Sophie

After work, I dodged into the women’s room in the office with my purse and dug out my beauty refreshers: makeup, hairbrush, hair spray. I had a date.

His name was Dan, and I’d met him online through a dating site. His profile said he was twenty-eight, finishing dental school, never been married, no kids. We were doing an after-work drink, which was what I always insisted on when I met guys online for the first time. An after-work drink was a perfect and safe first date. If things went well, you could carry on and go out to dinner. If they didn’t, you could have your drink and go home without having to sit through an awkward meal.

I’d become very experienced with this kind of thing.

Okay, sure—online dating is a tool of the desperate, and I was only twenty-three. I wasn’t fat or ugly or even painfully shy. I could have met dates some other way—bars or clubs or asking one of my friends to set me up. But the fact was I liked online dating. I liked the no-nonsense anonymity of it. You checked out someone’s profile, and if you liked it, you met up with him. If it didn’t work out, it was understood, no questions asked. You moved on to the next person, and so did he.

That sounded cold, but cold was what I needed. I had worked hard, and I was just starting to see success in my career. There was no reason I couldn’t apply the same principles to dating. It didn’t have to be messy, right?

I could have just stayed single, except that I had a problem only a man could fix: I was a twenty-three-year-old virgin, and the joke was getting old. It wasn’t intentional—it was just that I’d been so focused on school in college that I hadn’t met anyone. And now I was graduated and working in the real world, with non-virginal adults, and I felt like an alien. I didn’t want a hookup, which was why I didn’t bother with hookup sites. I wanted a boyfriend. I just didn’t know what exact qualities I wanted in a boyfriend yet. I didn’t know what fascinated me. I didn’t know what turned me on.

Liar, liar. Yes you do.

I twisted my dark hair up behind my head and pushed the image of Dex out of my mind. Of course he was hot—I wasn’t blind. But he was Dex. He was on another continent with a supermodel right this minute. According to the press, his girlfriends had been swimsuit models and… No, that was it, just swimsuit models. In the meantime, I had to live in the real world. Lusting over Dex wasn’t going to solve my boyfriend problem, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to solve my virginity problem.

When I was happy with the chignon I’d twisted my hair into, I spritzed it with hairspray, touched up my makeup, and repacked my purse. Maybe Dan the dentist would be just the kind of guy I was into. Maybe sparks would fly. Maybe he’d be the one to make me forget the image of my stepbrother in his underwear. The guy before him hadn’t been able to do it, and neither had the guy before that. But I could hope, couldn’t I?

We met at a wine bar a few blocks from my office, a spot that was upscale but not too upscale. Dan was decently good-looking, slightly stocky, with his head shaved—he admitted that he’d started losing his hair, so he’d shaved his head instead. I found that admirable and kind of cool.

We talked about a few neutral things—the weather here in northern California, our favorite TV shows, our favorite wines. But things got awkward, as they always did, when he asked me where I was living.

“Oh, um,” I said, embarrassed. “I’m sort of living with my mom and my stepdad right now. You know, just for a few months while I save some money from my first job.”

This was it. I waited for it. This was the part when he would ask if I meant that stepdad—Dex Carter’s father. And then he’d ask about Dex. And the house.

But Dan just nodded. “That makes sense,” he said. “Not many people can live with their parents after college, you know. Parents tend to drive you crazy in such close quarters.”

I smiled and sipped my wine, deciding not to mention that the “close quarters” we lived in was the mansion Dex had bought for his father and stepmother when he’d first hit it big. Of course I’m buying them a fucking house, he’d written during one of our text conversations at the time. What’s the point of money if you can’t take care of your parents? I was just a bystander, getting the benefit of Dex’s fame by getting a free mansion to live in for the summer. Though I had no intention of staying, since it was important to me that I pay my own way.

“It isn’t too bad,” I said. “Actually, my mother and stepdad are away right now, so I have the place to myself.”

Dan nodded. “They’re taking a vacation?”

“No. My stepdad’s company has an office in New York, and he has to spend part of the year there, so he brings my mom along.” And both of them had wanted to escape the press fallout of Dex’s career problems, so they’d gotten on a plane as fast as they could with a one-way ticket.

“That’s nice,” Dan said. “I live in a loft condo. I just bought it three months ago.”

We continued talking about his loft and his ambitions to be a dentist. He seemed nice enough—the nicest guy I’d been out with in a while, and I was just wondering whether to suggest dinner when his gaze traveled past my shoulder to a TV screen above the bar.

I twisted around and looked. It was Dex again, this time on the national news, the headline about his expulsion and the footage of the fight. I turned away before I had to see it again, but Dan stayed riveted.

Finally he looked at me and gave me a half smile. His look told me he’d known who my stepbrother was all along. “I saw him play once, you know. The exhibition game he played here two years ago.”

