Page 43 of Most Likely to Match
The networking portion of the evening only lasts for two hours, but a few people still linger after, and the mood shifts into happy hour. Dean and I don’t really speak, but he never drifts far from my orbit. At any point, all I’d have to do is reach out, and I’d be able to grab his arm, his belt loop, the hem of his t-shirt, and reel him into me. I don’t, but it’s nice to know it’s an option.
“Do you like tequila?” Dean asks. It’s the first time he’s spoken directly to me in a few hours, so it takes me a moment to formulate an answer.
“I feel pretty neutral about it, I guess?” We both face the bar, ourreflections skewed in the old mirror behind the bar rail bottles. Even in Moonbar’s dim lighting, his skin is warm and tanned. The image of him, lying out next to his parents’ pool, typing up session notes in a pair of drying swim trunks, or maybe even swim briefs, is too easy and enticing to let myself conjure. I shut my eyes and shake my head to physically release the thought from my mind. I cannot afford to be distracted right now.
Dean catches Nick’s attention and taps on the wood bar with two fingers.
“Dos?” Nick asks.
“Por favor,” Dean confirms.
I edge closer to him, our elbows brushing as Nick sets two shot glasses down on the bar and presents a bottle of tequila to Dean like a sommelier with his best wine. The bottle looks nicer than anything I’ve ever seen served at a dive bar. That’s confirmed when Dean passes me the shot glass, but says, “You’re supposed to sip this from special glasses made for sipping, but they don’t have the right tasting glasses.”
I nod. “You don’t have to buy me nice tequila,” I say, holding my glass to my lips but not quite ready to drink yet. In truth, I don’t think I’ve drunk straight tequila since I was in university, and it would have most definitely been accompanied by salt and lime, so now it feels like I’ve missed an important step.
He shrugs. “I’m not.” He grins, cheeky. “Jasmine wants to test out a few premium brands. We’re their guinea pigs.”
“I…uh…” I take a sip of tequila. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be tasting when I sip instead of shoot, but mostly, I’m just getting an essence of burning. It’s courage enough, though, to say, “Je suis désolée.”
He doesn’t say a word, watching me over the rim of his glass. His dark eyes are intense, but not angry at me for employing our old meme. After a moment, he sets down his glass and reaches over the bar, coming back with a shallow dish of salt rimmer and a basket of pre-cut limes. He takes my hand, turning it palm side up. He lifts the inside of my wrist to his mouth and waits, his breath a warm gustacross my pulse point, until I nod. His tongue is hot against my skin, but I also feel him, a phantom drag between my legs. His mouth makes a sucking sound as he pulls away, inspects his work, then goes back in for another gentle lave of his tongue. He sprinkles the salt and hands me a lime wedge. When I blink slowly at it, he presses the lime, peel side against my lips, until I open for him. He pushes his fingers maybe a little farther into my mouth than he needs to. I open wider.
Dean licks the salt from my skin with the same attention and care he used to make it wet, and I try not to fidget and squirm against him. He drinks the tequila in one slow, long sip. It’s not aggressive enough to call a shot, but it isn’t for the purpose of cataloging tasting notes either. He leans closer to me, closer than he’s been all night, than we’ve been in weeks, and I present the lime wedge to him. But he says, “Bite down.”
I frown, unable to ask him what he means.
“Bite it,” he says again, his words a tequila-scented whisper. He licks his lower lips, like he’s searching for lost drops of the alcohol. I bite the lime wedge, and as sour, citrusy juices and pulp fill my mouth, Dean pulls the fruit from my lips and replaces it with his own.
It’s a chaste kiss, at least compared to what I’dlethim do to me right here, right now, up against the bar. His tongue hungry for the taste of lime, his hand holding my jaw ever so slightly. But when he pulls away, the taste of him and tequila still lingering on my lips, he pants, his eyes closed.
“I know you are,” he says quietly. “Sorry,” he clarifies. “I want to forgive you,” he says, meeting my eyes. “Will you give me some time?”
I nod, my chin still held on the pedestal created by his thumb and index finger. He licks his lips, kisses me again. “Okay,” he says, winded. “Okay. See you at work tomorrow?” he asks. When I nod again, my voice still caught on a lime wedge, he smiles and leaves.
I turn back to the bar, blinking at my hands, each finger splayed out against the smooth wood.
Nick stands on the other side of the bar, a white bar cloth over hisshoulder, flannel open over a Reputations tour t-shirt. “You.” He points at me. “You need a cosmo.”
Dean makesgood on his promise and shows up to the office the next day, even though it’s a long commute by train and everything we need to talk about could be discussed over the phone. Still, it’s nice to have another person here. He arrives later in the morning with coffee and doughnuts and checks in on me at one, when I still haven’t eaten, insisting I take a walk around the block and come back with food for both of us. We discuss clients as we eat Greek souvlaki, which I choose specifically for its pungent aromatic properties; I’ll be less likely to try to kiss him if my breath smells like skewered meats and tzatziki sauce. Even then, it’s a struggle.
Usually, I allot myself a specific time in the afternoon, if things are quiet, to online shop. But instead of filling my shopping cart with new running shoes I don’t need, today, I browse the website of a local therapy clinic. Once the therapists’ headshots begin to blur in front of my eyes, I decide to make a spreadsheet to help me pinpoint the best person to work with; even then, there’s no guarantee they will. Most therapists have waitlists that are months long.
This revelation starts a new spreadsheet to compare dating coaches— ones who can’t call themselves registered therapists, who work mostly with dating apps, singles organizations, and matchmakers— with therapists. But too quickly, I realize, they’re not what I need.
I don’t need someone to tell me how to ask a guy on a first date or how to get a second. I need someone to help me figure out why I like sex and enjoy intimacy but have never craved it with one person, until Dean, both the first and second time. I need someone to tell me why I can’t say the things that need to be said when it’s most important.
I need to know what I can do to earn Dean’s forgiveness.
I need Dean to kiss me like that again, working relationship be damned. I need to invite him to my mother’s for a barbecue.
Dean chooses to walk into my office, without knocking, as I’m about to fill in a therapist’s intake form. He’s looking at his phone while he does it, but I still click away from the website with its cool green and taupe palette and over to my full shopping cart before he can see it.
“You like ball, right?” he asks.
“I…don’t know how to answer that question.”
He smiles, says a quietha ha. “Baseball.”
“Oh.” I sit up straighter in my ergonomic office chair. “Yes. Why’d you call it ball?”
