Vince

No one does girl-next-door pretty quite like Jacqueline Butler. Her wavy brown hair drapes over her shoulders, her figure small but strong, her style of dress classy, never trendy.

Leslie wasn’t like that.

And before you accuse me of pining over Butler because she’s not like my ex-wife, I assure you, my attraction to Jackie has nothing to do with the fact that she doesn’t wear nine-hundred-dollar shoes or have her nails done weekly.

Besides, I’m not pining. But lately I have started noticing. I can’t help it. The more she came over to my house postdivorce, the more distracted I became by her simple sexiness. She is the kind of girl who eats a slice of pizza with gusto, and we often fight over the last slice—or square, if she makes me get one of those skinny excuses for pizza from the local joint. But after a few months of steady pity dating, where she came over to spend time with me to make sure I wasn’t fashioning a noose, I started seeing Jackie, my friend, as Jackie, hot girl I’d like to spend more time with.

Notice I didn’t say “fuck.” I’d never fuck Jackie.

She’s not the fucking type. She’s the making-love type, and I’ve started wondering if Jackie might be a girl I’d like to make love to. However, that would require a date, and she is completely against dating. Plus, she sees me as a nonsexual object. Like a pen…or a shoehorn.

I know I can get her to see me as more, but first I have to get her to agree to start dating. Who better to set her up with than the superhuman who runs by the office every day? I figure he’s a douche (likely), and I also figure even if he isn’t, I can convince her that he is. I’m persuasive, you know. I didn’t get to be VP of marketing by possessing a set of balls alone.

My plan serves a purpose other than hurting my best friend’s feelings. First, it’ll get her over the “no dating ever” phase she’s mired in, and second, it’ll get her to see me as potential dating material.

She’s not a rebound. I had a few of those. Okay, okay—several. Getting back into the game required a one-night stand or two, and I wasn’t shy about it. I never told Jackie, and maybe it’s because, though I wouldn’t admit it then, I liked her the whole time. Some part of me must have known that I’d want her later, and I don’t plan on telling her that those girls helped mend my heart as much as Jackie’s lounging on my couch for the past several months.

If I’d gone there with Jackie after the divorce, it would have been disastrous. I couldn’t sleep with the girl who saw me misting over while grieving my failed marriage. I needed to be confident and strong at a time when my insides were cracking. That’s what those one-night girls were for. Band-Aids. They never called, and I never called, so the arrangement worked well. Or I guessed it did, anyway. My best bud, Davis, says that things went well, and he’s the expert.

I spend the next hour-long meeting jotting notes in the margin of a sales report. And doodling a guy running. I think about drawing him with a tiny penis, but in case our head of sales happens to see it, I resist. I don’t want to have to explain myself to Todd over there.

He sends me a scathing glare. He wanted VP worse than I did, so when two people outranked him instead of just one, he was super pissed. I send him a smile and he looks away. Whatever, prick.

As far as plans go for winning Jackie, I’m not sure mine will take any awards. As I leave the meeting, promising Marcy I’ll consider her idea to streamline the Bombay account, I have the first inkling of doubt. Not about Marcy’s idea—it’s a good one—but about my scheme. What if it backfires? What if Thick Neck is Mensa smart, fun, and an all-around nice guy who lives up to Jackie’s every expectation?

After brief consideration, I shake my head.

Nah. No way is that guy anything less than an empty husk with a physique that’s overkill.

I dismiss myself—that meeting marking the end of the workday—and grab my gym bag from under my desk. I went to the gym at lunch, hitting the weights rather than going out for wings with the rest of the sales department. Not because I’m suddenly challenged by Tiny Penis Running. I’ve always worked out. It clears my head and keeps me from wending down the dark and dangerous road and ending up as a middle-aged paunchy guy if I let myself go.

Fine. You got me.

The gym commitment may not have started at the divorce—I’ve always been a casual worker-outer—but it’s definitely increased since then. Which is maybe why Running Guy sort of pisses me off? Not that I expect Jackie to stop and take notice of my toned abs or increased biceps, but…did she notice?

I’m not sure. That should have been an “I don’t care,” but therein lies the problem with liking your best friend.

I got the house in the divorce. A huge, hulking structure in the burbs that was too big for the two of us and way too big for just me. I considered getting a pack of golden retrievers to keep me company, or to at least use the neglected bedrooms, but then I’d have a fur-covered family and chores, and what if one of the girls I brought home was allergic?

Now, though, my conquests on hold and my sights set on my co–vice president, I consider a dog. Jackie likes dogs. I know because she’s always moaning to me about how she wanted one “so bad” but there’s a “no dogs allowed” policy at her apartment complex.