I remembered it. It was one of the few times Dex had been anywhere near home for more than a day or two at a time, and he’d taken us all to dinner at a high-class restaurant before vanishing again.

“He’s an incredible player,” Dan continued, a wistful expression on his face. “One of the best the sport has ever seen. I have a replica of one of his jerseys at home.”

Oh, no, I thought. Damn it.

“What happened?” Dan asked me. “I mean, he’s such a great player. What was he thinking?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

Dan took the last gulp of his wine. “I could talk to him, you know,” he said. “I’ve followed soccer really closely all my life. I think I could give him some good advice.”

I stared at him, at the expression on his face, which was more excited talking about Dex than it had ever been while he’d talked to me. “This was the whole point of this date, wasn’t it?” I said. “You just came out with me so I could introduce you to him.”

“I’m not one of those crazy people or anything,” he argued. “I’m just a dedicated fan. I think he and I could be good friends if I had a chance.”

I dug a twenty out of my purse and put it on the bar. I wasn’t even going to let this guy buy me a drink. “I have to go.”

“Wait!”

I slid off my stool and picked up my purse. “Goodbye,” I said. “Don’t message me again.”

“You’re not even going to hear me out?” He actually seemed surprised. “What’s the matter with you? This is important! It’s more important than some stupid date!”

I flipped him the finger over my shoulder as I walked out of the bar, but I didn’t look back. It wasn’t classy, but I was pissed off. The sad thing was, this was the second time this had happened. Dex was even invading my dates, for God’s sake. He was off sleeping with models, and I, a lowly law clerk, couldn’t get a bald guy to buy me a drink because of Dex Carter.

I tried some deep breaths when I got into my car, but I was still seething. My phone rang in my purse, and for a second I thought with sick dread that it must be Dan, that he must have gotten my number somehow. But when I looked at the display, it was my best friend, Dana.

“I didn’t get a distress text,” she said. “Does that mean it’s going well, or that it’s over?”

“Option B,” I replied. Dana had pledged to save me from any bad dates I got stuck on if I sent her an SOS text from under the table. “I struck out again.”

“Damn,” Dana said. She had a long-term boyfriend, but she took an interest in my dating life, mostly because she worried that one of the guys I’d meet online would be an axe murderer. “What was wrong this time?”

“He was only interested in Dex.”

“Again?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Again.”

“Sophie, this isn’t working,” she said. “This Internet thing. You’re only meeting losers. You’re a hot girl with a good job. There’s no reason you should be going home alone. You need to punch your V-card, and soon.”

I winced. “Is that actually a thing people say? Punch your V-card? It’s so awkward.”

“I have no idea, but it’s a thing I say. And I’m worried that at this rate you’re going to dry up, you know, down there.”

“You also worry that I’m going to meet Ted Bundy.”

“That, too. This is crazy, Soph. You’ve been doing these first dates for months, and there’s never a second date. There’s not a single thing wrong with you, but you can’t get laid. It’s like you’re stuck in Groundhog Day. Have you ever thought of, you know, getting Dex to do it?”

“What? Getting him to do what?”

“Nail you, honey,” Dana said. “Get him to nail you. You know, to help you out.”

I dropped my head back against the driver’s seat and closed my eyes. “You did not just say that,” I said. “This day is bad enough.”

“You have to admit the idea has merit,” Dana said. “You know him, at least a little. He’s insanely hot. He probably has sex all the time, so it wouldn’t be a big deal. And I bet he’s really good in bed. It would be, like, a favor.”

“Ugh.” I rubbed my forehead, trying to massage away my tension headache. “That is—I just—I can’t do that. I can’t just ask him. Besides, I don’t want to nail Dex.” Liar, liar. Yes, you do. I did, badly. It was messing up my love life. But it was impossible. Besides the fact that he was in Italy, he wasn’t interested in me that way. He was a hot soccer star, and I was a boring law clerk. I had to be practical here.

“Soph, you don’t nail him,” Dana explained. “He nails you. That’s how it works.”

“Either way, it’s not happening. Did you not see the news? He’s in Milan with a model right now.”

“Pfft.” Dana dismissed this fact. “He’d come back if you offered him sex. And I bet she’d share.”

“You forget that I’m not looking just to get nailed, as you so eloquently put it,” I argued. “I could get that at a sleazy bar. I’m looking for something stable. That is not Dex.”

“I know. But maybe you should change the plan. Kickstart yourself out of this rut. You’re stuck because your virginity is a big deal. Maybe it would be easier to find someone if the deflowering business was over with. Then you could just get on with life.”

I was saved from having to answer her by my phone beeping that someone was on the other line. “My mother is calling,” I said to Dana. “I’ll call you later. I have to go.”

