ComeShift Series Bonus
“What are you doing?” Mandy asked, trying to turn over to face Cameron.
“Just lie there and be a good girl,” he told her, holding her flat on her belly with one powerful hand.
“But what are you doing?” she asked with a laugh, laying her head back down on the pillow.
“I’m creating a work of art.”
“What sort of art?”
“The kind that has made me famous.”
“You’re putting graffiti on my back?”
“Very funny.”
“Well, you do have a mugshot online for spray painting a pedestrian overpass.”
“It was a labor of love.”
“It got you arrested.”
“Well worth it.”
A week into their dating he had been arrested for spray painting a message to her on the side of an overhead walkway. It was juvenile and yet, she’d found it completely endearing. Walking through the park one morning following a night of phenomenal sex, she had stopped and stared at the huge letters above her head with a mixture of amusement and horror. They spelled out “Mandy” in neon green, followed by “Came” in hot pink. They had just discussed that she walked this path every morning on her way to work the day before. There was no doubt it was his work.
They had a good laugh later when he had told her that he was mid-stroke when he’d spotted cops walking up the path with mag lights. One had yelled at him and he’d run before he could finish spelling out “Cameron” and add the bright yellow “&” sign he had intended to put in the middle. They weren’t quite as amused a few days later when he had been arrested based on nearby camera footage that clearly showed his face. He ended up with a slap on the wrist and some community service time, plus a story that probably wasn’t quite appropriate to tell.
“This might just be a masterpiece,” he commented, moving the marker in a flourishing stroke across her backside. No doubt he was signing his name as he was known to do.
“I hope you aren’t planning on putting it on display somewhere.”
“Absolutely not. At least not where anyone else can see,” he told her, blowing against her skin as if to dry the paint marker.
“Are you finished now?” she asked, attempting, once more, to get up.
“Yes, but it needs to dry. I’m afraid you’ll have to lie there for a moment. Don’t worry. I’ll watch and let you know when it’s cured.”
“And how long will that be?”
“Just long enough to make you come is what I’m thinking,” he told her, his fingers slipping between her legs and caressing dampening pink folds.
“If you make me squirm, it might mess up your artwork.”
“Then I suppose I will have to keep you pinned down, won’t I?”
“I suppose you must,” she replied, her words punctuated by a moan as he began teasing her clit with a single digit.
“There you go. Don’t hold back. I love listening to you when you’re excited. You sound almost angelic, even though we both know what a little devil you are.”
“You make me that way,” she muttered, biting the pillow as his thumb slipped upward and into her ass, slipping in and out in perfect coordination with the fingers that were buried inside her dripping pussy and simultaneously massaging her clit.
“We’ve only just begun.”
Mandy moaned loudly as his strokes increased in frequency and force. He continued fucking her with his hand as he leaned down over her, slipping one hand beneath her to pinch and twist a single nipple. A loud cry created from a mixture of ecstasy and delicious pain emanated from her center as she arched into the bed, eager for more.
“Not yet, beautiful,” he told her, slowing his movements so that he was gliding in and out of her wetness slowly, deeply.
“Please. Please let me come,” she begged.
“In time. I’m not ready to let you come just yet.”
Under Cameron’s guidance, Mandy had been progressively trained to hold off on her orgasms per his instructions. He was every bit the alpha male his profile on the ComeShift dating app had indicated. It was a fluke that she had even been on there, having always opposed dating sites. She’d only given it a shot based on a friend’s recommendation after having such bad luck trying to date normal men. The site was designed for shifters like Cameron to meet women more accepting of their special abilities. She had never expected to find her soul mate there, but after four weeks, Cameron certainly seemed to be exactly what she had been looking for.
“Yes,” she replied, her voice a needy whisper against the pillow.
“Do you want to come now?”
“Yes.”
“Too bad. I’m not done with you yet.”
Cameron pulled her up on all fours, back toward him, positioning himself between her legs. She gasped loudly as he entered her, forcing his girth inside her slippery pussy with one powerful thrust. His hands moved beneath her again, grasping her full breasts in his hands and kneading them as he fucked her from behind. Their combined groans filled the room around them. Mandy whimpered as his strokes grew more eager, pounding her from behind until they both shattered into shards of orgasmic bliss.
“I love the way your muscles constrict and squeeze every drop of pleasure from me.”
“I can’t get enough of you,” she replied, her head still resting against the pillow as she collapsed down onto the sheets beneath her.
“Come on. Let’s show you what I’ve created,” he told her, standing. He playfully pulled her ankles, so she was halfway off the bed.
Mandy stood and looked at him, took his hand and followed him to the full-length mirror situated on one side of the bedroom in her apartment. He turned her around slowly so that the mural he had created on her back was visible and handed her a small mirror, so she could see. Mandy looked at it, speechless. It was incredible what he had done with just paint markers on bare skin, but what really took her breath away was what he had written in the center. It said, “Mandy and Cameron FOREVER” and below that, just above where he had signed his name with a flourish was “I love you.”
“I love you too,” she replied, her voice full of emotion.
“I know you do. I love you more than anything in this world, Mandy.”
She smiled happily up at him for a moment before looking back in the mirror at the beautiful vines and exotic flowers he had created around two caricatures of them. It wasn’t his usual dark and erotic style art—which he sold like hotcakes at local art shows and galleries—but it was special. She hated that it was something that she would never be able to keep.
“Here, let me take a picture of it. That way you’ll have it forever,” he said, as if reading her mind.
Mandy watched as he retrieved his cell phone from her bedside table and snapped a few photos of his masterpiece. Then he kissed her. It was the kiss of a man in love, a man she intended to spend the rest of her life with. Cameron was not like any other man she had ever met and perhaps that was why her love for him had grown so fast and so fierce. The art was short lived, washed away in the shower, where they made love once again. This time, slowly, softly. It was magical. Not a doubt existed in her mind that he was her destiny.
Time seemed to stand still when Mandy was with Cameron. They never argued or even disagreed for that matter. Their similarities were so many and their differences virtually non-existent. Mandy often found herself just looking at him, watching him as he moved or spoke. The quiet moments when he was reading or painting and unaware that her eyes were on him were the ones she cherished.
Just like now. He was absorbed in his laptop, talking with a potential buyer on Skype regarding some art she wanted to purchase for her studio. Mandy sat looking at him, at the way his bright green eyes sparkled in the glow of the backlight. She noted how his wild curly brown hair wisped around the nape of his long, slender neck. He was delicate but powerful. He was beautiful.
“What are you looking at?” he said with a huge smile, looking up to catch her watching him.
“You.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to. I like looking at you.”
“I like looking at you too,” he told her, closing the computer.
“I didn’t realize you were done.”
“I am. I have something else on my mind now.”
“Yeah? What is that?”
“Fruit. I’m hungry.”
“Oh,” she replied in a disappointed tone.
“Fruit that I intend to eat from your naked body.”
“Oh!” she said a bit more enthusiastically.
“Get undressed for me. I’ll be back in a moment.”
Mandy did as he asked, spending the next hour being used as a fruit bowl, a wildly ecstatic one, at that. Cameron took his time enjoying his little mid-afternoon snack, including giving her multiple mind-numbing orgasms with his commanding tongue and eager mouth, before licking her completely clean. She marveled that their sex life had not waned in any way, not gotten stale or mundane. Instead, every time with him was even better, more delicious.
“I thought we might go away for the weekend,” he told her as they lay there in the afterglow.
“Yeah? Where did you want to go?”
“My parents have a place up in the mountains. I like to go up there from time to time and, you know, just cut loose. I can’t really run free here like I do there, so I like to go and let my hair down sometimes.”
“You mean let your tail out, don’t you?” she laughed.
“Something like that,” he said. “I want you to come with me. You’ve never seen me shift before. Are you ready for that?”
“I don’t know. I mean, it’s hard to think about that part of you. I can’t imagine what it will be like, so I don’t know how I’ll react to it at first, but it doesn’t bother me about you. I’d have never gone on the site if I was concerned about that part of it.”
“Yes, I can imagine that it’s different for someone like you. Especially for someone who has never seen it before, but I want you to see it when I can show it to you in a controlled environment and not because I’m forced to for some reason. You’ll be spending your life with a man who sometimes turns to a wolf and, one day, when we have a son of our own, you’ll need to understand his gift, as well.”
“I…I don’t know what to say. I’ve never heard you talk about having children before.”
“You do want children, don’t you?”
She smiled widely at him. “Of course I do. I think you and I will have beautiful children.”
“I think we will too.”
Mandy’s heart felt as if it might burst with joy. Not only had she found the right man, but he wasn’t just some player who would use her and move on like so many of the men she had met before. This one was here to stay. He loved her and wanted to have children with her. Finally, she had found what she’d always wanted and each day she spent with him only felt more spectacular.
“Then you will go with me this weekend?”
“Yes. Of course I will. I can’t wait,” she told him, leaning over him to kiss him softly.
He pulled her down closer to him, kissing her softly before pulling away and getting out of bed. She watched as his perfect naked form padded across the floor and into the bathroom. A moment later, she heard the faucet running in the tub. Getting out of the bed, she started to pull on some clothes, intending to wait for him until he finished with his bath, but she was interrupted by the sound of his voice.
“Well, are you going to join me or not?”
Mandy smiled and made her way toward the bathroom, dropping the clothes in her hand onto the bed as she passed. Stepping into the large garden tub, she sat between his legs as he took his time washing her with a soapy sponge. She breathed slowly in and out, overcome with how wonderful her life with him continued to be.
