10. Charlotte

10

CHARLOTTE

I ’m glad, when I leave Cafe L’Rose after my strangely interrupted lunch, that Jaz and I don’t work in the same department. She’s going to want all the details, and I need some time to get my head on straight.

A little over a week ago, I would never have given the time of day to a stranger who walked up and interrupted my lunch. But a little over a week ago, I was also just about the furthest thing a person could be from single. The lack of a ring on my finger was the only thing keeping me from that next step.

Now, I’m the opposite. About as single as it’s possible to be. Short of the calls and texts from Nate begging me to reconsider, I’m completely free of any ties. And the fact that I haven’t gotten any of those calls or texts today makes me hope that maybe he’s given up.

I’m honestly surprised that thought doesn’t make me feel worse. I would have thought that I would want him to try harder to get me back than that, even though I have no intention of actually going back to him. But now—all I feel is relief at the idea that he might be out of my life completely.

That night at Masquerade whetted my appetite. Showed me a glimpse of what I’ve been missing all of these years by being so careful, so perfect, so focused on what I’m supposed to do and want and not what I actually want. And now?—

Now I’m curious. So curious that I actually let Ivan Vasili give me his number.

Am I going to text him? Am I really going to go on that date? The questions rattle around in my head as I walk the two blocks back to my workplace, tugging my camel-colored peacoat closer around me. It’s a chilly day, the wind picking up and ushering in fall, and I’m ready for it. Fall is my favorite time of the year.

It’s not even like it’s going to be all that different being single this fall, I think grimly as I walk back to the elevator and up to my desk. Nate was often too busy to go on leaf-watching and apple-picking dates with me. He always blamed work for why he didn’t have nights free to curl up in front of the fireplace and play board games with me, or why we couldn’t take a long weekend to a cabin in Michigan and stay on the lake. I always told myself that I was lucky he encouraged me to do those things with my girlfriends instead—that he didn’t want me to be home and waiting on him; he just was working too hard to join in.

Now I know that while some of it might have been work, part of it was that he was cheating on me. For how long, exactly, I don’t know. But at least for a while.

I turn over the idea in my head of asking Ivan to go on one of those cozy dates with me. At first thought, it seems funny to think of asking the handsome, heavily tattooed guy who came up to me today to go walk through a pumpkin patch—but maybe I’m just judging him too much on his outward appearance. Maybe he would do something like that with me.

Maybe I should ask.

Pushing the thought of him out of my head, I try to focus on work for the rest of the afternoon. I have plans with Jaz and the rest of our friends to get drinks after work, and I don’t want to be running late.

Jaz is already waiting for me in the lobby when I come down. She must have changed in the bathroom while she was waiting—she’s swapped out her black pencil skirt and silk blouse-and-jacket combo from work today, into a pair of form-fitting jeans and an off-the-shoulder striped top in cream and blue that shows off her bronzed shoulders and sharp collarbones, her black hair piled on top of her head now to show it off even more. She’s swapped out her shoes, too, into a pair of stiletto ankle boots that make her a couple inches taller than me.

Next to her, I feel frumpy in my jeans and button-down shirt. Maybe, as I’m turning over this new leaf, a wardrobe update is going to be in the cards as well.

“I feel like I need to go home and change,” I mutter, as we walk outside to catch the Uber Jaz called. “You always look so stylish.”

“You’re fine,” Jaz reassures me, as we slide into the back of the SUV that pulls up. “You look like you .”

“Maybe I don’t like how me looks anymore.” I tilt my head back against the cool leather seat, breathing in the scent of pine air freshener that’s hanging thickly in the air. “Maybe I should change things up.”

Jaz chuckles, opening her purse to find a mirror and lip stain. “The night at Masquerade really did a number on you, huh?”

I look nervously towards the Uber driver, to see if the mention of the club sparked any recognition. The whole point of the anonymity is that no one will know that I went to a place like that. But he doesn’t so much as glance back in our direction, still entirely focused on the traffic ahead.

“It made me curious,” I admit.

