You're a Mean One, Matthew Prince, page 19
Popping the top on a box, I sort through Jack’s old ball ornaments, separating them by shininess. Only the brightest and the best deserve a spot on my centerpiece.
This mindless task is enough to distract me for the moment. The kiss led to the realization that Hector and I have a connection. But this afternoon solidified something scarier. That this connection could lead to something more. Something probably incompatible with my life back in New York. I’m not in the market for untenable.
I don’t get a moment to parse this out because Hector appears beside me, bundled up and worried. “Is everything all right?” he asks.
“Fine,” I lie. I need him to leave me alone before I do one of two inappropriate things: jump his bones again or freeze into an icy snowbank of emotions. Neither would be good when we have an important gala looming.
Admittedly, a little while ago I escaped to the bathroom. I reached for my phone on autopilot, in search of Bentley’s contact, but I realized she wouldn’t understand. She’d scold me for even entertaining these whims. That’s not what I need with feelings this fresh and conflicted.
“You know you can tell me if it’s not,” Hector says, caring eyes becoming almost too caring. And while I know he’s right, I don’t want to be too much. Overshare here. In public. With a twelve-person crew, including Noelle, nearby.
Noelle’s presence inspires me. “I’m good. Seriously. Just need to get this done quickly before Noelle and I break for lunch.”
The barista herself sweeps over. “Did I hear my name?” She looks like she’s on a mission: Operation Save Matthew from Himself. She’s overheard everything as she fluffed the branches.
“Ready to head out for our lunch?” I ask, signaling with my eyes for her to play along even though we didn’t have any prior plans.
“Uh, of course. Let me just grab our coats,” she says.
“It’s to, um, thank her for the tree and everything,” I say awkwardly when I’m left alone with Hector.
He appears disheartened to not be invited, but what am I supposed to say: I need to talk about you to someone who’s not you? I don’t think that would go over very well.
“Just text me when you’re on your way back, I guess,” he says.
I hang my head; it feels too heavy to keep upright.
What even is this I’m feeling? I used to be able to tamp this inconvenient stuff down with tequila, shopping sprees, spontaneous vacations. I guess without the spendy distractions I have to face my dilemmas head-on. Unfair, but necessary.
For a second, I think about shooting off a text to my therapist, booking a virtual appointment like they suggested when I left town, but before I can find their contact, Noelle is back.
I put my phone away.
It’s fine. It can wait.
“What was that car crash of a conversation?” Noelle asks, smacking me in the stomach with my own jacket. I stutter, but she holds up a hand. “You know what? Tell me on the way. I really am starving.”
***
“You did what, where?” Noelle shrieks from the opposite side of the booth.
It’s been ages since I set foot in a diner.
Where are the tasting menus, the required dining jackets, and the waitstaff dressed in matching cotton blends carrying full trays of gin and tonics, speared olives on the top of the glasses?
Here, gruff-looking gentlemen are hunched over poached eggs and steaming mugs at the counter. They grumble to one another about the news or the daily crossword. An out-of-service jukebox sits near the door and the vinyl booths, all done in a deep red, have seen better days. Tinfoil snowflakes hang from the ceiling by flimsy paper clips, and I nearly smacked my head on them when we came in.
In my leather Tom Ford jacket, black turtleneck, and Givenchy baseball cap, I turn heads. Even more so due to Noelle’s volume.
“Lower your voice. The whole damn town doesn’t need to know about it,” I say. Funny, considering back in New York I’d be worried about the whole world knowing. Now, I’m concerned about my reputation among the locals, needing—wanting, really—them to remain on my side for the gala to go off without a hitch.
“You just spilled some seriously hot tea, and you expect me to lower my voice? Matthew, get a grip! The holiday romance magic is alive and well!” She beams at me as if her psychic abilities have all been confirmed.
As usual, I roll my eyes at her.
Our waitress arrives in a frenzy of flipping order-pad pages. She’s got a weathered smile and chipped green fingernail polish. “I’m Ella. What can I get you both?” she asks, red pen at the ready.
