CHAPTER NINE
REBECCA
THE RESTAURANT WHERE EVAN ASKED me to meet him is on a corner, with a fancy-pants hotel wrapped around it. I’m not exactly a fancy person, and the restaurant seems really high end. I hope I can find something to eat. I’m suddenly sure it’ll be all liver and goose neck or whateverthefuck else. Rich people seem to like the garbage parts of food.
It’s already weird. I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to park in the garage or if it’s for hotel guests only, but when I pulled up to the curb to ask, the guy at the little wooden lectern asked me asked me my name instead of answering my question.
“Rebecca?” I said, as if I wasn’t sure.
“Rebecca Presley?”
“Um … yes?”
He opened my door and stood aside. At first, I had no idea what I was supposed to do, but then I realized he was waiting for me to step out. A second guy handed me a ticket.
“How much does it cost?”
“It’s handled, Miss,” the second guy said.
“Handled how?”
“Right this way, Miss Presley.” The first guy smiled. Then he went to the restaurant’s door and held it open.
I tentatively entered and was met by a man with a buzzcut and a long beard. He asked for my party’s name, and again I gave him mine. His expression brightened, then he said, “just a moment,” before scurrying away.
And now here I am, uncomfortable in the small, wood-paneled lobby. I wasn’t sure what to wear, but I ended up in my little blue dress. It’s maybe too short. I was going for professional but ended up bordering on slutty. I’ve got my matching bag clutched in front of me, sort of like I’m shielding my vagina from attack. It’s a knock-off. I got it at Target for forty bucks.
I’m looking at a posted menu — idly, trying to seem disinterested, purse-shield still guarding my lack of chastity — when the bearded man returned. “Apologies for the wait. Right this way.”
“But I haven’t told you who I’m meeting?”
The reservation can’t seriously be under my name.
“Of course, Miss. But he’s told us.”
The restaurant is dark but not forbidding. Sedate and comfortable, like a jazz club just before closing. The place is busy — business lunches, I assume, filling every table. Some nice places use the sort of seating I hate — a long bench down a whole wall. I’ve sat in the middle of one of those long rows before when I went out with Steve. I always felt like I was sitting on bleachers rather than at an intimate table for two. Not that it was intimate back then. Steve took me out for my birthday once and for our anniversary once. I paid both times.
He’s steering me right for one of those annoying bench tables. I’m making myself okay with it when we turn left, diverting toward an oversized pair of doors I hadn’t noticed. It almost looks like a kitchen entrance, except that the doors are solid wood with no window or porthole, like the doors to a castle.
He opens the door and stands aside.
Inside it’s quiet, the chatter of the outer room absent.
My heart beats faster. This is weird.
There is a titanic round table. It’s probably ten feet through the center, but in addition to being massive, it’s also thick and heavy, like something Vikings would eat off of. There are more than a dozen chairs around the table, but only one is occupied.
Evan hears the doors. Sees us. Sees me, and his eyes go slightly wide as if he’s surprised I’m here and is trying to hide it. He stands, coming around toward us. The bearded man from the restaurant is still here — waiter, maître d’, whatever. His presence is suddenly strange — intrusive, like an unwanted chaperone.
I face Evan, not two feet away, feeling a flush. He’s so much cuter in person than he is online or on TV. His hair is cut short, his features handsome, his smile hot enough to melt me in two. He’s draped a jacket over his chair and faces me in a white shirt that fits him more perfectly than I’ve ever seen a shirt fit a man. It flatters his frame, showing off broad shoulders and a flat belly. I want to look away, for decency. His physique is also hotter in person.
I look up. He’s still there. Waiting.
“You’re not Rebecca Presley.”
No wonder this never made sense. He thinks I’m someone else — some other woman by the same name.
“I’m—”
“You seem way too quiet.”
He smiles, but it seems slightly uneasy. I can tell he wishes he hadn’t said that. It’s true; I’m a thousand times quieter than my loudmouth persona. People who follow me online then meet me in person are sometimes disappointed. Because the real Becca Presley doesn’t stand ten feet tall, exhaling fire on her enemies. I’m timid, usually nervous in public, even shy. What I do on my websites is my armor. What’s beneath is far more vulnerable than I prefer to let on.
But still, there’s that doubt in his smile, as if Evan is embarrassed. He’s wondering if I feel insulted. It’s a strange thing to see on him, and after a long second, I start to wonder if I’m even reading him right. Is it that he’s wondering about a faux pas? Or have I surprised him in another way, and he’s nervous, just like me?
Ridiculous.
We’ve been standing here too long, and I’m acting too prim. The waiter-or-whatever is still beside me, waiting for our greeting before moving on to menus and drinks. But Evan and I are at an impasse. We must look like two people who don’t know whether to hug or shake hands.
Shake hands, obviously.
But another second passes before Evan’s hand goes up. I shake it and make my lips say, “Nice to meet you.” But I’m distracted by this … this something I feel in this small room. The energy is odd. As is Evan’s shake. He takes my hand and there’s something like a pleasant shock.
Evan — not the waiter guy — moves to pull out a seat beside his.
I sit down, and Evan follows.