“Curious enough to give that gorgeous guy at lunch your number?” Jaz swipes a dark cherry stain over her lips and then turns to look at me. “Please tell me that my eating lunch at my desk wasn’t wasted.”

I can feel my cheeks heating. “It wasn’t,” I mumble, looking away and pretending to search for something in my own bag. “But he gave me his number. I guess he felt like he was being overbearing and wanted to put the ball in my court.”

Jaz’s eyes widen. “Seriously? Okay, he sounds like a catch. Hot, tattooed, with that accent, and thought about your feelings?” She fans herself. “Girl, if you don’t take him up on that date, I will. Give me those digits if you don’t want them.”

The instinctive reflex that I feel to hide my phone startles me. Do I really feel possessive over a man’s number ? A man I don’t even really know? That feels odd to me.

“I think I do want them,” I say instead, dropping my purse back into my lap. “He was polite, at least after that initial thing of interrupting lunch. And he said he just wanted to get to know me better. He wants to take me out on a ‘real date.’ His words.”

“Well, you should text him,” Jaz says decisively. “See what his idea of a real date is.”

“I’m going to. I think.” I chew on my lower lip as the Uber pulls up to the curb outside of the restaurant where we’re meeting Zoe and Sarah. “But I want to make him wait a little bit. I’ll text him tomorrow.”

“Good for you. After that bullshit Nate pulled, you deserve to have a man waiting on you.” Jaz hops out, waiting for me as I follow her. “You deserve to have some time to do whatever the fuck you want, honestly.”

“I told him I wasn’t looking for anything serious,” I admit. “That I just got out of a relationship and I want to explore my options for a little while.”

“What did he say to that?”

“That it was just dinner. In like—a teasing way.” I can’t help the small smile at the corner of my lips, remembering that. It made me like him more, the easy way that he brushed past that, as if he wasn’t put off at all by my reticence. As if he’s willing to give me the space I need—or work for what he wants.

I want to be worked for. I want someone to prove that he’s going to do what it takes to make me happy—that my happiness matters to him. I want someone who is going to put in the effort. Because the more I look back at my relationship with Nate, the more holes I see in it. The more things I see now where he just didn’t try, where he assumed I’d always be there waiting when he had time for me. And if I’m going to get serious with anyone in the future, I don’t want that in my next relationship.

I want someone who would burn down heaven and hell for me, if that’s what it took for us to be together.

And I want someone who can make me feel like the man at Masquerade did. Who makes me feel those flames between us, every night that we’re together. I’m still not sure that I believe it exists in reality, but that night was enough to make me wonder.

To make me want to look for it, before I resign myself to the idea that it doesn’t exist in a real-life relationship.

The tapas restaurant we’re grabbing happy-hour drinks at is one of my favorites. It’s a rustic, open-floor concept, all dark woods and iron, with huge floor-to-ceiling windows that let all the light in, flooding the space. The seating is an eclectic arrangement of low-to-the-ground couches in bright, jewel-colored velvets, with dark wooden tables set between them. With the weather being as nice as it is, some of the windows are opened, letting in the brisk, fall-scented air.

Zoe and Sarah are already seated on a mustard-yellow velvet couch, drinks in hand. Sarah is still in her work clothes—a sleek, fitted pantsuit in dark blue, with a cream-colored silk shell blouse underneath it and her blonde hair neatly wrapped up in a bun atop her head. Zoe looks every bit the fashionista, her wild, black ringlet hair in a cloud around her head, wearing a streetwear-styled khaki cargo skirt with an asymmetrical hem and assorted pockets, along with a dark green, one-shouldered tight top that shows off her toned stomach and shoulders. She has a cocktail in one hand, and Sarah is sipping at a glass of wine.