I was so busy dishing out gossip that I didn’t even get a chance to open the comical, infinite accordion fold of the menu. Noelle reaches out a hand and snatches the laminated tome from my grasp before I get a chance to.
“We’ll take an order of Bedrock pancakes to share and two Cokes. We’re celebrating!” Noelle says.
“You got it, hun.”
Ella starts away and Noelle adds, “You’re going to love these. Just as much as you love Hector’s sweet, sweet kisses.” Her teasing is next level. Both annoying and lovely.
My nose twitches. My mind races. I’m back inside that storage unit. “It only happened twice.”
“Is it going to happen again?” she asks, leaning in and batting her eyelashes. I suppose I owe her some juicy details after she shared the Natalia stuff.
“It shouldn’t, right?” I ask, exasperated. “I need to get this gala off the ground in exactly a week. I still need to call my contact in New York about the special effects for the Future exhibit. Grandma and I still need to sort through old gala photographs for my Past exhibit. The only present I should be concerned about is getting my Present exhibit finished.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” Noelle says, toying with a ketchup bottle.
“Short answer: I don’t know.”
“Okay, fine. Long-answer me this: Do you want it to happen again?”
It was heart-stoppingly surreal. Of course I want it to happen again. I haven’t felt this way with a guy in so long. Yet the more I contemplate the idea of kissing and touching him again, the more I fear the drama of it all would consume me.
I mean, he’s hung up on Natalia. I’m still nursing the wounds from Baz and Spencer. He’s hurting because he’s away from his family. My family is on the fritz. Insert romantic and definite sexual attraction into the mix, and you’ve got a recipe for major disaster. I’m already a walking, talking, bumbling hazard.
“What I want is kind of irrelevant right now. I’m leaving after this gala. That’s all I know for sure,” I say.
Noelle sighs, almost like she’ll be bummed when I leave. “Look, Hector is a snack and a half. He’s also a sweetheart. You better get your emotional ducks in a row because I may like you, but if you hurt him, I will rain down the flames of hell upon you.”
“Wouldn’t the flames of hell rise up?” I ask. She lunges across the table, spilling the pepper shaker in the process, and punches me on the shoulder. It’s a pain far worse than Grandma’s cheek pinches.
“You know what I mean. If you like him like I think you do, now is the time to shoot your shot. Like I’m doing with Siena! You are capable of genuine human feeling, aren’t you?” she asks.
I glare at her with the intensity of a thousand suns. Of course I’m capable of genuine human feeling, but do I really want to be? Out here? Where everything has a flashing countdown clock attached to it?
“We’re too different. It would never work. I’m going to open myself up for something that can’t and won’t last? Seems like a waste of time and energy,” I say, hoping she’ll tell me I’m right. That the warm, fuzzy emotions I’m snuggling up to are not worth the heartache of losing him when I leave.
“Matthew, I say this because I care, but you need to stop obsessing over what people are going to think of you. I can’t pretend to know what it’s like to have every move I make taken out of context and splashed across a trashy website, but I do know what it’s like to get over other people’s perceptions of you.” With her hair spreading out like wavy, black vines on the back of the booth, she closes her eyes. “When I graduated from Wind River High, my friends were leaving for big cities, fashion institutes, and state schools. They had prospective majors and interesting career paths. I struggled in school. I was a middle-of-the-road student, with middle-of-the-road test scores, and more school just felt like a punishment rather than an investment in my future.”
Our stories sound similar. “What did you do?”
“When I told my dad that I wanted to stay in Wind River, keep working at Moon Beans, and maybe try a Havensmith online class in entrepreneurship at some point, he supported me. And when I walked across the stage on graduation day to collect my diploma in front of my other classmates, my friends, and my girlfriend at the time, they all whooped and cheered when they heard my name. I realized that it didn’t matter. Following expectations doesn’t make you a better person. Being the person someone says you should be doesn’t always make you happy,” she says.