“We should spend the night at my place sometimes,” he told her.
“Yes. I like your place. I don’t know why we spend so little time there.”
“It’s just more convenient here during the week. It’s closer to my studio and your work. We could start staying there on weekends when we don’t have to make the commute though.”
“That sounds good.”
He ran the sponge down her arm. “Eventually, we’ll need to decide where we want to live.”
“What do you mean? We both have places.”
“Together, I mean.” He kissed the side of her neck. “Perhaps not today or tomorrow, but when you feel comfortable with it, we should decide which place we want to keep or if we want to get rid of both and find a new place.”
“You mean live together?” she asked, her heart racing.
“For starters.”
Mandy leaned her head against his chest and smiled. The implication was clear. All this talk of moving in together, children. It was only a matter of time before he would propose to her. It felt incredible to be wanted, to be loved. No one had ever been this serious about their feelings for her and she found that she returned that love wholeheartedly.
“That sounds wonderful,” she said happily.
“I’m glad you think so. Now, let’s get out of this tub. It’s getting cold and we’ll be prunes.”
Mandy laughed and climbed out, grabbing a towel to dry off and handing him one to do the same. They made their way to the bedroom to get dressed before heading back into the living room. Cameron returned to his laptop, doing some sort of research, she assumed. She headed off to the kitchen to make dinner for them, all smiles at how great life with Cameron had become.
“This place is beautiful,” she marveled as they pulled onto a gravel road leading up toward the base of Mount Evans.
“Isn’t it? I loved this place when I was a kid.”
“I’m sure you did. How old were you before you knew you could shift?”
“Oh, not until my teens. Before that, I was just a normal kid, or so I thought, running around these peaks and valleys. Once I learned who I was, what I was, it took on a whole new meaning though.”
“How so?”
“It was just different. I saw it through the eyes of a wolf, not those of a boy.”
“I guess that’s something I can’t understand really.”
“I wouldn’t want you to understand it fully. It’s not entirely a pretty picture.”
“Were you traumatized by learning about your true nature?”
He shrugged. “No, not really. It was just a different way of life.”
Mandy wasn’t quite sure she believed that, but it wasn’t something she felt she should continue to explore with him. If he wanted to elaborate on it, he would do so when he was ready. She was relieved when they pulled up to his parents’ large rustic cabin so that they could just let the conversation fall away naturally.
“This is it!” he said happily. “Mom and Dad are going to adore you.”
“I’m nervous,” she admitted.
“Don’t be. Mom is a sweetheart. Dad, well, he’s a bit of a salty dog, but you’ll like him.”
“Salty dog? That’s funny.” She grinned at him.
“I thought so,” he said with a chuckle, getting out of the car and running around to open her door, ever the gentleman.
They walked up to the door, hand in hand. It swung open before they could even knock, a large smiling woman greeting them with open arms.
“It’s so good to see you, son! And this must be the lovely Mandy we’ve heard so much about,” she said, hugging them each in turn.
“Yes, Mom. Mandy, this is my mom and that hulking giant behind her is my dad,” he said, smiling at the huge shadowy figure standing just behind her inside the cabin. He stepped forward and Mandy’s breath caught in her throat. He was a huge man, well over six-five and broad, but not fat. He was all muscle. Cameron was about six-two and slender. He looked very much like his dad, but was dwarfed by him.
“It’s nice to meet the both of you, Mr. and Mrs. Trousdale,” Mandy said politely.
“Oh, honey. We aren’t formal at all around here,” his mother said. “Just call us Sam and Anita.”
“Okay. Thanks,” Mandy said, smiling nervously.
“Mandy, go on in with Mom and I’ll get our things out of the car,” Cameron told her.
“I’ll help you, son,” his father told him, waiting for Mandy to slip inside the door before trotting out behind him. A moment later they returned with bags in hand.
“Just put those up in the guest room,” Cameron’s mother told them before turning toward Mandy. “We aren’t those old-fashioned kinds of parents that are going to make you stay in separate rooms. Don’t worry.”
Mandy could feel the heat of her embarrassment rise up her face as she attempted an awkward smile. She was grateful when Cameron returned to rescue her from her discomfort.
“So, Mandy. Cameron tells me that you’re an editor at the local newspaper,” his father said as he sat in a chair across from where Cameron joined her on the sofa.
“Yes. I’ve been there since I graduated college.”
“He says that’s how you met,” his mother added.
Mandy glanced curiously at Cameron, who squeezed her hand lightly and addressed his mother on her behalf.
“Yes. She was editing a piece on one of my art installations and contacted me to get some additional information to clarify the writer’s article,” Cameron told them.
“Must have been love at first sight,” his mother commented.
“Pretty much,” Mandy replied, unsure as to why he had lied. It was something she had never known him to do before. Still, she chalked it up to him having his reasons. She would ask him about it later when they were alone. She also noted that he quickly changed the subject.
“So, Dad, have you been getting any fishing in lately?”
“Here and there, when I can. Your mother keeps me busy around this old place with her endless honey do lists.”
“Hardly. He likes to blame me, so people don’t know what an old nester he really is. He’s done nothing but create projects for himself.”
Sam laughed and shrugged in response. “Damn woman is always telling my secrets. If I didn’t love her so much, I’d have kicked her to the curb three decades ago.”
“You couldn’t survive this world without me, old man,” she shot back playfully.
Mandy smiled at them. It was easy to see where Cameron got his sense of humor. The relationship between his parents seemed lighthearted and happy. It only made her even happier to be with him, knowing that he was cut from the same cloth as such a happy marriage.
“Oh, good grief. I’m being rude. I haven’t even offered you anything to drink and it must have been a long ride.”
“I’m fine, really,” Mandy told her.
“I’d like some of that lemonade I know you have stashed in the fridge, but I can get it,” Cameron told her, getting up and trotting off to the kitchen. He returned only seconds later with a large glass of lemonade on ice. He took a few sips and offered her a drink. “Here, you have to try this.”
Mandy took a sip, knowing it was more about him knowing her so well than about the lemonade. He knew that she was just too polite to ask his mother to get up and get her something to drink, so he did it and shared with her. It was his nature to make sure she was taken care of, whether she asked him to or not. It was just one more thing she loved about him, how attentive he was to her needs in all aspects of their relationship.
“It’s delicious,” she told him.
“Want me to get you a glass?” he asked.
“No. I’ll just drink yours,” she teased, taking another sip.
“Sounds about right,” he laughed, kissing her on the cheek before turning to his mother. “What’s in the oven, Mom? It smells delicious.
“You know what’s in there. Your favorite. Pot roast with all the trimmings. I trust you brought your appetite with you.”
“You know I did,” he said with a laugh.
“Just try to leave enough for Mandy,” she laughed.
“Always do, Mom,” he replied, putting his arm around her and hugging her close to him.
A half hour later, they all settled down at the dinner table and enjoyed what might have been the best home cooked meal Mandy had eaten in a long time. The conversation was lighthearted and loving. Mandy could only see it as a good omen for what her life with Cameron would be like. There was always this fear with any woman that the man you chose to spend your life with would change, become someone you couldn’t accept, but if the relationship between his parents was any indication of things to come, she could only see a wonderful future with him.
Later, after they had retired for the night, she lay her head on his shoulder in the double bed of the guest room, tracing her fingers lightly across his chest. He stroked her hair lightly with one hand as he sighed.
“I know you’re wondering why I lied to my parents.”
“Yes,” she responded, wondering, as she often found herself doing, if he could read her mind.
“They’re just old fashioned and very secretive about the shifter part of our lives. They would be livid if they knew I had just put it out there for strangers to see. I hope you understand.”
“I do. It makes sense.”
“I’m afraid it will have to be our one secret, our one dishonesty,” he told her.
“It will be then.” She lifted her face to his, kissing him.
They made love slowly and quietly so as not to be heard down the hall. He was gentle, tender. Each touch, each thrust only made her ache for him more. She had never felt so loved, so complete in her entire life. Cameron was the man of her dreams. There would never be a time when she didn’t want him like this, with all of her being. Their bodies rose and fell in perfect unison in a passionate dance of ecstasy until they quaked with orgasm. Finally, sated, they fell asleep in one another’s arms, waking the next day to sunshine streaming through the bedroom window.
The weekend was incredible, their bond sealed with long walks along the trails and long talks with his parents. Every bit she learned about Cameron’s life, from his childhood to well beyond, only made her love him more. On their last day there, he showed her his true self, shifting into a large gray wolf before her eyes and trotting off into the forest. His wolf form was every bit as playful as his human side, darting back and forth to show off for her. He had a distinct white streak running down the side of his face, and he nuzzled against her when she stroked her fingers down it. Finally, he shifted back to his human form, standing naked in the remote area where he had stripped down to change.
“You’re beautiful,” she told him breathlessly.
“Don’t let it fool you. I can be brutal when I need to be, but not with you, never with you, Mandy.”
“I know,” she replied, rising up on her tiptoes to kiss him on the forehead.
Mandy hated to leave once the weekend ended, but she reluctantly said goodbye to the solitude they had enjoyed the past few days and his mother’s home cooked meals.
“Don’t be strangers,” his mother told them as they left. “We’ll expect to see the both of you again soon.”
“Oh, you will. You’ll be seeing both of us for a long time to come,” Cameron told her.
“I like the sound of that, son,” his father replied, waving to them. “Goodbye, Mandy. We’ll see you again very soon.”
“See you soon,” Mandy replied with a smile.