“We ordered a charcuterie board while we were waiting,” Sarah says, taking another sip of her red wine. “It should be here in a minute. Charlotte! I’m so glad you made it.” She gives me a sympathetic smile, and I know what she’s thinking—that she’s surprised I feel up to socializing. But the truth is that the last thing I want is to be stuck at home alone, thinking about all the reasons why my relationship with Nate failed. I don’t even want to be at home thinking about the possibility of this new date with Ivan. I want to be out with my friends, feeling normal. Feeling like my life hasn’t changed all that much just because I’m now single.

“I hope you found a way to put that dress to good use,” Zoe says, tilting her cocktail glass at me. “That was too hot of an outfit to let it go to waste.”

“Oh, she did,” Jaz says with a smirk before I can stop her, reaching over to take the gin fizz that the server brings her. I ordered a glass of pinot noir, and I raise it to my mouth to try to hide the flush on my cheeks.

“Oh?” Sarah looks intrigued, grinning at me. “Do tell.”

Out of our close foursome, Sarah is the one most like me. She’s been single for a few months, but her last relationship lasted three years. She’s more adventurous than I am—she’s traveled out of the country, for instance—but she also tends to play things on the safe side. And we have a similar style. Sleek, buttoned up, conservative.

Zoe is more like Jaz. Wilder, more impulsive, impetuous, fashionable. Extroverted, whereas Sarah and I tend to be more introverted. Even our tastes in food and drink tend to run similarly. Zoe wouldn’t think twice about hearing where I went wearing that dress, but I can only imagine the look on Sarah’s face.

I don’t know if I can get out of admitting it now, though.

I take another sip of my wine, mentally trying to run through all of the ways I could turn this conversation to some other topic, but I’ve already hesitated too long. Sarah grins. “Okay, now I know it must be really good.”

“Come on,” Zoe pleads. “Tell us. I want to know it didn’t just hang sadly in your closet.” She bats her long eyelashes at me, and I sigh, glaring sideways at Jaz, who is grinning unrepentantly.

“I went to Masquerade,” I mumble around the lip of my glass. “Or, more accurately, Jaz took me there.”

“I did.” Jaz doesn’t look the slightest bit embarrassed by the fact that she went there, or the fact that her taking me there implies she’s been there often enough to introduce someone new to it. But then again, I wouldn’t be surprised if at least Zoe already knew about that side of her. Zoe is equally adventurous and wild, and she’d be the type to readily not only listen to those stories, but join in.

Jaz is my best friend, but clearly, my reticence to do and try new things led her to never tell me about those adventures. Not until recently. Clearly, she thought it would make me so uncomfortable that she didn’t share that part of herself with me.

It makes me wonder what else my friends don’t tell me, because they think I might be shocked or judgmental. If there are other things I don’t know about the people I care most about, because I’ve always been too reserved to share them with.

I don’t want to make Sarah feel like that. I don’t want my friends to continue to not be open with me—and that means not holding back with them, either.

“What is that?” Sarah asks, and there’s a knowing look on Zoe’s face, a curl to the side of her mouth that tells me she does know exactly what Masquerade is.

“It’s a club,” I manage, feeling my cheeks heat a little. I want to be brave enough to tell my friends about my adventure, but I suddenly feel horrifically embarrassed, thinking about what that means. That they’ll know I hooked up with a stranger. I didn’t have sex with him, not completely , but I did things with him that I wouldn’t have thought I would have done with anyone I didn’t know, not all that long ago. I did, arguably, more than I have with men I’ve been in relationships with. More than I did with Nate.

No one I’ve ever dated made me feel the way the stranger at Masquerade did. And I’ve never come like that with anyone before.

“It must be an interesting club, to make you blush like that,” Sarah says, smirking, and I see Jaz look at me out of the corner of my eye.

“What’s more interesting is that Charlotte has a date,” she interjects quickly, and I feel a deep wave of relief—and gratitude, that Jaz picked up on how uncomfortable I am and changed the subject for me.

“What?” Zoe and Sarah both immediately look at me, eyes wide. “With who?”

“A very hot guy who interrupted our lunch today. Tell them, Charlotte,” Jaz urges, and I’m more than happy to turn the subject to Ivan, and away from my experience at Masquerade. And either they’re so interested in him that they forget about it, or they picked up on how uncomfortable the topic made me, because they don’t ask about the club again.