I can tell she’s been sitting on this pile of pent-up frustrations for a while. Surprising myself, I offer her my hand on the scratched tabletop, and she takes it. We really are kindred spirits. An unspoken understanding passes between us.
In all my years of friendship with Bentley, never have we had a bond this open or true. I barely know Noelle, and she’s already accepted me, flaws and all. She may be pushing me toward a devastating ending, but at least she cares enough to see what’s good for me when I’m too nearsighted to.
Ella comes back with our Cokes, lemon wedges affixed to the rims, and a plate of pancakes with Fruity Pebbles baked into them. On top is a huge dollop of whipped cream, more cereal, some fresh berries, and a bit of powdered sugar. I’m both disgusted and pleasantly excited.
“You’re about to see God, I swear,” Noelle says. She takes a forkful and a blob of whipped cream disappears down her sleeve. She doesn’t even care. Her eyes light up with intense pleasure at that first bite.
Chapter 23
The Blacktop Tavern is a hole-in-the-wall townie bar.
On Sunday night, the crowd is sizable, and the floor is littered with shucked peanut shells. The air is tinged with the smell of burning thin-crust pizza dough.
Hector spots Noelle and Siena at a high-top table in the corner, just far enough away from the rowdy game of pool happening in the back. I follow him over to it, and something snags in my brain.
This is my first date since Baz and Spencer.
I wonder what Hector’s thinking right now.
“You made it,” Noelle cries, already one drink deep and happily tipsy. Her tolerance must be low. She jumps up and embraces us both. “Sit, sit. We ordered already, but the server said he’d be back when you arrived. Hector, you know Siena.”
“Sure, hi. Good to see you again.” Hector slings his coat over the top of a stool and sits on it.
“Siena’s sister owns the hottest restaurant in Wind River, A Very Fine Vine. Siena works there too. It pairs tasty, Italian-inspired dishes with imported wines. It’s the perfect date spot,” Noelle says, and then shrinks back, her multicolored sleigh-bell earrings jingle-jangling as she goes. She’s said the d-word out loud, making what might have passed as a group hang into a certain setup.
“Pleasure to meet you,” I say, sitting across from Siena and trying to move past that. When I glance over to Hector, it appears as if he’s chewing on the word as well, biting his bottom lip and pretending to be into the football game on TV.
A handsome guy somewhere north of thirty approaches our table with a pencil behind his gauge-pierced ear and an empty tray in his hands. “’Sup, boys?”
I give him a smile as he produces two menus for us. It’s all standard bar fare from wings to fish and chips. The craft beer specials are listed in big bubble letters on a dry-erase whiteboard hanging above the bar.
Once we’ve put in our orders—a hard seltzer for me and a lager for Hector, a sad-sounding salad and a ribs basket—Gauges leaves, but not without flashing me a toothy smile. It glints in the reflection of the sign behind my head pointing toward the bathrooms. Classy.
As I push up the sleeves of my Fair Isle crewneck, the humidity registering at sweat-inducing levels, Siena looks at my forearm.
“Sweet ink,” Siena says.
I flush hot. On my eighteenth birthday, I insisted on getting tattooed. Bentley took me to the best tattoo artist in Williamsburg. She was a bombshell Amy Winehouse type with droves of jet-black hair and a colorful picture book tastefully curated across her body.
We’d emailed back and forth for a few weeks, trying to decide which one of my amateur sketches I’d like inked on me for eternity. This was a hard decision considering I waffle on almost everything. We decided on an open, ornate birdcage. Left inside is a bouquet of colorful flowers. In the distance a lone blackbird is flying away.
“Any significance?” Siena asks.
“Just pretty, I guess,” I say, not wanting to get into it. Though from the look on Hector’s face, it’s clear he might’ve deduced it’s one of my own drawings. I start to slip it back into my sweater.
“Wait, wait,” Siena says. She stops me with a hand that’s wet from her glass. “I like to play guess and go with new friends and their tats. Is that cool?” She lifts an arm and shows off her own tattoo sleeve.
“Go for it.”
