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“Hey,” I say.
“Hey,” he says. “You want to hang out?”
“Don’t you have to work?” I ask him.
“Kind of, but I get away with a lot,” he says.
“I bet that you do.”
“Do you have to work?”
“Kind of,” I say. I don’t have to be at the bar tonight, because I’ll be there all weekend. But I always have work that I could be doing. I don’t elaborate.
“I need to go home and change, get a couple of things done. I can meet you here in a few hours if you want. We can go do something.”
“Like what?” I ask. Hanging out during the day is somewhat unheard of for me, and I have no idea what that will entail.
“I don’t know. But don’t worry, it won’t be anything fancy,” he says. “I know how you hate that.”
“I really do,” I tell him.
“I can pick you up,” he offers.
“Um, I should get some things done, too. Can you meet me somewhere? Post Alley, maybe?”
“Yeah, okay. I’ll text you.” He kisses me and leaves. It’s one of those normal interactions that I’m not accustomed to, and I’ll spend too much time analyzing if my behavior was that of a normal person throughout the day, but at least it’s supposed to be another beautiful one. It’s another of those late-fall, too-hot, too-sunny days that we all complain about, but beg for in the dreary days of May. I shower, leisurely eat my breakfast and throw back a couple of cups of coffee while watching the morning news, and pull on some jeans and a tank top, knowing I’ll probably be too hot. I pack a book, my laptop, and meet the morning sun outside. The walk is quiet, and it grounds me a little bit. It’s a hack of mine for mental health. I grab a coffee and find a seat in the shade outside a café in Post Alley and just exist for a while.
Afternoon rolls around and I’m still waiting on Jake. He’s late, which doesn’t bother me yet. I’m always late. I’m not nervous, more curious, to see how this will go and see where it will go. I guess part of me is just wondering what he’s like in the daytime. It’s funny how I’ve heard these stories—that he’s fake, he’s cold, he goes through all these women so quickly. But when I’m with him, I don’t sense it. I don’t sense that I’m with someone shallow. He feels like a well, but I’m not quite sure what’s lurking in his depths.
When he finally walks up, he surprises me by looking completely ridiculous. He’s grinning from ear to ear, but not because he’s so thrilled to see me. He’s wearing khakis shorts and crew socks with sandals, as per our first conversation, and he’s waiting to see my reaction. While it’s intentional and meant as a joke, it’s still unclear if this is his everyday wear or not. He owns it, and he’s wearing it.
“I heard you go crazy for a guy in khakis shorts,” he says, and kisses me, in broad daylight, like we are a normal couple of something.
“Nice socks,” I tell him.
“I wore them just for you.”
“So what now?” I ask him.
“Do you think it’s too early for a beer?” he replies.
“I mean, maybe. For other people that don’t have…problems.”
“Do we have problems?” he asks.
“Probably,” I shrug. Coffee straight into alcohol has never been a problem for me, and maybe that’s a problem.
“You know what?” he says. “Let’s skip it, I have a better idea.”
I follow him down the alley and around the corner to a parking garage and get into a black BMW sedan. I can’t remember the last time I was in a car that wasn’t an uber. I was probably a teenager, and it was probably something that was at least 10 years old with over a hundred thousand miles on it—the kind of car you were supposed to have at that age, if you were lucky enough to have one at all.
“So where are we going?” I ask as he starts to drive.
“I have a couple of kayaks,” he says. “I thought we could go kayaking. I don’t really know what you’re into, besides solid cello music and not my apartment.”
I think my heart stops for a minute. I’m not really an outdoorsy girl and I don’t possess any kind of athleticism whatsoever. I think I can swim for a couple of minutes—probably well enough to yell for help a couple of times, but probably not well enough to save my life. There’s a good chance that this could go poorly.
“I have life jackets,” he adds. Was I thinking that out loud?