“Bye, Mom. Bye, Dad,” Cameron said as they climbed into the car and left.
“I had a fantastic time,” Mandy told him as they pulled away.
“I did too, baby. I am so looking forward to many more trips here with you in the future.”
Mandy smiled and reached for his hand as he headed down the road leading away from the house. He squeezed her hand in his and smiled at her briefly before turning back to focus on the road ahead. This was what it felt like to be happy. After all the bad experiences with men that weren’t right for her, she had finally found the one man she had been meant to be with all along. Wasn’t that alone a miracle? She watched the distance float by as they headed back home, quietly enjoying one another’s company as the trees faded away and became the steel and concrete of the city once again.
***
“I have to leave for a few days,” Cameron told her the following week.
“Is something wrong?” she asked, frowning. Something was a bit off about him.
“No, babe. Nothing’s wrong. I just have to go check on that job for the woman who wants me to redecorate her studio for her. I’ll only be gone until the end of the week and then I’ll be right back here in your sweet arms,” he said, pulling her to him and kissing her.
“Okay. I’ll miss you though.”
“Not nearly as much as I will miss you, but I won’t be gone long. I’ll be back, and we’ll have our entire lives together.”
“I suppose I can survive a few days without you, but it will be awful, just awful.”
“It will be just as awful for me. I’ll get back to you just as soon as I can though. I promise. This is a big job and I need to do what I can to land it. You understand that, right?’
“Of course I do, Cameron. It was bound to happen that you’d have to go somewhere away from me eventually. It won’t be the last time, I’m sure. I suppose I best get used to it, especially when you really make it big. People are already clamoring for your pieces. It’s only going to get busier for you.”
“Yes. I hope so. Still, I promise you that I will always have time for you. You’re always my first priority. Always…”
“I know. You go and do what you need to do. I’ll be here waiting for you when you get back.”
“Naked, I hope.”
“However you want me to be.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” he told her. “I need to pack. I’m going to have to leave on an afternoon flight tomorrow night.”
“Okay, she told him. She kissed him goodbye before he left to go back to his place and pack his bags. “Will you be back?”
“No, not tonight. I need to pack, and I need to put together some things to take with me for presentation and selection. Will you be okay without me?”
“I suppose one more night won’t be any more painful than the few that follow,” she laughed.
He grinned wickedly at her. “I’ll make it up to you when I get back. I promise.”
Cameron kissed her on the forehead, stopping to look at her as he pulled away. She could see the love in his eyes, but there was something else too. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on and it bothered her. Still, she smiled and said her goodbyes, already hating not having his arms to sleep in for the rest of the week.
The following morning, Mandy awoke with a feeling that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Cameron hadn’t called her to tell her goodnight and that was unlike him. Usually, they were together at night, but on the rare occasions that they hadn’t been, he’d always called her to tell her to sleep well and that he was lonely without her. Last night, nothing. Opening her phone, she sent him a message before heading off to the shower.
“Hope you got some rest last night. I missed you. Did you get everything done for your trip?”
Stepping into the shower, she tried to shake the inexplicable uneasy feeling she had. There was no reason for her to be concerned really. Cameron loved her. She could see it in everything he said and did. Perhaps he had just fallen asleep or his phone had gone dead. A small part of her said something might have happened to him, but he was a wolf shifter, for cripes’ sake. She seriously doubted there was anything he couldn’t handle.
“You’re just being ridiculous,” she told herself, dismissing her thoughts as she washed her hair beneath the steamy stream of water.
Stepping out to dry off and dress for work, she picked up her cell phone. There was no message. But it was early, he could still be asleep. She chastised herself again for being so needy. Wasn’t that what it all boiled down to? She wanted him there with her and he wasn’t? She shook her head and put the phone back down, doing her hair and makeup before slipping into a skirt and blouse for work. By the time she was ready to go, there had still been no response from Cameron, but she forced herself not to be a basket case over nothing.
Walking down the path to work, she glanced up at the overpass. Though the graffiti Cameron had put there months ago had been long ago whitewashed by the city, there was still a faint glimmer of the words through the thin coat of cheap paint they used. She smiled thoughtfully and continued on her way, quickly becoming absorbed in her work once she arrived. When her phone buzzed, shortly before lunchtime, she was certain it was him. No way would he get on a plane without calling her first. Instead, it was from her friend Kellye, asking if she wanted to go to lunch.
“Why not?” she mumbled to herself, sending back a reply that she would meet her in the cafeteria at noon.
Cameron hadn’t said anything about having lunch before he left, and she realized she wasn’t even sure what time his flight was. For that matter, he hadn’t even told her where he was going. It all seemed a bit odd now that she thought about it more, but she was sure there was a logical explanation for it. She tried to push it out of her mind again and finished up the article she was editing for the morning edition before heading down to meet Kellye.
“You haven’t heard anything from him since last night?” Kellye said over salads and water.
The cafeteria served the water in large tea glasses with ice and a twist of lime, but everyone knew the water here came straight out of the tap, unfiltered. It was for this reason that Kellye always ordered bottled water, but tap water didn’t bother Mandy at all. She drank it at home and it came from the same place as it did here. She never saw the need to be pretentious or paranoid. The thought made her smile, realizing that she was being extremely paranoid at the moment.
“I’m sure it’s nothing. I’m just being a big baby. He’s always around these days and I’ve gotten used to it. I need to learn to handle him having to travel without me sometimes.”
“You’re most likely right. You know men, they sometimes like their space. It means nothing. They spend a few days without you and can’t wait to get back to see you. Just think about the ‘missed you’ sex!”
“You’re right. It’s all new to me. I’ve never been one that needed or even wanted someone around all the time. That’s just how it’s turned out. He wanted to be with me every day and I wanted him there. It just seemed natural. I guess I’m just freaking out a little because I’ve gotten used to that.”
Kellye smiled at her, shrugging. “It’s been less than a day, Mandy.”
“Yes. You’re right. I’m just being fickle. That’s why I like you, always keeping me in check when I get crazy.”
Mandy walked away from their lunch feeling better. It was just that she missed him so much already and that was only going to get worse. At least hearing his voice would make it better. She took a deep breath and reminded herself that she wasn’t this clingy, demanding woman that she felt like at the moment. He was only gone for a few days and he was busy getting things done. No doubt he would call her soon.
***
“He still hasn’t called,” she lamented to Kellye a few days later on the phone.
“Have you tried to call him?”
“Yes, once. I got his voicemail and just left a message that I was calling to make sure he made it there okay, wherever ‘there’ is. I don’t even know that. I didn’t want to seem like I was spazzing out or anything, but I am. I’m completely panicking. What if something happened to him?”
“Well, you’ve only been together for a little over a month, right?”
“Yes.” She put her hand on her forehead. “I know what you’re going to say, Kellye. It’s too soon for me to be so attached to him, but you don’t understand. Everything with him was perfect. It will seem too quick to you, I know, but he told me he loved me. He was talking about living together, mentioning kids one day. He even took me to spend the weekend with his parents!”
“I don’t know, Mandy. Just call him. Tell him you can’t find the toothpaste or something and need to know if he knows where it is. You know, a reason you need to contact him and get an answer other than you’re a worry wart.”
“I hate games. I don’t want to play them. Why wouldn’t he have called me already? It’s not a matter of checking in. Why wouldn’t he want to call me? Doesn’t he miss me as much as I miss him? Oh God, what if something did happen to him?”
“Whoa, slow down there, girlie. You’re getting yourself all worked up without any facts. Maybe you’re right and you should just call him and tell him you were worried because you haven’t heard from him. There’s nothing wrong with that if you have gotten that close. I just thought it was a lot more casual than all that.”
“It wasn’t…isn’t.”
“Then, call him and see what’s up.”
“Okay. I’ve got to go.”
“Call me later and let me know how things went.”
“I will.”
Mandy ended the call and immediately opened her speed dial to call Cameron. Once again, she got his voicemail, but it was still early and he might be with his client. She left a message for him to call her when he got a moment, telling him she was very concerned that she hadn’t heard from him. When hours went by with no reply, she grew even more concerned that something was wrong. She contemplated calling the police and reporting him missing. Was that too extreme?
Instead, she opened her computer and went to his Twitter page. He had posted nothing there. The same was true for his Facebook page, which was unusual, as he usually bantered there a good bit with friends and family or posted works in progress so that he had more public visibility for his art. He really must be busy. She noticed that another woman had posted on his page. It was nothing significant, just a funny cartoon about starving artists, but she had never seen the woman before. Looking at his friends list, she noted she was listed in the recently added section. How recently, she wondered. She had never noticed her before.
“Don’t be a stalker,” she mumbled to herself, but it was useless.
She clicked on the woman’s profile, but it was blocked to all but friends. All she could see was the woman’s picture. She was an attractive brunette. Mandy switched to Twitter, the woman was there too. She could see that she had been added within the last week based on a contact before her, one that Mandy remembered him adding while they were talking about his work as an author. This felt bad, really bad.
Mandy held her breathe as she went to his ComeShift dating profile. It was still there. While she had deleted hers several weeks into their dating, he never had. She hadn’t thought to check because things were going so well and even if it had been there, it could just mean he hadn’t bothered dumping it yet. Now, she could see that not only had it never been deleted, it was showing that it had been updated. Her heart ached as she stared at the screen where it read “Last online: Today”
She continued to stare blankly at the screen, at the new picture he had added. It was a great full-length photo of him that had been taken on a cliff overlooking a deep forest in the valley of Mount Evans. She knew because she had taken it during the trip to his parents. What was going on here? Was he cheating on her? And how could he have the audacity to use a photo she had taken during a presumably happy trip?