Finally, our escort can ask for our drink order. I consider wine to ease my nerves, but that feels dangerous. We both end up with water and menus.
When the doors close behind the bearded man, the energy of the room shifts again. It’s just the two of us. The windows are covered by thin drapes. It’s quiet. It should be awkward, but it’s something else.
“I apologize,” Evan says. “I wasn’t able to get us a bigger table.”
I smile, then look across the giant table. It’s big enough to dance on.
Or do other things on.
“Pathetic,” I say.
“Seriously, though. It’s so loud out there. I like to hear the person I’m talking to. I know this room is obnoxious, and you’re going to have to sit right beside me because across from me is a half-mile away. I promise I’m not usually this spoiled.”
“Sure you’re not,” I say, still playing along.
“I don’t even ask for this room. It’s just where they seat me if there’s nobody else in here.”
We’re close. My bare knee, below the hem of my maybe-too-short dress, is just inches from Evan’s. My left hand isn’t sure where to go, but it’s ended up near his, running a finger across the menu. I’m a little lightheaded.
More silence. It’s awkward, but in a very specific way. A waiter returns with water. We both jump a little when the doors open as if we’ve been caught.
Caught doing WHAT, Rebecca?
My mind has answers. They involve the big table. It’s embarrassing even to think such things. I’m here for business — though what that means, I still don’t know.
We wait for the waiter to leave, then I say, “I’m not what you expected, am I?”
“Honestly, no. I guess I expected you to be more exuberant.”
“Like a big loud asshole?”
My hand goes demurely over my mouth, but Evan laughs. More ice, successfully shattered.
“I wouldn’t say it that way.”
“But you’re thinking it.”
I stare at him, unwilling to let him out of an answer.
“Okay, a little,” he finally says.
I have a long, complex explanation for the implied question — one involving my insecurity, my social anxiety, my tendency to deflect and raise armor, and my terrible track record with the men who’ve hurt me. But it’s far, far too intimate for a first encounter. I shrug and say, “I’m not like I am online, at least not most of the time.”
“It’s amazing, you know,” he says.
“What is?”
“How you are online. I’ll bet you don’t even realize how gifted you are. How rare your talent is.”
“Gifted? What talent?”
“The way you communicate. It’s …” He seems to search for a word.
“Obnoxious? Inappropriate?”
“Natural. Unforced. You don’t see it that much, online or off.”
“You do know I’m the girl who has a website making fun of her ex-boyfriend’s little dick, right?”
“How did that start, by the way? What’s the story?”
I tell him the public relations version — facts without the baggage. I tell him how Steve belittled me, but don’t elaborate on how small I still feel because of it today.
By the time I’m done, the waiter is back, asking for our order. I don’t want to say I haven’t looked because I’m hungry and don’t want to delay, but Evan sees my bafflement and says, almost apologetically, “Can I order for you?”
“Um …”
“Unless you already have something in mind.”
“No. Please. I could use some help.” Saying it takes some effort. If I let Steve order for me, he’d order something absurd.
“Sounds like he deserved it,” Evan says after he’s ordered chicken something-or-other and the waiter is gone.
“What?” It’s out of context. I’m having trouble keeping up.
“Steve. Sounds like he deserved to have a website in his honor.”
I shrug.
“I looked through your history. Just a little, before I messaged you.”
I want to stop him there, get more detail on why he messaged at all. It came out of the blue, and he’s been light on specifics. If this weren’t all coming from Evan Cohen of LiveLyfe, I’d be thinking Stalker for sure. And there’s no proof that I still shouldn’t be, except that few girls feel as fine hanging with their stalkers as I feel now.
But Evan was talking about my history, so I respond. “What about it?”
“It looks like your fans showed up right away. Like, from day one.”
“That’s because my first fans were already fans of my last business, and they already knew him. I’m an open book. I wrote a lot about Steve, and me and Steve together, whenever I—”
“I saw some of that stuff, too.” He reaches for a salt shaker and slides it pointlessly to one side, probably just to give his hands something to do. “But you said something there: ‘fans’ of your last business.”
“Yeah.”
“Most people don’t think of business ‘fans.’ They think in terms of ‘customers.’”
“Hmm.” I’ve never really thought of it. It all seemed interchangeable. But then again, it’s not like I have many boundaries.
He explains why it interests him, but I’ve stopped paying attention. I should have worn a longer dress. I wish I were less awkward, less boring to be around.
When Evan stops making me uncomfortable with praise, he tells me that this — and by “this,” I assume he means all the stuff I wasn’t paying attention to just now — is why he wants to work with me. Some people think he’s ridiculous, but the man has dreams beyond LiveLyfe, and those dreams need this, whatever it is.
I want to take what I suspect is a compliment, but it’s tricky. I’m just some loud bitch on the web. People seem to like me, but who cares? Anyone can post dick pics.
Evan is clearly on a mission, but it’s obvious that the mission is eluding him as much as it is me. He has a vision. But right now, it’s out of focus.
I try to meet his eyes, but it’s hard. I’m thinking things I shouldn’t think about someone I just met.
I wish I were more interesting.
I wish I had the brilliant mind Evan seems to believe that I have.
I wonder what he’s thinking about me. Whatever it is, I know it’s wrong.