The moment I pull into my driveway, I receive a one-word text from Davis on my phone that’s one word, no question mark: Beer. Because he’s been my best friend for nearly the entirety of my life, I know this means he’s at McGreevy’s Pub. It’s not an invitation or a status update. It’s a call to arms. I text him with a number and part of a word: 15 min.

I arrive thirteen minutes later, thanks to running that yellow light on Sixth and snagging a coveted parking spot at the curb. McGreevy’s is downtown, next to a swanky coffee shop called Three O’Clock, an antiques-slash-bookstore, and a plethora of other boring businesses like banks, insurance companies, and a Realtor’s office.

McGreevy’s Pub isn’t swanky or boring. The pub has a backdrop of warm wood and only a few television sets hung overhead. Inside, I spot Davis on a barstool, neck craned, watching CNN. Not sports but CNN. Despite the fact that he works from home as a stock analyst, he’s in a suit—an expensive one—and his tie is still knotted at his neck. I’m wearing my jeans and button-down, but I busy myself rolling up my sleeves. It’s too damn warm for a suit.

“Hey,” I greet him.

Davis, face pinched, doesn’t look away from the TV’s scrolling news. “Hey.”

I watch the numbers and letters, all foreign to me, for a silent minute. Finally Davis blinks out of his trance and turns his head to address me properly.

“The fuck are you doing?” he asks, the deep concentration wiped from his face like it was never there. “Where’s your beer?”

“I walked in sixty seconds ago,” I inform him. “I haven’t seen the bartender yet.”

“Grace!” Davis shouts. A bartender with bright red hair, a ton of black eyeliner, and at least one visible tattoo of roses and leaves on her shoulder and trickling down her arm gives him a smile. Her lips are painted a similar shade as her hair, and a tiny diamond winks from the side of one nostril.

She smiles at Davis for an extra beat before flicking bright green eyes over at me. “Saddle up, partner,” she says, gesturing to the barstool under my palm. I sit as she requests and she leans on the bar, arms spread, white bar towel in one hand. “What’ll you have?”

I order a draft beer and she moves away from me to pour it.

“She’s new,” I tell Davis.

“Fucking hot,” he says with a reverent head shake. “I bet she’s a wild creature in bed.”

I have to chuckle, not because he’s wrong but more because she’s so the opposite of his type it’s not even funny. The last woman he dated wore an honest-to-God string of pearls over what was usually a pale pink shirt. Davis chose women who were professionals, not bartenders with piercings and ink.

He levels a look at me, a contemplative one, after Grace delivers my beer and heads to the opposite end of the bar. “She’s what I need after Clara.”

“Wait.” I hold out a hand to stop him even though he doesn’t look interested in saying more. “Things have ended with Clara?” They started dating two weeks ago.

He shrugs. “They’re all the same.”

The ones he dates, maybe. “Not true.”

I take a hearty drink of my beer, enjoying the first cold sip celebrating the end of a very long day.

“The ones you date,” I amend. “They’re all the same.” Clara, Lillian, Bridget. Petite, waiflike blondes with expensive handbags and shoes. “They wear pastels like they took an oath to do so.”

“I like dainty women.” Davis’s eyes trek back to Grace, who throws her head back and lets out a bawdy laugh. “And yet that one…”

I can’t deny Grace is gorgeous. Her white tank top is rimmed with lace, offset by the bright red, pink, and green of her tattoo. Her black shorts show off great legs. She’s wearing flat tennis shoes, and in combo with the rest of her, I can’t help thinking Davis is way out of his league.

“Ask her out,” Davis says to me.

I nearly choke on my beer. After processing his bizarre request, I ask, “You want me to ask out the girl you like?”

“Yes. Someone should. I can’t.”

“Why the hell not?”

He gestures at his suit like it’s obvious. “She’d shoot me down. I’ve been coming in here a week and a half—without you, by the way.”

“I had to work.” And hang out with Jackie, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“Every time I’m in here, she’s painfully polite and then wanders off and rewards someone else with that laugh of hers.” His face scrunches like it did earlier when he was watching CNN. “She thinks I’m a stiff.”

“She probably doesn’t think of you at all,” I say with a touch of bitterness, my mind on my own object of obsession.

“Thanks, buddy.” He grimaces at me and then tips his beer to his lips. We both study the TV, him seeing his life and livelihood, me seeing pixels, fonts, and a woman in an ill-fitting royal blue suit.

We drink our beers.

We don’t talk anymore.

That’s the way dudes do it.