“Let you out on this side?” the driver asks, motioning to the corner just ahead.
“Yes, th-that’s fine.” I fluff my hair, run my tongue over my front teeth, and snap my compact shut with a firm click before swiping my credit card and adding a healthy tip.
And then me, my black skirt that hits at the knees, and the black lace panties that reveal more of my butt than I’m pretty sure I’ve ever revealed to anyone are off to the races. The lace underwear isn’t a thong, but it doesn’t cover my cheeks, either. They cut halfway across my rear. Perhaps that means Graham is an ass man. The thought makes me simultaneously want to giggle and to hide my face behind my hands while I blush ruby red.
There’s also an embroidered butterfly on the semi-sheer front, right at the top by my hipbone. If I’m trying to read his panty selection like a mug of tea leaves, I guess that means he thinks I’m a butterfly. Hopefully he’s right, and I’m finally ready to emerge from my cocoon.
But I remind myself that I’m a business butterfly, and that breed keeps the heart separate from anything below the belt. I move faster down the street, shivering slightly at the chill in the night air, wrapping my arms around my silky pink blouse.
A few minutes later, after visiting the Starbucks bathroom a few doors down from the restaurant, because anxiety makes my microscopic bladder even more hyperactive, I’m stepping out of the elevator at Patio West.
Excessively well-dressed and on-trend people gather in cozy clusters around the deck, which is illuminated by antique gas lamps and humming space heaters scattered across the rooftop bar. At this hour, the sun is long down and the lights are turned low, but it’s bright enough for me to spot Graham. I could pin-point him a mile away on a cloudy day with a bag over his head, based on his broad, take-no-prisoners shoulders alone.
But he’s not here. There are no suitably-sized shoulders in attendance at the bar, or at any of the tables.
Doubt flashes through my chest for the thousandth time since my panty present arrived. What if Graham’s changed his mind? What if the panties don’t mean what I think they mean? What if he was on his way here and was in a horrible accident and is now in the hospital, fighting for his life, because I’m cursed and will go to my grave an inexperienced virgin haunted by the ghosts of all the penises I’ve never known?
With my anxiety reaching the tipping point that will send me running home to spend the night watching Hugh Jackman in Les Mis with Stephen King, my senile cat, even if he chews a button off my blouse like he did the other night—the cat, not the actor—I whip out my phone and place an emergency call.
Chloe, my best friend and the marketing guru who has helped make Love Cycle Creations successful beyond my wildest dreams, answers on the second ring. “Have you run home to hide yet?” she asks, proving I am a predictably predictable coward.
“No,” I whisper, gliding to the edge of the balcony to stare down at the traffic zipping by below. “But I’m considering jumping off this roof and putting myself out of my misery. My date’s not here.”
I didn’t tell Chloe that my mystery date is Graham—I’m not ready to cough up that gossip morsel—but I had to tell someone I was leaving the house to see a male of the species for the first time in nearly six months. “Why isn’t he here?”
“Um, so many reasons—stalled subway car, shitty Uber driver, construction blocking a major artery to the Lower West Side? Need I go on?”
“He has a driver and a town car,” I mumble, arranging myself behind a potted tree with a view of the elevator.
“Ooh la la. A fancy man, eh? You didn’t tell me he was fancy,” she says, barreling on before I can reply. “But still. His town car doesn’t have wings, does it? He could be stuck in traffic.” Chloe pauses and mumbles something under her breath along with my name, making me think she’s not alone on the other end of the line.
Of course she’s not. Chloe is sexy, funny, fabulous, and completely comfortable in her own skin. She loves men and they love her, and she’s rarely without a man of the moment, even if she does tend to shy away from long-term relationships.
“I’m sorry,” I say, feeling terrible for being the needy boss-friend who interrupts a Monday-night booty call. “Am I interrupting your evening? I can go. This isn’t a big deal.”
“Of course it’s a big deal, and no, you’re not interrupting,” Chloe says. “So quit being crazy and repeat after me: I’m CJ Murphy. I am a sweet, generous person who loves animals and small children and would do anything for a friend. I also own my own company, am smoking hot, and any dude is lucky to be going on a date with me.”
Lucky to be going on a date with me.
Lucky to be going on a date with me . . .
But this isn’t really a date—it’s a sex lesson—but I can’t tell Chloe that. I’m not ready to confess that to anyone. Maybe not even myself.
I’m so much more scared than I thought I would be.
Dear God, this is really happening. Graham will be here any minute—he runs late, but he always shows—and my life is going to be changed FOREVER.
“You know what, Chloe? I think I need a drink.” Tucking my purse under my arm, I make a beeline for the bar. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?”
“Or call me later,” Chloe says. “I want to hear how it goes! Good luck.”
“Thanks.” I end the call and slip onto an empty stool beneath an antique replica of a World War II fighter plane. In a heartbeat, the bartender spots me and heads my way, clearly sensing my sudden and powerful need for liquid courage.
But before I can open my mouth to order, he says, “You’re CJ, right?”
I straighten, surprised. “Um, yeah. Yes.”
He fetches a dirty vodka martini with extra olives, my favorite drink, from beneath the bar and slides it across the smoothly polished surface. “Your friend ordered this for you about ten minutes ago. Glad you showed. I hate to waste good vodka.” He departs with a wink, leaving me even more unsettled.