Siena leans over the table a bit, her hair falling around her face, to get a closer aerial view.
“All right, well, you got money, that’s for sure, because this is some detailed shit. That shading. You must’ve sat for a while for this.” Her thumb brushes over it. “And it must’ve hurt like a motherfucker if you’re that sensitive,” she adds, noting how that tickled me. “Birdcages suggest some kind of confinement, but the open door and the soaring bird make me think you’re escaping something. The flowers left behind feel like what you do at a gravestone. You’re mourning a past you? Some self-care shit?” Her hot-chocolate irises, made larger by her glasses—which may or may not be prescription—meet mine again. All I can do is nod. “Then there’s the movie The Birdcage. Plus that Maya Angelou poem… Now, I’m just free-associating here, but I’d say you got this tattoo at eighteen or nineteen to represent your newfound freedom.” Her words land with finality and an impressive sense of authority.
“You got all that from my forearm?” I ask.
“Don’t tell me if I’m wrong or we’ll be here all night.” Siena’s laugh is light and charming.
“No, you pretty much nailed it.”
“She’s like a palm reader but for tattoos,” Noelle says.
Siena nudges her with an elbow. “Too bad this one is afraid of needles, so I’ll never know what’s going on in that pretty head of hers.” Siena blushes when she realizes what she said, and now I’m starting to think Noelle didn’t need us here at all. Maybe Siena’s been harboring feelings for Noelle since last Christmas as well.
“Have you ever thought about getting a tattoo?” I ask Hector.
The table is wobbly, much like my insides, but I lean forward. The tart, acidic hint of cranberry in my seltzer goes down smoothly and turns my stomach into a kiln.
He looks away. “I have one.”
“Well, now I have to see it,” I say. My eyes scan over every inch of exposed skin.
“It’s not exactly in a bar-appropriate place.”
“I would argue pretty much any place is appropriate in the right bar.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Surprised you haven’t noticed it already.”
Siena and Noelle laugh with abandon at Hector’s relentless read of my open admiration. I knew I wasn’t being subtle about my thirst, but his callout still tickles me. I finish my drink to hide my grin.
At least he can joke about our sexual chemistry. That’s a good sign.
The food comes right on cue. I push the soggy lettuce around on my plate. It’s drowning in unidentifiable dressing. The smell of Hector’s meal makes me wish I’d made a better choice.
“How is gala prep going?” Noelle asks.
I swallow a bite. “Prep is good. We’re still on the hunt for the perfect caterer. I’m woefully inexperienced in Wind River cuisine, and I’m sure this place doesn’t do events.”
“I can see it now. People trying not to get BBQ sauce all over their evening gowns,” Hector says.
“Just stock up on napkins. No, no! Better yet, get custom bibs. They can be commemorative,” Noelle suggests.
Hector’s already sporting a BBQ sauce mustache himself. Without thinking, or at least fully thinking, I lean over with a napkin and clean him off. He lets it happen, the Cupid’s bow of his lips revealing itself from beneath the brown sludge, and I get this strange feeling that he might even like it. “Dude, either you’ve got a strong paternal instinct or you can’t stand looking at messy eaters.”
“That’s it! I have had it up to here with these ‘dudes.’ You definitely owe me a dollar,” I say. I playfully pull up Venmo on my phone.
Siena clears her throat, breaking up the banter. “My sister is one of, if not the top chef in town. Why don’t you give her a try? She’s always wanted to attempt catering. Jack had a family friend from out of town do all the cooking for the gala and imported it on trucks, but with the dining hall kitchen available for use at the college, it might be nice to get an in-house chef and a staff.”
In my experience, I remember the excellent crab cakes or the signature cocktail over anything else when I attend one of these philanthropic social functions. The conversations held over side salads and fresh focaccia are what stay with me. My taste buds hold on to my memories.
Siena is showing me food photos from the restaurant. My mouth is already watering over the cacio e pepe as I pick at my pathetic excuse for a salad. “She’d totally let you two come in for a tasting to sample the goods.”
