The strawberry shortcake instructor swings by, checking out our mix and clapping approvingly.
“I’ll take a picture of you guys, since you’re so cute,” she chirps.
We pose, flashing toothy, too-big smiles, cheerily stirring our batter, peppering each other’s cheeks with kisses.
My life has become a series of social media moments, chronicled for The Dating Pool piece, one fake moment after another with my fake fiancée.
When we leave to make our way to Geneva’s dinner party, Summer’s brow is furrowed, and she seems lost in thought. I look at her hand by her side, wanting to take it, knowing I shouldn’t.
Why did I think it would be a good idea to sleep with her to prove a point?
That was a stupid idea.
“You okay, Summer?” I ask as we walk along Perry Street, wanting to keep things light between us. “Are you thinking deep, cookie-inspired thoughts about the state of the world?”
She shoots me a dubious sideways look. “Did cookies make you think deep thoughts about the state of the world?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
“Do tell,” she prompts.
I choose the safest of my insights. “When did everything turn into a class? There are pickle-making classes, yarn-twining classes, how-to-tie-your-shoelace-into-an-origami-frog classes. Everything is a class.”
“I wouldn’t mind learning how to tie my shoelaces into a frog,” she counters, but her tone is more curious than challenging. “Why do you dislike all these trendy classes so much?”
“They’re pointless. People take them, but they never actually go home and make pickles, or candles, or piña coladas. They take them knowing they’ll never make pickles or piña coladas.”
She shrugs and smiles. “Who cares, as long as the class itself is fun.”
“You liked that?” I hook my thumb back toward the Cookie Academy.
“Yes. I had a good time.”
“But you could do that at home,” I argue as we reach the next block, heading toward my client’s West Village home.
“True, but I don’t very often, and sometimes it’s fun just to get out of the house. To do something other than dinner and a movie, or dinner and drinks. You wouldn’t want to do that if we were dating?”
That stops me in my tracks—the if. The question of dating her. The possibility I haven’t let myself ponder.
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“What would you want to do, then?”
I answer easily. “I would probably take you to, say, a hockey game. Or maybe to your favorite diner. I would take you to Central Park, since I know you love it. We’d wander through it and try to find a corner of the park you haven’t explored. But if we couldn’t, we’d just go to all your favorite places because they’re mine too.”
The scenarios roll off my tongue. I know them well. I know her well. “I would go for a run with you, something else we both enjoy. I would ask you what new music is on your current playlist, and you’d tell me you just downloaded the playlist from Sex Education, and I’d say, ‘That’s a brilliant show,’ and you’d say, ‘I know, I love it, it’s amazing.’ And then we’d debate which one’s better, Sex Education or Schitt’s Creek, but we’d literally never decide.”
I stop for a breath, trying to read her brown eyes. But they’re not flashing kiss me now at me in neon. Instead, they’re gentler, and that softness in them, a vulnerability, even, hooks into my heart and tugs.
I don’t know what to do with that look or these feelings except to stand on this corner with her. Talk to her. Be with her. Go into that party tonight as if it’s a real date, not a date for show.
Mostly, I just want to know where she’s at.
“What do you think?” I ask.
“Those things all sound like great dates too,” she says slowly, absorbing what I’ve just said, and almost as slowly, she lets a grin spread across her pretty face. “But I also had a great time with you just now at the cookie class. I pretty much always have a great time with you, Oliver.”
I fight the impulse to draw her near, to bring her into my arms. “Yeah, same here. I hate stupid classes, but I always have fun with you. I guess part of me is just tired of the charade,” I say, but the desire to touch her is stronger than the will to stop, and I finally yank her in close for a hug. She snuggles against me, her face in the crook of my neck.
And that feels too good.
Too right.
And a little too tempting. As a couple walks past us, I close my eyes and inhale the scent of her hair, sweet vanilla reminding me of last night, taunting me with a tonight that won’t happen.
I breathe her in on the streets of New York, doing my damnedest to stay very still. To not cross a line again. To make sure we’re on the level.
Even though it’s hard.
Maybe too hard to keep to myself.
“You smell really, really good,” I whisper, and a bit of weight shifts off of me.
“So do you,” she says softly into my neck. “Maybe beautiful guys just smell better.”
I laugh. “Yes, it’s our secret cologne.”