Her emotions ran the gamut between anger and hurt. How could he do this to someone he claimed to love? Was it something he had been doing all along and she had just been blind to it? When would he have even had time? She asked herself why endlessly, blaming herself for it. Why hadn’t she been enough for him? What was she going to do when he came back? Should she confront him? Doing so would force her to reveal she had been nosing around like a jealous school girl, but how could she not say anything and still see him in the same light?
As the hours flowed away with no return call from him, no texts, no emails—she laid on her bed and cried herself to sleep. The night brought no answers, only a restless slumber filled with bad dreams. She awoke the following morning looking and feeling like one of those hideous blob-fish things lurking in the depths of the ocean. Her eyes and face were equally as puffy and distorted from crying all night.
“You look like hell,” Kellye said flatly when she stopped by her office the following morning.
“I know. I tried to fix it with some ice and lots of makeup. Now, I just look like Adele after a night of binge drinking. I wonder if she felt this bad when she wrote all those gut-wrenching songs.”
“I wouldn’t say it’s all that bad, but what happened? Did he call you?”
“No. I decided to do a bit of digging though.”
“Oh, my. That never goes well.” Kellye pulled up a chair. “Tell me what you found.”
Mandy told her what she’d seen on his ComeShift page and about the girl on his Facebook and Twitter.
“Yeah, but you have no idea who she is. She could be an old friend, a client…hell, she could be his cousin for all you know.”
“What about the dating profile?”
“That’s a different matter. He’s obviously looking, but maybe it isn’t that bad. Maybe he just has cold feet. Let him look around and chat with the usual lot of liars and freaks that exist behind their computer screens, and he’ll see that he got lucky with a very real girl who loves him.”
“I don’t get why he would even look. He seemed so happy with me. I’m not the one that was pushing for more, not ever.”
“Perhaps that’s the problem. Maybe he thought you weren’t as into him as he was you? He could have been frightened by that.”
“No. I don’t buy that. It doesn’t make sense. He could have just talked to me if that was the case.”
“Yes, he could have, and he should have, but not all men are able to relate on that sort of level. You have to ask yourself that if he can’t even discuss a concern with you, if his answer is just to reach out to other women instead, is that really someone you want to be with?”
“I suppose you’re right, but it’s hard to reconcile what I’m learning with what I’m feeling,” she said, almost in tears again.
“Okay. Okay. Just breathe. You’ve got a long day ahead of you. Try to just focus on work and we’ll meet for lunch and talk through some of this. Maybe he will call in the meantime.”
“He’s supposed to be back today I think. He said a few days, so I assumed three. Do you think he’ll come to see me?”
“I don’t know, honey. If he’s being so evasive, I think that you might have to at least steel yourself for the possibility that he won’t. Just keep your chin up and I’ll see you in a few hours. Okay?”
Mandy nodded sullenly, getting up and following Kellye down the hallway toward her office, but parting ways to go into the women’s restroom to try to gather herself up a bit again. She felt like she could barely move or breath. There was this huge weight that sat squarely on her chest and compressed everything. She walked on legs of jello, pushed forward by the momentum of her racing heart. The anxiety was unbearable. The looming depression insufferable. Combined, they were akin to being in hell.
Two weeks passed with no word from Cameron. At first, Mandy looked at his social media, trying to find answers, but there were none there for her. The only thing she found online was more pain. While she was devastated, he seemed to be moving forward with life as if she had never existed.
“I was talking to someone about what happened to me and she said I’d been ‘ghosted’,” she told Kellye over their usual work salads.
“Ghosted?” Kellye said, an eyebrow raised.
“Yes. Apparently, it’s become pretty common these days. People just disappear. There’s no formal split or decision to not see one another. One just decides to be done with it and goes away.”
“That’s awful!”
“You’re telling me?” She stabbed a piece of lettuce with her fork. “It’s maddening. I went through days of worrying about him and then of beating myself up about anything I could think of that I might have done to make him do something so drastic. Turns out, it’s not that uncommon for men to do that these days. I don’t understand it. It’s so hurtful and disrespectful to just treat someone like they never mattered.”
“Do you think he was lying the whole time?”
“I don’t know, Kellye. I honestly don’t know. The way he was with me, the way he looked at me, even the way he touched me… I felt like he loved me. I never doubted it for a moment. If he was lying, he’s very good at it. Do you think he’s some sort of sociopath?”
“I don’t know. I’ve only ever heard you talk about him and you always talked about him in a positive way. I never met him.”
“See, that’s the thing too. I was so blind to some things. Even though we were together all the time, he kept me separate from other portions of his life. We never went out with his friends or with mine. The only people I ever met from his life were people we just happened to run into while we were out and then that one trip to his parents’ place. He stayed at my place a lot, but he always brought a bag and took it back out with him. The only things he ever left were small things of no consequence. You know, disposable razors, shampoo…things like that.”
“Do you think he was planning to do this all along?”
“I don’t know. I don’t understand any of it. How someone could be so loving one day and then so cold and callous the next is beyond me. I just wish I knew what was going on in his mind. I don’t do well without closure.”
Kellye nodded, taking a drink from her water before responding, “None of us do, especially not when it’s such a bizarre situation. Common or not, it just seems weird to me.”
“Weird doesn’t begin to cover it. He might as well have just yanked my heart out and stomped on it.”
“He’s a coward, Mandy. You deserve better.” She smiled suddenly. “I know what you need. Fun! You need to just get out and enjoy yourself for a while. How about you come to my sister’s costume party next weekend? It’s Halloween. You can get all dressed up and be someone else for a night.”
“I don’t know. The last thing I feel like being right now is social.”
“That’s exactly why you should go. You’re never going to get back out there unless you force yourself to do it. No sense moping around the house when you can be out having fun, no strings attached. Just friends, food, and lots of good booze!”
“I’ll think about it.”
“No. Say you will go.”
“Fine. I will go. Okay?”
“Mean it?”
“Yes. I’ll go.”
“Good girl. I’ll send you the address and all that later. You can go with me tomorrow after work to find a costume. A Halloween party is just the thing for you since you’ve just been ghosted,” Kellye said with a half grimace/half laugh.
“Not really funny yet,” Mandy said, laughing despite herself.
“I know, honey. I know. It got at least a little chuckle from you though, so that’s improvement.”
“I’ve got to get back to the office.”
“Yeah, me too. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Yep. See you then, Kellye.”
The following afternoon, the two of them stood in a small shop trying on different Halloween costumes. Mandy laughed as Kellye walked out of a stall wearing a latex Catwoman suit that was so tight she could barely move her legs. By all accounts, she should be jealous of Kellye’s perfect figure. She was model thin with long blonde hair and big blue eyes. Heads turned wherever she went, but the truth was that she was so down to earth and sweet that you couldn’t hold her good looks against her. She really didn’t even seem to realize how she looked.
“How in the hell do people do those stunts in the movies wearing this thing?”
“I have no idea. It looks amazing on you though.”
“I’m glad, because I’m not sure that I am going to be able to peel it back off without taking half my skin with it.”
Mandy laughed. “Surely it isn’t that bad.”
“No? Just wait. I may not even need a costume when I get this thing back off. I’m going to have huge patches of missing skin and look ghastly enough to just go out as myself!”
“I doubt that.”
“I swear it’s true. I can’t wear this to the party. If I get sweaty dancing, it will get trapped in here with me and I’ll drown in my own perspiration. Help me get this bastard back off.”
Mandy laughed as she followed her back to the dressing room and helped her peel the costume off. Kellye wasn’t kidding when she said it was tight. Mandy marveled that she had been able to get it on in the first place.
“Let’s go as Laurel and Hardy,” Mandy suggested.
“What? No way. We have to go sexy. I mean, I need a man like I need a hole in my head. I’ve got way too much going on to deal with idiots like everyone I know is finding out there, but you need to look devastating. I want every man in that party looking at you.”
“No. I don’t think so. Even if I could pull off getting that kind of attention, I’m just not interested in meeting anyone.”
“Good. That’s when the unexpected happens,” Kellye said, slipping back into her clothes. “Now, let’s go get you something hot.”
An hour later, they walked out with two costumes in hand. Kellye had opted to go for gruesome, selecting the makeup and tattered clothing to go as a zombie stripper. Mandy had gone more historical, yet risqué, with a dark colored medieval executioner’s outfit. The bustier revealed more of her breasts than she would like, but Kellye had insisted she buy it and she did have to admit that the hourglass shape it gave her looked fantastic.
“You’re going to blow them away in that,” Kellye laughed as they checked out and made their way down the street, stopping in a nearby pub for a couple glasses of wine.
“We’ll see about that,” Mandy said, laughing in spite of herself. She had to admit that she was beginning to feel better. Cameron had left his mark on her, a scar that wasn’t going to go away anytime soon. She didn’t know when she would be able to trust a man again, but she had accepted that he was gone and that there was no rhyme or reason to it that she would ever know. She had to either accept it and move on with her life or continue wallowing in the self-pity he had left in his wake.
***
On the night of the party, she took her time getting dressed. Her long dark hair hung in a single braid down her back. It was interwoven with strips of ribbon bearing the likeness of the grim reaper and his signature sickle. Soft sprigs of loose hair hung breezily around the edges of her faces, softening it a bit from the severe braid in back. She applied her makeup in a gothic style, with heavy eyeliner that brought out her bright green eyes and dark red lipstick that enhanced her full lips.
