked as freely as if she wasn't even there.
That day at the wedding she had heard the bride talking to one of her bridesmaids. Apparently, the man she was marrying had been unfaithful in the past, more than once. He had actually been married to someone else when they had met and he had left his wife to be with her…her and several other women on the side who he lied to her about because he hadn’t learned a lesson after his first marriage had ended because of the same behavior. The apology for his latest indiscretion had been a diamond ring. They had signed a prenup that said she would get a nice hefty settlement if he was unfaithful to her during their marriage.
It turned my stomach to think of people getting married for that reason. At the same time, who was I to judge? But seriously, wasn’t there a limit? What would make a woman, or anyone, agree to marry someone who had repeatedly shown them they couldn’t be committed to them? Who would even go through the trouble of marrying anyone when all they wanted to do was break their marriage vows anyway? I wished them health and happiness, of course—everyone deserved that—but what thought processes got you there? Why would you bite into an apple you knew had a worm in it?
It made me think of Cameron. Not like that; I didn't think that he would try to make up for repeated bad decisions with a pricey piece of jewelry and an exorbitant divorce settlement but because this kind of thing was what he kept going on about all the time. Society and false expectations ruining people's morals and direction. Maybe the guy had been made to believe that money, gifts, jewelry, the promise of everything if he fucked up again was how he got someone to love him. Maybe the woman had been made to think that material things received from a partner were the measure of how much they loved you.