Luke

After Magda left the room, I turned to Avery and said: “Happy Valentine’s Day, darling.”

She laughed, harder than I’d ever seen her laugh before. She said that I’d just given her and Magda the best Valentine’s gift either of them had gotten in a long time. I’d a feeling that Magda was some sort of maternal figure for her. She picked up her laptop and looked around her office. “I’ve never slept here with someone else before.”

“I’m pleased to have been your first. Sorry we didn’t get to do more than sleep.”

“Yeah, well. Another time. We should head back to my place now so you can shower. When’s your first meeting?”

“Ten o’clock. Plenty of time to change and go for a run before we shower.”

“Please tell me your joking. It’s like a thousand below zero out. You’ll get icicles in your nostrils.”

“I run every morning. You don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to. It’ll just be me and the supermodels jogging around the park, I imagine.”

She came running with me. Neither of us in fact produced icicles in our nostrils, but we could see our breath, especially when Avery was panting and yelling and cursing at me to slow down or stop. We only ran about a mile before heading back to her flat, but I gave her top marks for effort.

The steamy shower for two was a reward for both of us. We had to get breakfast at the nearby Starbucks because all she had in her fridge was some limp organic kale and moldy yogurt, though she assured me that she was an excellent cook and enjoyed preparing healthy meals at home. We must have kissed each other about twenty times before finally parting ways at the subway station. I wasn’t usually one for public displays of affection, but for some reason my lips just did not want to leave hers. As I was purchasing my train tickets, I received a text message from her telling me that she missed me already. I responded with an emoticon. An emoticon! I don’t do emoticons. What is happening to me? I could easily see what day-to-day life with Avery would be like if I lived here. It could be blissful. I kept waiting for it to scare me, but I just felt good.

Just as I’d reached the downtown office building for my morning meeting, Avery rang to thank me for the stunning bouquet of flowers I’d had sent to her. For a moment I’d forgotten that I’d arranged to have flowers sent to her while we were still at the villa. It was during the same post-sex haze wherein I had arranged our island outing. I was spoiling her.

In my line of work, it’s important to define a “desired end state” when executing a merger. What was my desired end state with Avery? Was I really okay with simply enjoying this fling with her? A fling that would end as soon as I returned to London? Was I willing to be in an exclusive long-term long-distance relationship with her? Would I ultimately be willing to move to New York to be with her? Or did I want her to give up everything to come to London to be with me?

Before I stepped into the lift, my personal phone vibrated. I was expecting another text from Avery, but it was from Chiara. She wrote to thank me for the flowers, but stressed that she was still angry with me. I had also forgotten that I’d arranged to have Valentine’s Day flowers sent to Chiara before the Bahamas trip came up. “Thinking of you,” the note was supposed to say.

I did not respond. I deleted the message. I had no reason to feel guilty about it since it had been arranged before I got together with Avery, but since I’d be staying in her flat again that night, it seemed risky to have a message like that on my phone. Not that Avery seemed like the sort of woman who’d go through a man’s phone—although none of my lovely sisters seem the sort either and I know for a fact that they have all tried to hack into their boyfriend or ex-boyfriend or husband’s email accounts at one time or another.

I was glad I had back-to-back meetings scheduled for the rest of the day so I was too busy to think about any of that stuff. When I got back to Avery’s, she had her small dining table set up with candles and fine china, which she admitted was on loan from her client’s restaurant. She had re-heated the lobster bisque and warm steak salads in the takeout containers, in the microwave, because she only had one pan and she had used that to heat up the salmon entrees. Most of the salmon had stuck to the pan because, but I assured her that it would be delicious if we ate it directly from the pan and scraped off the charred bits, and I was right. It was delicious.

We didn’t end up eating at the dining table; we sat on the floor by her coffee table again.

She kept checking her phone.

“How was work today?”

“Fine, I mean. I hate having to play catch-up. I’ve never been away from the office for so long, it’s weird. I’m out of sync, I don’t have my usual rhythm.”

“I know exactly what you mean.” I did. I was getting antsy myself, but my desire to enjoy my last full day with Avery trumped my neurosis.

“Sylvia handled everything while I was gone, she’s great, but I need to know everything that’s going on and I don’t feel like I have my land legs back yet. Is that the term?”

I put my hand on her thigh. “Whatever these are, I’m very fond of them.”

She guffawed, and then checked her phone again.

“Are you expecting a Valentine’s Day call from Mr. Potter? I doubt he gets very good cell phone reception in the back of the closet. Shall we bring him out?”

“No! I haven’t heard back from my sister yet, it’s weird. I texted her yesterday and called her today. I’m sure she’s busy with the kids—it’s fine. How’s your New York trip so far?”

“Dazzling. How are you enjoying my New York trip so far?”

“I’m tolerating it.” She smiled.

“Glad to hear it. I look forward to returning the favor when you’re in London.”

She took a deep breath before saying, “I look forward to that as well.” She seemed very tense all of a sudden.

I thought things were going so well. I couldn’t quite figure this woman out. “It will be like Notting Hill except I’m better looking and more charming and masculine than Hugh Grant and you’re more beautiful and glamorous than Julia Roberts and infinitely funnier.”

“I wouldn’t know, I haven’t seen that one.”

“Intelligent decision. It’s rubbish. I should have said it’ll be like Four Weddings and a Funeral only with three fewer weddings and one less funeral. Hopefully. Well, two fewer weddings if we go to Bucket and Ingrid’s next wedding. You’re planning on attending, yes?”

“Um. Yes. I mean, if they actually send an invitation. You?”

“Fer sure. If they actually send an invitation…So you have nothing against weddings, but you refuse to watch romantic comedy films?”

“Well. I’ll go to a wedding if I’m invited, of course, but I’m not crazy about weddings. I haven’t watched romantic comedies since my father left, because romantic comedies are a lie. They’re manipulative and they set up false expectations.”

I laughed. “Of course they do, but that’s no reason not to watch them. If you don’t watch rom coms, the terrorists win.” Does that mean you have no intention of getting married?

I made her watch Love Actually right then and there. I purchased it from iTunes and we watched it on my laptop. She agreed to watch it solely because of Emma Thompson and Colin Firth. By the end of it, she was trying so hard not to cry, and she was furious because she felt so manipulated.

“I will not cry. I will not let a romantic comedy beat me. I will not let life beat me. It’s just a stupid voiceover and people hugging at airports in slow motion who cares! Why did I have to watch an entire movie just to see that?!”

I wanted to make her watch Sense and Sensibility, because I knew she’d love it and apparently I couldn’t avoid thinking about Hugh Grant movies when I was with her, but her phone rang. It was her sister, so she took the call.