“You look alright, Mandy,” she said to her reflection in the mirror. Kellye had been right about this being the perfect costume. It did look fantastic on her. She felt good about herself for the first time in weeks as she walked out of her apartment and made her way down to the subway, garnering several catcalls along the way. By the time she arrived at the party, she felt almost human again, but it would be short lived.
“Oh, wow! Look at you! You look fantastic!” Kellye squealed as she walked through the door. “You’re going to have these boys eating out of your hands.”
“Or I’ll have their heads!” Mandy said playfully.
“Yikes! Come on and I’ll introduce you to some folks. There are some other people here from the office, but it’s mostly my sister’s crowd.”
They roamed around the room meeting people even as more poured in the door. At some point, Mandy became engrossed in conversation with a writer for a different newspaper. He wasn’t someone she would be interested in, but he was nice enough and she was enjoying their discussion of common interests when she happened to glance up and see a familiar face. She stopped speaking mid-sentence.
There, in the middle of the makeshift dance floor, was Cameron. He was wearing a sheep’s costume, but the head was only a hoodie style, revealing him in his wolf form beneath it. It took a moment for it to sink in due to her initial shock at seeing him but then it did. He was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Just the idea of that angered her, as it was too close to the truth for her taste. With him was a woman, also in her wolf form, but wearing a Little Bo Peep costume. Mandy’s stare was broken as the two of them became entangled in a hot kiss, practically dry humping one another in the middle of the dance floor.
“Mandy? Are you okay?” the man asked.
“What? Oh. Yes. It’s just maybe a bit hot in here. I need to get some air,” she told him, hurrying away toward the sprawling deck beyond the double doors in the large den. Without waiting for a response, she made a beeline for the outdoors and didn’t stop until she was in a quiet corner of the backyard. She stood there trying to catch her breath, feeling as if she had been punched in the stomach and might be sick at any moment.
“Are you okay?” she heard a male voice ask from behind her.
Mandy turned to find a man completely covered by a sheet with holes cuts for his eyes, nose and mouth. She could see a pair of nice Italian loafers jutting out from beneath the bottom edges of it.
“I’m fine. Thank you.”
“You don’t seem like you’re fine. Want to talk to someone?”
Mandy looked him up and down. “I don’t even know you.”
“No, but you could, in a matter of minutes even. I’m not that complicated. I mean, look at my costume. I went all out on it and everything. This is my best sheet!”
Mandy laughed, despite herself, but she still wasn’t about to tell her problems to a complete stranger. She nodded woefully and began to walk away.
“I’m sorry. I just can’t,” she said, her voice trailing off as she made a hasty retreat toward a nearby bar manned by Kellye’s brother-in-law, Mickey.
“Well, look at you,” he said cheerfully as she approached. “If I weren’t a happily married man, I’d confess to anything just for a few minutes in your noose.”
“Been mixing a few of those drinks for yourself, Mickey?” she laughed.
“Meh. Perhaps, but you do look lovely. What can I get for you?”
“Something potent. Poison Hemlock, maybe.”
He grimaced. “Oooh. Rough night?”
“More than just one night. Things have gone to complete shit lately.”
“Oh, I see. You can yak it up with the bartender, but not a ghost. How do you know that I’m not the ghost of someone you executed? You might owe it to me,” came the voice of the guy in the sheet as he walked up beside her.
“Weston? That you under there,” Mickey interjected.
“Yeah, man. What’s up?”
“Not much. Just having a good time. You enjoying yourself, buddy?”
“Mostly. I was trying to get this beauty beside me to give me the time of day, but she is apparently afraid of ghosts. I knew I should have come as a superhero, damn it.”
Mandy laughed as Mickey shook his head woefully at the ghost.
“Man, you’re just trying too hard. You can’t pick up chicks in a ghost costume. I don’t care who you are. Now, if you had come to the party in your natural state, your animal magnetism would have won her over. Seems now that you are out a bed sheet and out of luck.”
“Story of my life, my man. Story of my life…and death, apparently.”
“I tell you what. I like you, so I’m going to help you out,” Mickey told him, handing Mandy the drink he had been mixing. She had no idea what was in it, but if it numbed the pain she felt at this moment, she’d probably have another when this one was gone. “Mandy, this is Weston Parker. He’s a partner at my law firm. Weston, this is Mandy Caldwell. She’s an editor for the Daily Sun. Take your drinks and go get to know one another better,” he finished, handing the ghost a beer.
“I knew I liked you best. I’ll add this to my ‘reasons to make you a partner’ list,” Weston told him.
“I do what I can,” Mickey said with a wide smile before turning to take a drink order from a couple dressed as Bonnie and Clyde…after they had been shot more than fifty times. They were gruesome to look at, even if it was a hilarious idea.
“Jesus Christ,” Weston said as she got a glimpse of them standing there, guts and gore dripping off their bloody costumes. They were eerily realistic looking. So much so that they only added to Mandy’s emotional nausea. She turned to walk away and Weston followed, still chuckling to himself a bit.
“They were hideous,” she said, stopping by a bird bath in the backyard to glance back toward the bar.
“She speaks to me!” Weston said enthusiastically.
Mandy looked at him sheepishly. “I’m sorry if I was rude before. I’m just having a really bad day today. I thought coming to this party would help me out of a funk I’ve been in lately, but it only made things worse.”
“Let me guess. Man troubles?”
“More like little boy troubles from the way he has acted,” she said dismissively.
“Well, you know, the best revenge is living well. That’s what they say anyway. Why not let me take you out and show you what a great time you can have without him?”
Mandy smiled at him. “Thanks, but I’m just really not in the right frame of mind to date right now. It’s not you or anything, I’m just not interested in seeing anyone.”
“He must have done some number on you,” he replied, his voice sympathetic.
“Yeah. Anyway. It was nice meeting you, but I think I really need to get out of here before this night gets any worse. I hope you have a great evening.”
“Very well, Mandy. It was a pleasure to meet you. I’ll let you be on your way.”
“Goodnight, Weston.”
“Goodnight,” he told her, watching as she sat her glass on a nearby table and walked away.
Mandy wove her way carefully through the party. It was packed in both the yard and the house. She caught a glimpse of Cameron and his date, both of whom had now reverted to their human forms. He was still in the sheep costume, but she was just wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Mandy couldn’t help but notice that the girl looked very much like herself. That just made everything seem more confusing to Mandy. Why would he choose someone who looked so much like her when he hadn’t wanted her?
Walking home in a daze, Mandy made her way up to her apartment, shedding the costume and washing off the heavy makeup. She looked at herself in the mirror for a few moments and then climbed into bed, crying herself to sleep, something that seemed to have become a very unfortunate habit of late. It was getting old, but the pain was still so fresh to her. She didn’t know how to get past it. It only hurt more to know that he’d had no problem moving on. Although, since he was able to cut her off so easily, she probably never really meant anything to him in the first place.
By the following Monday morning, she had decided not to let herself spiral downward any farther into the depression she’d been falling into for weeks. If she had meant so little to Cameron, why was she wasting her emotions on him? Hadn’t she cried enough over a man who was an asshole at best and a sociopath at worst? What sort of person promises you the world and then just suddenly disappears without a word? The more she considered what he had done to her, the more her disappointment turned to disdain for him.
“He did you a favor,” Kellye told her over lunch the following day.
Mandy scowled, picking at her salad. “I don’t know about that.”
“He did. It’s better that you know he’s a piece of garbage now than to have found out years down the road after you were married and had children tugging on your skirt tails when he abandoned the lot of you.”
“That’s true, I suppose. It just doesn’t feel very nice.”
“I know it doesn’t, honey, but it will get better. Hey, tell me about Weston.”
“Who?” Mandy asked, the name not registering at first.
“Mickey said he met you at the party and hasn’t stopped asking him questions about you. He was really taken with you it seems.”
“Oh, the ghost. I don’t even know what he looks like. I kind of blew him off. I’m just not ready to date again yet.”
“You should reconsider. I haven’t met him, but Mickey says he’s a super nice guy. Most importantly, he’s not a psycho like Cameron.”
“Maybe in time I’ll want to go out with someone again. I’m just too jaded right now.”
“You know what they say. The best way to get over a man is to get under another one.”
“Certainly seems to be Cameron’s philosophy based on what I saw. Of course, he wouldn’t have to get over me if he hadn’t skipped out on me. I guess there was really nothing to get over for him.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you at the party. My sister grabbed me the moment I came in and put me to work in the kitchen. By the time I tore myself away from her indentured servitude, you had already left. I didn’t know why until you told me. Then, I remembered seeing him practically climbing down Amelia’s throat in the corner.”
“Amelia? That’s her name?”
“Yeah. She’s a friend of a friend of my sister’s. She brought him to the party. No one there knew him. I didn’t either. I’d never met him. It wasn’t until you told me what happened that I put two and two together as to who he was.”
“Great. I’ll look forward to running into them again,” Mandy said sarcastically.
“That won’t happen. She told my sister that she hadn’t heard from him since the party. He told her he would call her the next day and didn’t. Then he blocked her from all his social media like she was the freak.”
“Sounds right. He blocked me too. It took him a couple weeks. Maybe he was deciding if he was going to talk to me again or something, I don’t know. But then he blocked me and that’s when I really began to realize it was over.”
“It took you that long?”
Mandy grimaced. “Unfortunately, yes. I just thought he was having some sort of personal crisis and would come back. Which obviously didn’t happen.”