“Think about it,” she said, and hung up.

“Mom,” I said, switching lines.

“Hi sweetie,” my mother said. “What are you doing?”

“Just heading home.” I skipped the part about being on a date—my mother disapproved of my Internet dating even more than Dana did. “What’s up?”

“Have you heard from Dex?”

I tried not to think of the conversation I’d just had with Dana. “No. Nothing.” He’d never replied to my text, so the words came out bitter.

“Neither have we,” Mom said. “Jim has been trying to call and message him, but he hasn’t had an answer. We’re a little worried.”

“He’s in Milan,” I said. “He landed there this morning. It’s in the news.”

“I know. But Jim has only talked to him once since that horrible game happened, and Dex sounded bad. And he hasn’t talked to any of us since.”

I sat up in my seat. “What do you mean, bad?”

“Well, you know, despondent. Down. Who wouldn’t be, after all of that? But Dex has never shut Jim out like this before. We’ve always been able to reach him, even if it’s just a string of one-word answers. But now, nothing.”

I thought back to the news footage of Dex crossing the tarmac to his limousine, Jesetta Bibliona on his arm. Had he looked depressed? It was impossible to tell behind his sunglasses. He’d just looked like Dex, his expression impassive, an expensive designer suit molded to every line of his body.

Sure, Dex was a filthy rich athlete who could afford to fly around the world. But his entire career had just vanished overnight—not only his livelihood, but his ability to play the sport he loved. Maybe I was a bit of a bitch to be so worried about my date with a dental student. “I tried texting him,” I confessed to Mom. “He hasn’t answered. Maybe his phone is just dead or something?”

But Dex’s phone hadn’t died in four years, no matter what part of the world he was in or how busy he was. He probably had a full-time assistant just to make sure his phone got plugged in. “Please,” Mom said. “Just call us right away if you hear from him, okay?”

“Okay, as long as you do the same for me.”

She agreed and we hung up. As I started my car and drove home, I started to worry a little harder. Mom was right—Dex had periods when he was so busy he wasn’t talkative, but he never went completely silent. He never ignored us. He never just shut us all out. He had coaches and agents, but what if all of them were bailing on him right now? What if he had no one to talk to except for empty-headed Jesetta Bibliona? What if he felt all alone?

I left downtown and drove through the suburbs to Franklin’s richest community, where our house was. It should have felt weird to me, driving down streets lined with mansions like this, but by now I’d become used to it. In any case, I didn’t see any of the scenery as it slid by me. I was too caught up in my thoughts.

I parked in our huge driveway and looked at the darkened house. We had no live-in servants; we didn’t need them, since it was just me staying here for the next two months. I pulled out my phone and stared at it again, as if willing a text to come through from Dex. But he was still silent.

Damn it. I texted him again, just in case he was about to jump off a bridge or something. I didn’t want that on my conscience. You know you can always come home, right? I typed. Any time you want.

I put the phone down again and was gathering my purse when the phone buzzed, loud and sharp. I almost jumped from my seat.

It was Dex, texting me back.

That’s an interesting idea, he said.

I let out a breath. Okay, at least he was alive. At least he was talking. I’d go inside and see if I could get him to say something more.

But when I climbed the steps to the front door, I saw the alarm had been disabled, and the light was green. I also saw a light far down the front corridor, coming from one of the rooms.

My heart in my throat, I swallowed and walked down the hallway. We had day servants who came and went—cleaners who came once per week, a gardener, a company that delivered groceries. Had one of them come on an off evening for some reason? It seemed unlikely that a burglar would know the alarm code to the front door, and our system was an advanced one, expensive, with the codes changing regularly and a security company standing by if the wrong buttons were pressed.

The light was coming from the TV room closest to the kitchen. There was no sound. I squared my shoulders and walked boldly, refusing to tiptoe down my own hallway. “Hello?” I said and walked to the TV room doorway.

I stopped still.

Dex was on the sofa, the big, soft one that was placed in front of the big-screen TV. The TV was off, and there was only a lamp on in the room. In the soft pool of light, Dex was sprawled, his back against one of the sofa’s arms, his long legs stretched out and his feet pressed against the other arm. He wore worn jeans and a zip-up gray sweatshirt. His feet were bare, and he wore no t-shirt under the sweatshirt. His dark hair was damp from the shower, tousled back from his forehead. He had a scruff of dark beard on his jawline. He held his phone in one hand, and from beneath the gorgeous slashes of his brows, his blue eyes watched me with laser focus.

I stared at him, speechless.

The moment spun out, the silence of the house deafening, and Dex gave me half a smile. One that looked, if I had to put a word on it, a little sad.

“Hey, Sophie,” Dex Carter said. “How ya been?”