I explain all about the lunch, and how he gave me his number after asking me out on an ‘actual date’ to ‘just dinner.’ I don’t tell them about how he took my phone out of my hand to put his number into it, because I already know how they’ll all react to it. Pretty much how I reacted at first.

And I don’t want anything to taint this. I know that part of this whole process of trying new things is not letting others’ opinions matter so much to me, but I don’t want any negativity around this. I want to go out on my first actual date since Nate broke my heart with all of my friends excited and happy for me.

I know they’d tell me that taking my phone out of my hand is a red flag. But they didn’t meet him and see the other things he did. The way he apologized for interrupting lunch. The way he flirted and teased and made sure to give me space to confirm the date on my own.

“Okay, this is perfect,” Sarah says enthusiastically, refilling her wine from the small half-carafe in front of her. “This is your first real date since that asshole broke your heart.”

My friends have tried very hard to avoid using Nate’s actual name when talking about him. It’s honestly endearing.

“And, it sounds like it’s with a real smoke show,” Sarah continues. “So this is fantastic. Is he the type you settle down with?” she adds, looking at me and then at Jaz.

I bite my lip, at the same moment, Jaz shakes her head.

“Nah. I mean, not Charlotte, anyway.” She grins at me, patting my hand. “I’m just saying, a super-tattooed bad boy is Charlotte’s rebound, not her future husband. And you shouldn’t be thinking of him like that right now, anyway. You shouldn’t think of anyone like that until you’ve had a chance to really get out there, you know?”

I nod, taking another sip of my wine. I know Jaz meant well, so I don’t want to let on how much that stung. I could tell her, maybe, if it was just the two of us, how something about what Nate did snapped something loose in me. How I don’t know if I want to be the ‘perfect’ one anymore, the one who is absolutely going to settle down with a golden retriever of a boyfriend instead of someone more interesting and edgy and mysterious. No one would think twice about Jaz or Zoe getting into a relationship with someone like Ivan.

Although, I do have to admit, none of us would believe that it would last with them, either.

“I definitely told him I’m not looking to be exclusive,” I tell them firmly. “And I’m not.”

“Good for you, girl.” Zoe tilts her glass in my direction. “Don’t let any man tie you down for a while . Find out what it’s like to be hot and single now that you’re totally independent and on your own.”

I roll that last statement around in my head, in the Uber on the way back to my apartment later, my thoughts a little fuzzy from the wine. Zoe was right about that—I haven’t been single since Nate, and that was my senior year of college. There’s a whole part of my adult life, my real adult life, where I’ve been committed to one person. There’s an entire world of dating that I haven’t gotten to experience, and my chance to do that is now.

My mind drifts back to the man at Masquerade. I can’t get him out of my head—his confidence, his utter assurance that I was what he wanted and no one else, his smooth British accent, and the way he touched me. The way he made me forget all my insecurities, all my anxieties.

The way he made me just feel .

My head falls back against the seat of the Uber, that warmth pooling through me again, an unfamiliar ache spreading over my skin, down into my veins. I always thought I didn’t really have much of a sex drive, but now I’m starting to wonder how much of that was me, and how much of it was the fault of the men I slept with. If I was so convinced that sex was boring and unfulfilling for me that I just turned it off, even though it had the potential to be so much better.

If I had my own membership to Masquerade, I’d be tempted to tell the Uber driver to take me there instead, just so I could see if the man from the other night was back again. Or maybe?—

I don’t have to be committed to him . The thought feels bold, startling. He was a one-night stand, not a new relationship. I’m free. If I went back to the club, I could sleep with anyone I wanted there. Do anything I wanted. Participate, or just watch?—

The thought of watching sends another flutter of heat through me. I swallow hard as the Uber driver pulls up to my building, and I slide out of the car, heels clicking against the lobby tile as I take the elevator up to my apartment.

My empty apartment. Where I can do and fantasize about whatever I want, now.