“Awful. I don’t know why we let men do that shit to us.”
“Me either, but no matter what we tell ourselves, we all do it. We all let them drag us down to their level and hurt us in ways we can’t just bounce back from, no matter how hard we try.”
“Well, it’s over now. It’s time to move on. Why don’t you let my brother-in-law give your number to Weston?”
“Hold up! I’m getting over things, but I’m still not ready to jump back into the cesspool again!”
“Alright. I’ll tell him I tried. If you change your mind, I have the feeling the invitation will be open for a while from what I’ve heard.”
“Perhaps the damsel in distress syndrome. I don’t know why men can’t resist a woman in pain.”
“Or putting her in pain.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Mandy groaned. “I’ve got to get back to the office.”
“Yeah, me too. I’ll talk to you later.”
The two women parted ways, both returning to their offices. Mandy felt oddly content, at least more so than she had felt for quite a while. She knew that there would be moments where the discontent would seep in like rain water through any crevice, but she was grateful to just feel at peace for whatever time it lasted. The night would take it away. It always did. But it was getting better. The dreams had lessened. The loneliness had subsided. She didn’t think about him as much, but unfortunately the result was a sort of numbness that held her in a gray area she couldn’t seem to shake.
Still, life went on and the shock of seeing Cameron with someone else, while it had been devastating at first, had somehow been cathartic for her in the end. It had shown her just how wrong she had been about him and what a complete waste of time pursuing him after their demise had been. There was something innately devoid in his narcissistic personality that she had missed while looking at him through the eyes of love. Now, that love was fading and there was no disguising who he was ever again.
“Mandy? Is that you?” a voice said from nearby.
Mandy had been lost in thought. It was her day off and she had ventured downtown to do some shopping, deciding that she was well past due for a treat for herself. After buying a few articles of clothing in some nearby shops, she’d sat down to have a quiet lunch at one of the sidewalk cafes that were common in this part of town.
“I’m sorry. Do I know you?” she asked. Something about his voice seeming familiar, but she would have most certainly remembered him had she seen him before. He was tall and slender, but athletic. His olive skin complimented his jet black hair and soulful brown eyes. With good looks like that, she would have remembered seeing him before wouldn’t she?
“Of course. You never saw my face at the party, it was covered by a sheet. Mickey introduced us at the Halloween party. I’m Weston.”
“Oh! Yes. It’s nice to see you again, Weston. Or perhaps, to see you for the first time I guess.”
“Do you mind if I join you?”
“Sure. Go ahead, though I feel a bit underdressed with you in a suit and tie.”
“Yeah. I just got out of court. You look fabulous though.” He smiled broadly at her. “I suspect you’d look good wearing nothing but a cotton sack.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere,” she laughed as he sat down across from her.
“Have you already eaten or did I get here in time to enjoy lunch with you?”
“You’re right on time, I’d say. He just took my drink order, I haven’t even ordered food yet.”
“Perfect,” he said, not taking his eyes off her face.
“So, you were in court? What are you charged with?” she asked, not wanting to disclose that she had already had a conversation about him with Kellye and knew he was a lawyer.
“Contempt, almost. The judge got a little flustered with me,” he said. “I’m a lawyer. I specialize in corporate litigation, but I sometimes take pro bono cases for the local social services department. I got a little out of hand in defending a single mother against her abusive ex, an asshole who was trying to paint a picture of her that wasn’t very nice in order to take custody of their children.”
“I take it that he was unsuccessful?”
“You take it exactly right,” he said with a sneer.
“A real shark in the courtroom, huh?”
“I’m some sort of animal, yeah,” he said with a twinkle.
“I’ll keep that in mind if I’m ever in trouble and need a good lawyer.”
The waiter appeared with her glass of chardonnay and took Weston’s drink order before returning with a glass of water and another place setting.
“I’d much prefer to have a glass of wine with you, but I have to be back in court in another hour. They’d probably frown on my showing up and slurring my objections.”
“Now, I just feel like a wino.”
“No. Don’t feel that way. If I could, I’d be more than happy to join you.”
“Perhaps another time then.”
“See? Now you’re coming around to my way of thinking,” he said with a charming smile.
The waiter brought out the soup and sandwiches they had ordered. They continued to talk about their respective jobs for a bit as they ate their food, but then Weston raised his hand, waving it around a bit as he finished off a bite of his food.
“Let’s not talk about work anymore. Tell me what you like to do for fun.”
“Fun? I can’t remember the last time I had any?” she said quietly.
“Then we should change that. How about you take me up on my offer to take you out. We won’t do anything boring like go to the theatre or to a dinner party. How about we go up to the lake on Saturday and have an old-fashioned picnic and a peaceful walk through the woods where we can get to know all about one another?”
“The woods? On a first date? How do I know you aren’t a serial killer?” she said playfully.
“You don’t.” He waggled his eyebrows at her, grinning. “That’s the exciting part, isn’t it?”
“Exciting for which one of us, though?”
“Remains to be seen,” he said with a big grin.
“Okay. You win, counsellor. I’ll take my life in my hands by going into the woods with you.”
“Finally! A cooperative victim, um, I mean woman.”
“Very unfunny,” she laughed.
“I’ve heard that before. Look, I hate to eat and run, but I have to get back to court for my next case. Can I get your number so I can call you and firm up plans for Saturday or should I just hope you turn up at the lake?” he asked, pulling out some cash and putting it on the table to pay for their meal.
“I suppose I could give you my number,” she replied, writing it down on a scrap of paper from her purse and handing it to him.
“Perfect. I’m looking forward to it, Mandy.”
“As am I,” she replied.
The truth was that no matter how nice looking he was, no matter how funny and charming, she just wasn’t feeling it. Lunch had been pleasant. It was nice feeling attractive, wanted for just a while. Past that, she wasn’t sure she was in a state of mind to pursue any more than just that fleeting moment of happiness. It all seemed so downhill once you got past the flattery stage. In all likelihood, she would probably cancel on him when he called to firm up plans. It was nothing personal, she just didn’t know if she could do it when push came to shove.
Later that evening, Mandy looked solemnly at the text message on her phone. It was from Weston.
“I’m so glad that I ran into you today. Looking forward to Saturday. I will call you tomorrow, if that’s okay.”
She put the phone to one side of the sofa without answering him. If only she could go back to where she had been a couple of months ago, before Cameron. Now, although she was able to discern it as being an attractive part of his personality, his charm was somewhat lost on her. She remembered an old song that she’d heard once. It was country, which she usually didn’t like, but the song had struck her as touching. The words went something like, “I could have missed the pain, but I’d have had to miss the dance.” In her case, she couldn’t risk dancing into more pain. She had already lost too much of herself and was just now getting it back.
Rather than thinking about any of it anymore, she got lost in a movie. It wasn’t her usual fare, but a lot about her had changed lately. She couldn’t bear the usual chick flicks that she secretly adored. They only brought her to tears with their fairytale endings, picture-perfect happiness that she would never achieve. Instead, she was soon riveted to a historical action movie that she actually found quite good now that she had given it a chance.
Climbing into bed a few hours later, she had all but forgotten the text from Weston. She no longer bothered putting her phone by her bed or even bringing it into the room with her when she climbed between the covers. After many nights of waiting, hoping for it to ring or buzz with a message, she had started just leaving it out on the table by the sofa. It hardly made a noise these days, which told her that she had invested too much time in the wrong person and become alienated from her friends. She needed to start fixing that.
Her thoughts drifted away as she began to get sleepy. At least that part of her miserable life had improved. Sleep was finally returning. Sweet, dreamless, peaceful sleep. It was long overdue after all the horrid nights filled with nightmares or the nights that were entirely sleepless altogether. It was only one small step on the road to finding some happiness again, but she would take what she could get at this point.
***
“So, I hear that you ran into Weston yesterday,” Kellye said the next day at work. They hadn’t been able to lunch together due to their schedules, but they’d run into one another during a break and had a short chat.
“Yes. He happened by a little sidewalk café where I was eating lunch and joined me.”
“Sounds like kismet to me.”
“Right. Why are you trying so hard to push the virtues of Weston with me?” Mandy laughed.
“I’m not. You’re capable of making up your own mind. I just know you’ve been through a lot and Weston is a really good guy. I don’t know him as well as my sister and brother-in-law, but I’ve never heard anything but good things about him. Plus, he’s hot!”
“Kellye, I just can’t handle a relationship again so soon.”
“Who said anything about a relationship? Maybe it will be one, maybe it won’t. You need to not try to categorize things so much. Just give him a chance. Go out and have some fun. It will be whatever it’s meant to be. If nothing else, it might do you some good to get laid.”
“You sound like some sort of hippy love guru.”
“Aren’t I one? I mean, come on. Look at me.”
“You have a point, I guess. You are a little flowerchild-like.”
“You could stand to have a bit more peace and love in your life. Shit. I’ve got to go. My ball breaker bitch of a boss will be back before me and I’ll have to listen to her lecture on taking too much time on my break. I really need to get transferred out of her sweat shop soon.”
“You’ll make it. You’ve only got a couple semesters left to finish your journalism degree and I’ve already got a spot lined up for you when you do. Try not to get fired before you graduate or I’ll have a hard time rehiring you.”
“You know they’ll say you only hired me because we’re friends.”
“And they will be wrong. You’re sharp as a tack. All you’re lacking are the proper credentials I need to hire you in my department. I’ll see you later.”
