“Help me show you how lousy I am?” she said, a grin on her face. She poured the pasta into a large serving bowl and stuck a pasta claw into it. Was there some official name for those utensils? He and his mother just called it the pasta claw.
“You could put the salad on the table,” she said.
He did what he was asked, enjoying the domestic routineness of it, until finally the food was on the table, the dishes were set, and they sat down to eat, each covered in the other’s musk, each starving. The meal itself was quite quiet, neither of them particularly interested in talking anymore.
“This is good,” he said.
“You’re just saying that because you think you have to.”
He almost slammed his fist on the table, already a bit weary of this defensive tone. “I don’t say anything that I don’t mean. It’s good. Thank you. You’ve made a lovely meal.”
She looked at him as if he had four heads. “You know, we already had sex, Alex, you don’t need to butter me up. I’m kind of a sure thing.”
“If you came over to my place for dinner, trust me, this would be a luxurious meal.”
“What would you serve if you invited me over for dinner?” she asked.
“Takeout pizza, Thai.”
“In bed?” She looked down at the bowl of pasta and grabbed a bit of salad, putting it on her plate. “That might taste better.”
“The only thing that would taste better is you,” he said it without acrimony, and she smiled, reaching across the table for his hand.
“Thank you.” She closed her eyes again and sighed deeply. “I’m sorry, I just have no framework for how to behave with someone like you.”
Now he was hitting paydirt. “What do you mean?”
“I like you, Alex, I just don’t know what men like you are like.”
“The only way out is through,” he said, squeezing her hand.
And just like that, Josie’s ridiculously self-defeating bullshit melted away. The food that had felt like lumps of nothing in her mouth resumed its flavor, the oregano and basil bursting forth as she swallowed and drank a few mouthfuls of wine. Music lilted through the air, the low tones of a perfectly played bass lifting her heart. Alex’s smile seemed less an indictment of her emotional stuntedness and more an invitation to a future.
Letting go meant feeling.
Surefooted and smart, he sensed it, leaning closer, filling his mouth with more wine and resting in place, letting the enormity of it all sink in. Together, they just sat there at her kitchen table as headlights flashed strobe lights on the wall, car engines turning on, rear lights blinking as the game ended across the street and people made their way back to their normally scheduled lives, the fun of the diversion over.
The diversion, for Josie, had been her shell.
Time for real life to kick in.
“Do you watch The IT Crowd?” she asked.
Alex’s eyes narrowed; she knew he knew this was a test. “No.”
“Want to?”
“Now?” His voice rose with the question, a bit incredulous.
“Now,” she stated definitively. “All of the men I let get to me have to pass the IT Crowd test.”
“Or else what?”
“Or else…” Damn it. He’d caught her. “I don’t know.”
“How did the other guys do?”
“You’re the first.”
“What about Downton Abbey?”
“You watch it?” she squealed.
“No. Just asking. I don’t watch anything, Josie. I work hundred-hour weeks.”
So many responses. As the air pivoted, she realized she could use this as a lever to get out. You don’t have time for me, she could say. You’ve overworked. You’ll move when your residency is over and leave the city. You will find someone better and leave me.
Why even try, then?
Holding back from self-sabotage, she said, “We have time now!”
“We have lots of things we could do with our time.”
“IT Crowd or Downton Abbey are good non-sex parts of a relationship.”
One eyebrow rose on his face. “Is this a relationship?”
Caught. “It’s a…something.”
“I’m in a something with you?”
“Yes. Don’t push your luck.”
“What’s the next step in a something? An everything?”
Oh God, yes, she thought. “A maybe.”
“Ooooh, I can’t wait for a maybe. Followed by a possibly?”
“No, after a maybe comes anal.”
He slapped a palm against his forehead. “Only Ms. Josephine Elizabeth Mendham would talk about anal and Downton Abbey in the same conversation.”
She gave him the stink eye. “You really haven’t seen the show, apparently.”
Sighing, he stood, refilled their wine glasses, took her hand, and walked her toward the television in the living room. Both carried their wine in their spare hands. “No, I haven’t but now I have to. Downton Abbey it is.”
“And IT Crowd next time,” she blurted out.
“To next time,” he said, holding his wine out for a toast.
“‘Next time’ is code for sex, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Chapter Nine
Some strange man’s rather muscular upper thigh trapped her to the bed, her arms swimming to reach shore. A ringing in her ears pierced her fuzzy consciousness and she realized it was her phone ringing, and Alex, naked, was sound asleep, half on top of her.
The phone slipped out of her hands twice until she finally pressed the glass and shoved it in the general direction of her ear.
“’Lo?”
“I’m living with a squid who eats my body fluids!”
Laura. What time was it? She pulled the phone away from her ear and squinted. 8:22 a.m. “I don’t want to hear about your sex life with Dylan,” Josie hissed.
“I was talking about Jillian!”
Josie cleared her throat and said nothing.
“Besides, there is no sex life for me with anyone. You ever try to have sex with a screaming time bomb in the house that shits up its back at any moment?”
“No, but I did see an ad like that on the Craigslist personal section once.”
A slow turn from the large, manly body next to her gave her eye candy to last for months. “Who is it?” he mumbled. “Did my phone go off? Is there an emergency at the hospital?”
“Who’s there!” Laura shrieked into the phone. “Where are you?”