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Was it? Was it hot?I don’t know, Sophie, because my brain no longer functions properly and I can’t stop staring at your mouth!“It was.”
“So all I was saying is that I imagine sex like that—self-centric—would be out of this world.”
The waitress approached, and Sophie launched into her order while I did my best to appear cool and unaffected. She was so damn straightforward about what she wanted, yet it didn’t feel sexually aggressive because it wasn’t.
She was literally experimenting like a scientist in a lab.
There was some part of me that liked that she felt safe enough with me to be honest. I knew it was because she knew we both wanted zero romance—that was the catalyst that had given her the idea to go after the kiss last time—but something about it felt good.
After the waitress walked away, Sophie looked at me, and I could tell she was waiting for me to comment.
“You were really great with Ashley at the wedding,” I saidinstead, unwilling to discuss sex with Sophie out of fear we’d end up at the seedy motel next door. “I seriously think she would’ve married that douchebag if you hadn’t been there.”
She bit her lip, her smile wavering as she ran an index finger over the side of her water glass. “It’s hard to make the decision to walk away, even when it’s the right thing.”
“You’re not over him yet, are you?” I asked, bothered by the furrow between her eyebrows. She looked sad,and I didn’t like it.
“Stuart?” She cleared her throat and shrugged. “I’m over him.I don’t want him back, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be overus.”
“I get that,” I said, feeling the sentiment down to my fucking bones.
“Do you?” she asked, sounding sincere. “Because I’m not sure I do. Like, when will I stop being shocked by how full the medicine cabinet is, now that it’s Rose and Larry living with me instead of Stuart? Or how quiet it is when I get home from work? When will the damn theme song toThe Officenot make me sad? Why can’t Inotcare about all the little things that pop up on a daily basis and remind me of what I thought we’d be?”
“Because it was your whole world,” I said. “Every moment of every day belonged to the two of you, together. So how do you not feel a loss when those moments are only yours now?”
Sophie’s eyes narrowed, and she just looked at me for a minute before putting her chin on her fist. “What was her name?”
“The cliché. Stop.” I got out of the booth, took off my jacket, and held it out to her. “Put this on before you freeze to death.”
“What?” Her eyebrows screwed together, and she looked baffled.
I gestured to her arms. “You’re covered in goose bumps.”
Her eyes got even squintier behind her glasses, and I fully expected her to ignore the jacket entirely and lecture me. But she held out a hand instead and said, “Thank you.”
I sat back down. “You’re welcome.”
She slid into the jacket, which was huge on her, just as the waitress brought over our food. I foolishly thought the discussion was over, but as she squirted ketchup on her burger, Sophie asked me, “So are you overyour‘us’ yet?”
“For the most part.”
Fuck me.I didn’t know shit about Sophie, not really, so I didn’t understand why I had shared that.
She took a huge bite of her burger, then said as she wiped her hands, “Does that mean it doesn’t hit you in the gut every day anymore?”
I nodded and picked up a french fry. “It means I almost never think about her.”
“Really?” Her face brightened a little. “So there’s hope?”
“There’s hope, I promise,” I said, compelled to reassure her as I cut my double cheeseburger in half. “Now I have a question for you that I hope doesn’t piss you off.”
“Sounds promising,” she muttered, licking a dab of ketchup off her finger.
“Hush.” I set down my knife and picked up my burger. “So... how can you not believe in love when it’s so hard for you to move on? It seems like you must’ve loved the guy for it to hurt so much.”
“No,” she insisted, shaking her head emphatically and making a face. It was clear she’d given this a lot of thought. “Incorrect. I trusted him, I liked him, I was intimate with him, and I planned a future with him. He destroyed all of those things, which destroyed me. Doesn’t mean it’s love.”
I wanted to point out that she’d just described love and the only difference was what she was calling it, but who was I to throw rocks at her belief system? I might not agree with her, but I also had no interest in looking for love myself, so we weren’t really that different.