By the time Mandy made it home that afternoon, she had decided Kellye was right. There was no harm in spending time with Weston. She didn’t feel anything intense toward him, which wasn’t to say he wasn’t attractive or not the kind of guy she could be with in a more serious way. She could see spending time with him as being enjoyable without it being a huge attachment, which meant she wouldn’t lose her perspective too quickly like she had with Cameron. When Weston called later that evening, she chatted lightheartedly with him. She had to admit that it felt good just to flirt and talk a bit, just like it had at lunch the day before.
“Okay, I’ll pick you up Saturday morning at ten, if that’s okay with you. It’ll take about an hour and a half to get to the lake and another thirty or so to hike in. That’ll put our picnic around noonish.”
“That sounds perfect,” she told him.
“Doesn’t it? I’m really looking forward to it. It’s been a while since I’ve had the time to just get out and enjoy nature. It seems I’m always behind a desk, in front of a judge or it’s late at night when you can’t really feel the warmth of the sunshine shining down on you. Moonlight isn’t quite the same.”
“You often go out to the lake in the darkness?”
“When I can.”
“You aren’t scared out there alone?”
“I never said alone,” he laughed.
“Oh. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be nosey.”
“No, not what I meant. I go there with some friends at night to escape the confines of the city.”
“You drive an hour and a half to the lake in the middle of the night?”
“Something like that. We get there a bit faster at night.”
“Ah, I guess so. Less traffic and fewer cops.”
“Yeah. So, I’ll see you Saturday at ten then?”
“You certainly will,” she told him.
“I’m excited about seeing you again. We’re going to have a good day, Mandy.”
“I believe we will,” she replied, smiling broadly.
After ending the call, Mandy smiled into the empty space of her living room. Everything was going to be okay. It wasn’t that she was investing too much interest in what happened with Weston, but she felt like she was moving forward for the first time in a while instead of being stuck in the limbo where Cameron had left her. It had been a struggle, but she was feeling more like herself now. His latest hurt, seeing him with someone else, hadn’t done as much damage as it had felt like in the moment. Instead, it had freed her to move on.
Mandy found that she was nervous as she dressed for the lake on Saturday. It was always this way when she was going out with someone new and today was no exception. She had to manage to look chic and casual at the same time. It was getting cooler outside, winter was right around the corner, but she didn’t want to look like a whale in some huge sweater. Instead, she opted for jeans, hiking boots and a fitted sweater that showed off her figure quite nicely.
Topping it off with just a hint of makeup, lip gloss, and a sleek ponytail, she looked appreciatively in the mirror at her reflection. She looked pretty good. Slipping a simple pair of tear drop earrings on, she decided it was a good look for her and waited anxiously for his arrival. It didn’t help that she was ready at least a half hour early. She had never been one of those women that made a guy wait when he’d already told her what time he would arrive. Her heart raced as the doorbell rang promptly at ten. Apparently, he believed in being timely, as well. So far, so good.
“Wow. I never knew a woman could look so good in a ponytail and jeans,” he said when she opened the door.
“You lawyers, always trying to sway the jury,” she quipped.
“Yes, but it’s true. You look beautiful. Are you ready to go?”
“I am. Do I need to bring anything with me?”
“Nope. Just yourself. I’ve got everything we need for the day.”
“Great,” she replied, retrieving her small backpack, which she’d filled with the items that normally belonged in her purse. She’d already moved her things into it while waiting on him, having decided that a purse would be awkward out in the middle of the woods.
“I am so glad you agreed to come with me. I was going to go either way, but it’s going to be so much nicer with you there to keep me company,” he told her after they had gotten into his car and headed off toward their destination.
“I’m glad you asked,” she replied.
“I just brought a simple lunch. Some ham and cheese sandwiches, potato salad, and fruit, along with some bottles of water. I hope that’s okay.”
“Oh, um. I guess I forgot to mention that I’m a vegetarian.”
“Oh, God,” he said disdainfully. “I didn’t even consider that you might not eat meat. I’m so sorry. I don’t know how I could have not even have thought about that.”
“It’s okay. I guess I’ll just eat the potato salad and fruit,” she said in a disappointed tone.
“The potato salad has eggs in it and small bits of ham,” he said woefully, looking ashamed.
“I guess it’ll be just fruit then. You didn’t put ham in that too did you?” she groaned.
“Wow. I’m just so embarrassed. Look, we’ll stop by somewhere along the way and find you a vegetarian meal of some sort. I just can’t believe I didn’t think to ask before putting together the food for the day.”
“It’s okay. The fruit will be just fine. Don’t sweat it,” she said, trying to hold back a snicker.
“If you say so,” he said in a tone that told her he was livid with himself for his oversight. She smiled broadly at him as he frowned over the steering wheel. She was about to let him off the hook when he suddenly looked over at her, noting her smile and made a clucking noise with his tongue.
“What? Did you put ham in the fruit too?” she asked, an eyebrow raised in disapproval.
“You little minx! You aren’t a vegetarian. I can’t believe you got that over on me. You were eating a chicken salad sandwich when I ate lunch with you!”
Mandy burst into laughter as he scowled at her, even as a smile began to spread across his face. Before long, he was laughing too.
“I thought I was going to have to confess I was yanking your chain before you remembered that,” she laughed.
“You almost did have to tell me. I was sitting here wondering why I wouldn’t have thought to ask you that in this day and age and then it dawned on me. I hadn’t asked because I’d already seen you eating meat. You got me pretty good though before I remembered that. I was mortified. I wanted so much to make a good first impression on our first official date and I thought I had really fucked it up! Bad girl!”
“I’m sorry. I just couldn’t resist. Don’t you hate that though? When you offer someone something delicious like a juicy steak or rack of lamb and they give you that condescending ‘I don’t eat meat’ tone?”
“Yes! It’s like you just told them that you murdered your mother and ate her liver with a bottle of white zinfandel.”
“You can’t eat your mother’s liver with white zin. Human liver is always served with chianti.”
“I take it back. You aren’t just a bad girl, you’re a twisted girl!”
“What? You never saw Silence of the Lambs? ‘I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.’”
“Yes. I’ve just never heard anyone agree with it so wholeheartedly. Maybe I should be the one worried about being out in a secluded area with you instead of the other way around.”
“Be afraid. Be very afraid!”
“I think I am.”
They laughed again, continuing to have a rather macabre, but comical discussion on their way to the lake. By the time they pulled onto the road that led to the small country park in which it was situated, both of them were in stitches, their sides hurting from laughing so much. Mandy couldn’t remember the last time she had laughed so much. In fact, she had hardly smiled or felt happy for weeks. It was a change for the better.
“Alright, we’re here. Just wait until we get out of view before you kill me. Otherwise, you’ll have witnesses to deal with. It’ll be much easier to escape conviction if you can claim self-defense or temporary insanity for killing one person. You start committing mass murder, it’s a whole new ballgame. Get caught and you might end up in the chair. Trust me, I’m a lawyer.”
“Trust me. I’m a lawyer?” she repeated. “How can you even say that with a straight face. No one likes lawyers, much less trusts them.”
“No one? No one at all?” he said, poking his lips out in a pout.
“Well, maybe one person likes one lawyer. In fact, because I do like you, I might just kill you last.”
“That’s good news!” he laughed, retrieving the bags with picnic fixings in them from the backseat after they had piled out of the car.
“I thought you’d be pleased.”
“I don’t know about you, but I’m kind of hungry. Perhaps you might even let me eat before you do me in.”
“I swear, give you an inch, you take a mile.”
“Consider it my last request,” he joked, holding the bags with his left arm and reaching for her hand with his right.
They were still laughing at their playful conversation as they wound their way, hand in hand, along the path up one side of the lake. They passed by several other couples who seemed to have had the same idea in mind. When they finally reached the lake, they made their way to a less crowded spot on the far side. There, Weston pulled a thin blanket from one of the bags and spread it on the ground. He even pulled out a couple of inflatable cushions for them to sit on. Mandy burst into laughter again.
“Are those the cushions they give people who have hemorrhoids or that get shot in the behind?” she said between howls.
“Maybe,” he said with a big grin.
“Do I want to even ask?”
“Probably not, but the answer is that another lawyer gave them to me as a present.”
“A present? I’m not sure I want to know what the occasion for such a gift might be.”
“It was after a very long, drawn out case. I lost. He presented me with a small gift bag and inside, there was a pack of two of these that he had gotten from a friend that worked at the local hospital.”
Mandy looked at him, not really grasping the implications of such a gift until he said the words.
“He said I’d need them until I got over the ass whipping he’d given me in court.”
She burst out laughing again. “That’s hilarious.”
“Not so much so at the time. Question is whether it is as hilarious as bringing them along on a first date?”
“I’m not sure. Let me get back to you on that.”
“You do that. The truth is that I knew the ground would be hard and I didn’t want to drag full sized cushions out here. I saw these still hanging out in my closet and thought they would suffice.”
“I’ll give you one thing, Weston. You’re one of a kind.”
“I think that’s good. That’s good, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it’s pretty great.”
They sat eating their lunch and chatting while looking out over the lake. It was a bit crisp out today, but by the time she had gotten a bit chilled, they were finished with their food and ready to go for a short hike along one of the trails. Weston packed up the remnants of their meal and they walked back to the car to deposit them in the trunk before heading toward a tree with a large blue arrow on one side as a guide.
“This is the easy path. If you’re up to it one day maybe we can go on one of the harder ones, but I thought that today it might be nicer to just take it easy and go for a stroll that will allow us to talk to one another.”
“That sounds like a great plan.”
