Page 70 of Faker
“Usually dinner. First date I do drinks or coffee. That way we don’t have to spend an agonizing meal together if we don’t hit it off. You?”
“I take her to the rock climbing gym to see if she can hang.”
I bite into a cupcake. Tate’s eyebrow raises and his hand twitches in my direction, but then he rests it on the counter.
“Frosting. On your lip.”
With the back of my hand, I wipe it away. I bet if my body weren’t in such cock-blocking condition, he would have taken careof the frosting with his mouth, which could have led to a rather sexy make-out.
I stare at the hemline of my cotton tank dress. “You’re hard core, putting dates through physical labor.”
“If rock climbing goes well, third date is Chinese food.”
I pause midchew. Lucky me got to experience third-date Tate on our first.
“What else do you want to know?”
“Anything and everything.”
He doesn’t answer right away.
“I broke my wrist playing soccer when I was in third grade,” he finally says. “I studied abroad in England when I was in college. I wasn’t used to driving stick then, and I crashed into a roundabout.”
My jaw falls. “Seriously?”
“Dead serious. My parents were livid. Their car insurance went through the roof because of me.”
“What other un-fun stuff don’t I know about you?”
He nods without breaking eye contact. The intensity is as unnerving as it is mesmerizing.
“You mean like, relationships, exes?”
“You already know about my un-fun stuff.” I think back to how I admitted my “O” problem to him and resist the urge to shrink into myself.
“Fair enough.” Silence fills the air between us. It’s loaded on his end, and I think I know why.
“Someone broke your trust, didn’t they?” I ask.
He nods. “I’ve had a few serious relationships in my life. The longest one, we dated senior year of high school into senior year of college.”
“Wow, four years? That’s a long time when you’re that young.”
“It was. We went to different colleges, so we were long distance, too, which was awful. The whole thing was a terrible mistake looking back on it now. We moved pretty quickly into committing to each other. We argued all the time. We’d break up, get back together, over and over. She liked going out with big groups. I preferred one-on-one dates. We’d get jealous of each other. She hated any female friends of mine. I hated most of her guy friends. It was pathetic.” He lets out an amused scoff.
He opens his mouth as if to continue, but there are no more words. Just a tired chuckle. I want to prod, to ask for more detail, but I don’t want to push him. It’s a monumental step for him to reveal this much to me, when he’s so hell-bent on taking it slow.
“I was an imbecile,” he says. “We both were.”
I can’t ever remember hearing a person in our age group use such an old-timey word. It makes me smile, despite the serious topic.
Tate glances up at me. “People in their late teens and early twenties are clueless when it comes to relationships. Don’t hold it against me.”
His hand rests flat on the top of the counter. I move my hand over his and he sighs. It sounds like satisfaction. Every time I’ve rested my hand on his whenever he goes deep into a conversation, he seems to loosen, to relax. Such a tiny gesture, but it feels enormously intimate.
“Why’d you stay together so long, then?”
“She was my first love, my first long-term relationship. There were lingering feelings on both sides, and we were too young to know how to handle them properly. I didn’t know when to call it quits. Neither did she.”
