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Wasit possible to be both charmed by a man and bored into an early grave all at the same time? Because whatever that combination could be called, it was definitely Karl. I choked down my unbearable tea, missing the cafés of London more than I wanted to admit, and listened to him yammer on about his brother, his parents, his struggles with reconciling his faith with his sexuality to the point it felt like I was in some gay Christian PSA ad for the Episcopalian church or something.
I did everything in my power to care, but when he offered to walk me back to my building, I wanted to cry. I was ready to call it a night and hoping to Christ he wasn’t interested in me. But the offer made me realize that two people on the same date could be on very different pages.
We were standing outside the café, and it was just starting to snow—gentle little flurries that reminded me of Christmas—and I felt his eyes on me a little intensely.
“I’m not a damsel,” I told him with a smile as polite as I could manage. “I really will be okay.”
Karl took a step closer, and I noticed there was heat in his eyes that had been absent during our entire date. “I wouldn’t mind a nightcap.”
My heart started to race. I knew I didn’t want him, not really. But Joy had a point in reminding me the only man I had ever been with was Nicolai, and God, it would feel good to purge him from my system. I didn’t need to love Karl to take him home. This wasn’t a marriage proposal.
Biting my lip, I glanced up the street. It was exactly seven minutes from my building. “I have to warn you, my place is pretty shit. It’s in the basement, and there’s still no heating.”
Karl laid his hand on my arm. “I bet we could warm it up.”
Fuck it. Just…fuckingfuckit. I missed out on a lot of the young and dumb casual shit that should have been mine after I turned eighteen. Why shouldn’t I have this?
“Just try not to judge me too hard,” I told him. “I, uh…I don’t have a lot of experience.”
There was something like laughter in his eyes. “Would you believe me if I told you that it’s the same for me?”
He’d slipped his gloves on and our fingers felt thick all tangled together when he took my hand. It was unexpectedly sweet, and I wasn’t sure how the hell I was supposed to reconcile the date that made me want to jump off the roof of the café just to shake things up with this man who was suddenly ready to hop into my bed.
But maybe that’s what dating was.
Hell if I actually knew, though I wouldn’t be admitting that to anyone. I just squeezed his hand instead, then carefully extracted myself from his grip because this was a first date, and I’d be damned if I lost myself to lovey-dovey nonsense an hour and a half in.
He didn’t seem to mind, though, or if he did, he didn’t show it. He just offered a smile as I led the way toward my building, dodging a few people hurrying to dinner, or to grab a taxi, or to their front doors.
“Is it strange being back?” he asked just as I spotted the building door.
I shrugged. “Yes and no. I was fairly young when I left, so I didn’t get to experience New York as an adult. It’s a different lens.”
“I’m sure you miss London.”
I had to laugh. As many years as I’d spent there, I still felt trapped somewhere between foreign and local. I developed a weird sort of hybrid accent that started because I wanted to fit in and not seem so strange, but then losing it made me feel disconnected to what I’d left behind, so I brought it back.
It kept me apart, and everywhere I went, I’d get side-eye, like service workers were just waiting on edge for me to act like an obnoxious tourist.
“I don’t know if London was ever a long-term thing for me, even before the breakup,” I said. I hadn’t talked about Nicolai at all during the date because the one thing I did know was that you didn’t bring up your ex over the first coffee. But he didn’t seem surprised, which meant Joy had probably told him all the gory details.
I didn’t really care, though. It saved me the trouble of having to relive it.
Thinking about Nicolai all the time was exhausting enough, but the idea of having to constantly talk about it?
I probably would have fled the city and lived on a park bench somewhere tropical like Miami.
“I miss the tea,” I finished as I slowed down, reaching into my pocket for my key. I glanced at Karl out of the corner of my eye, but he didn’t seem bothered by the state of the building. He didn’t even flinch at the strength it took me to wrench the door open after finally getting the key to turn in the lock. “It’s not the best,” I explained as we stepped inside.
He let out a chuckle. “It’s sort of a rite of passage, isn’t it? Like you’re not really part of the culture unless you’ve lived somewhere like this.”
I wasn’t sure I agreed. The rich kids in penthouses who’d gone to PS 190 had likely never smelled mold like this, or old pipes, or drywall rot. They lived in ancient buildings with constant modern upgrades, and their parents only felt the burn of stairs in their calves because they were trying to keep up on their cardio.
But I knew what he meant, so I smiled as I held the door leading toward the basement and gestured for him to go in.
“Mine is the only apartment,” I told him as I followed him down. “My uncle owns the building, so he’s letting me take the old super’s place while I figure out what I want to do next.”