In fact, it was an incredible plan. They walked, once again holding hands, as they talked. From time to time, they stopped to look at nearby landmarks that could be seen from their path or to watch small animals play along the wooded area that was quickly swallowing them as they continued further into the forest.
Mandy felt oddly at ease with him in a way she had never experienced with Cameron. Though she had loved Cameron deeply, she had always felt like she was trying so very hard to please him. Weston was effortless, but for her, that meant there was no passion, that perhaps he was someone who would become a great friend, but not really a serious relationship. She was okay with that. Her heart needed time to mend and having someone who wasn’t so intense would be a nice change of pace.
“Do you have any pets?” Weston asked, noting her fascination with a nearby squirrel working on entry into an acorn.
“No. I love animals, but I’ve just never had time to really invest in one. You know, they need to be fed, watered, walked, house trained. I just can’t deal with all of that on my schedule. You?”
“No. Same problem here. I spend so much time in court or the office and when I’m at home, I tend to review briefs that I’ve brought back from the office. Even if I managed to take care of a dog’s material needs, I wouldn’t have time to pet him and how sad is a dog that can’t get a good scratch behind the ears?”
“I don’t know. Pretty sad, I’m guessing, but why just a dog? There are other pets available. You could get a cat. They’re much lower maintenance.”
“Cat? No, I don’t think so.”
“What’s wrong with a cat?”
“They don’t like me. Not a single one of them.”
“So, what you’re saying here is that even cats dislike lawyers,” she teased.
“They certainly don’t like this one,” he laughed.
“I wonder why?”
Weston looked at her for a moment as if he wanted to say something, but then he looked back at the squirrel, now carting his acorn up the side of a tree as others turned up to dig around in the fallen treasure.
“Ah, you know cats. They are just finicky little creatures.”
“Yes, that they are,” she said.
“So, no pets. What do you usually do for fun when you aren’t taking your own life in your hands with strangers who lead you into the woods for who knows what nefarious purpose?”
“The lawyers I have chained in the basement keep me amused.”
“The basement? I thought all the missing lawyers were at the bottom of the ocean?”
“No. That’s just a good start.”
They both laughed as they turned a corner into a nearby clearing that led to a cliff. At the edge, they stopped to sit on a large rock situated near the edge, allowing them to rest for a moment while looking out over the large lake, which was now below them. The path had been at such a slight incline, that it was hard to realize they had traveled so far above it, but it was well worth the hike. The view was spectacular.
“I can’t believe I’ve never been up here before. It’s gorgeous!”
“Yes. I spend a good deal of time up here. It’s one of my favorite places. Stick with me and you’ll know every inch of this property as well as I do.”
“Well, we’ll see. It depends on whether I survive this first trip, I suppose.”
“Ah, rest assured that even if I were the most maniacal serial killer on the planet, I would never be able to harm a hair on the head of such a majestic creature as you,” he said softly, looking down at her.
Before she knew what he intended, he had taken her face between his hands, and brought his mouth down to meet hers. His mouth was soft but firm on hers, insistent without being demanding, powerful without being pushy. Mandy felt a surprising surge of electricity go through her body and she pulled away, her heart racing. Only moments ago she had been busy putting him firmly on a center rung of the friendship ladder. Now, she felt something stir inside of her, something completely unexpected and it frightened her a bit to feel anything at all after so many weeks of pain.
“Thank you,” she said, politely, mentally distancing herself from the way his words and his kiss had affected her. “Shall we head back down?”
“Sure. If you’re ready to go.”
“I should get back home. I didn’t realize it was getting so late and I have other plans for later.”
The look of disappointment and perhaps a little hurt were evident on his face for a moment, but he quickly shielded that, standing and turning to look at the path back down toward the lake.
“Absolutely. Let’s get going,” he said, smiling faintly as he offered her hand to stand up.
Mandy instantly felt horrible. Not only had she lied about having plans, but she could see that he took it personally. She knew the feeling. How often had Cameron made her feel this way when it had been him that was the problem, not her? The fact that she was doing the same thing to someone else only reaffirmed that she had no business dating anyone. The conversation between them lagged on the way back down, as well as on the way back to her place, each seemingly lost in their own thoughts.
“I really enjoyed today,” she told him as they pulled up to her apartment.
“I did too,” he said.
“I guess I’ll get upstairs.”
“I’ll walk you up,” he told her, shutting off the car and hopping out before she could refuse, which she had been debating. Mandy wanted him to walk her up, but a part of her felt things had become awkward between them. She wanted to avoid any further discomfort for both of them.
“Thank you,” she replied.
They walked up the stairwell to the landing outside her apartment in silence. Mandy kept wishing she hadn’t blown him off so quickly, but she could hardly take it back now. It was just her way of keeping some distance between them. The kiss, her reaction to it, had spooked her.
There was something about him, something much more primal than she had anticipated. On the surface, he seemed like your average guy. He was obviously very much the alpha male, but he had a sweet and kind side you didn’t usually find in his kind. She had a hard time envisioning him as the cutthroat attorney he made himself out to be, but when he’d kissed her, she felt something else entirely. Put simply, his kiss had shaken her to the core and that frightened her. She wasn’t ready to want someone else, not so soon.
“Thank you for walking me up, Weston. I really did enjoy today.”
“Enough to do it again soon?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“You aren’t certain?”
“Listen, Weston. I’m sorry. I had a great time today, I really did, but I’ve just recently gotten out of a horrid relationship and I’m just not quite myself I guess.”
“Fair enough. I won’t push you too much, but I would like to see you again. Very soon.”
“Call me. Okay?”
“I will. Talk to you soon, Mandy.”
“Yes. Bye, Weston.”
He didn’t try to kiss her again, instead turning to walk away as she made her way inside her front door. Mandy closed the door and leaned against it, letting out a loud sigh. Why must she feel so confused? What had become of the days when she could just date someone without worrying about how it would turn out? She hated how much Cameron had screwed up her thinking, making her overanalyze everything. Weston was a perfectly nice guy and she felt attracted to him. The only thing holding her back was her own fear.
***
“Well, how did your date with Weston go?” Kellye asked on Monday.
“It was okay,” Mandy told her.
“Just okay?” She frowned. “That doesn’t sound very promising.”
“Honestly, it was a good first date. I enjoyed it, but I just can’t seem to wrap my head around dating anymore.”
“You can’t stay home and pine over Cameron forever, Mandy.”
“That’s just it. It’s like we talked about before. Seeing him with someone else hurt, but it also helped me to get over things. I mean, why should I sit around all hung up on a guy that obviously isn’t hung up on me at all?”
“Then, what’s the problem?”
“I don’t know. I just can’t move forward. I guess I’m afraid that if I give Weston a chance, it will just be more grief for me.”
“I know you have to do what you feel is best, but you’re going to have to just let things be what they are. You can’t try to anticipate what will or won’t happen with someone and hold back because you think you might get hurt.”
“I tried. I told myself that it was just casual dating, to just enjoy the day and not worry about it. I was having fun, but then he kissed me and I panicked.”
“He kissed you?” Kellye said, a big smile spreading across her face. “How was that?”
Mandy bit her lip, remembering. “I felt it all the way down to my toes.”
“I’ll bet. He’s such a cutie pie.”
“Yeah, he is that. I can’t believe he’s never asked you out.”
“I’m not his type.”
“You’re everyone’s type.”
“Not really. I intimidate some men and others just don’t take me seriously. It’s a weird thing. They take one look at me and either feel like I’m out of their league or I’m a bimbo based on nothing more than my looks. I know that sounds bad for me to say, but it’s true. The ones who do want to go out with me are more interested in my getting undressed than getting to know me. I probably date less than any woman on the planet.”
“I guess we all have our issues.”
“Yes, and yours is being too fickle because you had the misfortune of dating one sociopath. If you aren’t all that into Weston, fine, but don’t kick him to the curb just because you had a bad experience with someone else.”
“I know I shouldn’t be faulting him for something he had no control over. I just can’t seem to help myself. I can’t seem to shake off my reluctance.”
“Well, I guess it’s better for you to shrug him off than to let him get close to you and then flake out on him. That will just hurt him and make you feel guilty. It’s not like I really know anything about romance. I’m nearly twenty-eight and have never been in a serious relationship.”
“I think our relationship is pretty serious. I mean, we see each other several times a week, at least. I can see forever with you,” Mandy teased.
“Ah, not quite the same as true love, but I’ll take it. You know you mean a lot to me.”
“I do know. That’s why I keep coming back for more.”
Their conversation drifted off to work as they finished up their meal and headed back to their offices. Kellye was completely right, but it was much easier to know something than it was to really embrace it and put it into action. She made the decision just to focus on herself for a while and not see Weston. Then, she immediately kicked that idea to the proverbial curb an hour later when he called her.
“Listen, I need a favor and you’re the only one that can help me,” he said from the other end of the line.
“Um, okay,” she said uncertainly. Favors usually ended up putting one or both people in an unfortunate position.
“It’s a bit personal. I don’t want to ask over the phone. Can you meet me for dinner tonight?” he asked.
“Well, I…” she began, thinking about this for a moment. Her other plans had consisted of eating the leftover pizza in her fridge and hadn’t she just decided not to see him? Instead of making up a viable excuse, she found herself agreeing to dinner. It didn’t mean she would do whatever it was he planned to ask, but dinner was an innocuous deal otherwise. “Sure. What did you have in mind?”
“I thought that we might meet at Chuck O’Cheesey.”
“That’s funny. Where did you really want to meet?”