I wanted to dig deeper. Ask him why. “So, you’re a dating expert that doesn’t date.”
“If that’s what you want to hear, then I am.”
No, it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. But what did that matter?
Sighing, I pulled both my legs up, folding them under me and severing the light contact of Lucas’s knees. “I don’t even know where to start with my history.”
Lucas dragged one of his feet up, too, resting it on the side of the couch, right beside my thigh and somehow coming closer. “Assface Number Five,” he offered with a serious expression. “You can start telling me about him. Full name? Address? Date of birth? Just for reference.”
“Ha.”I shot him a look. “Ted, no last name, location and date of birth unknown.” I ignored Lucas’s frown and asked, “What else do you want to know? What went wrong?”
He nodded.
“If you are into that kind of boring stuff…” I joked, but he didn’t even smile. “Okay, so Ted and I dated for… a few weeks give or take.” Six, to be exact. “I’d always been very clear about us being exclusive, not seeing other people because I just…” I shook my head. “It’s how I am. He agreed, told me he didn’t want to share me, either. Then, one day, by pure chance, I saw him attached to someone else’s lips. When I confronted him, he pretended he didn’t know me.” And that had stung like a bee. “The complete tool made such a scene that I even doubted myself for a second, thinking I had the wrong guy. But nope, it was Ted. And he’d been dating that girl longer than me.”
Lucas stared at me, remaining oddly quiet.
I filled in the silence. “So, yeah, that was Ted. Assface Number Five.” I leaned back on the couch, making myself more comfortable while I waited for him to say something, anything. He didn’t. “It’s okay. It only took me a couple days to get over him. He wasn’t even the worst.”
Eyebrows up, Lucas said very slowly, “There’s worse than him.”
I realized it hadn’t been a question, but I answered anyway. “Nathan. Your cousin calls him the King of Assfaces.” I shifted, bringing my knees up and hugging them to my chest. And because I seemed to have no brain-to-mouth filter, I told him about him, too. “He was a screenplay writer. Funny, witty, charming. Our first date was probably the best first date I ever had, and that should have been a red flag considering he showed up drunk.”
Lucas flinched, his lips pressing into a tight line.
I continued, “He excused himself saying he’d had the worst day at work and downed a couple beers before our date. Told me that he hadn’t wanted to cancel on me because he liked meso much.” And if anything, Nathan had been convincing. “Anyway, all the dates that followed that one were… just like dating multiple men at the same time. He’d be his charming, perfect self and then a switch would be flipped, and he’d turn into someone completely different. I wouldn’t know if I’d get someone weird, moody, or just… crazy.”
A muscle in Lucas’s jaw jumped. “Did he ever—”
“No,” I stopped him. “It was never like that. He never laid a hand on me. It was more about things he’d say or the way he’d act during a date.” Stuff straight out of comedy sketches. Bizarre. “But he’d always apologize after, tell me it was nerves making him act strange because he was crazy about me.” And silly naïve me believed him every single time. “Anyway.” I laughed to make light of the sucky experience. “To sum it up, it turned out he had been testing stuff on me. Scenes. For the screenplay he’d been working on.”
Lucas sat so still I could barely see his chest moving. I didn’t even think he’d blinked for a minute or two.
I averted my eyes, letting them rest on my toes. “I told you it was depressing stuff, Lucas.”
“This Nathan,” he said, ignoring my last comment. “How long until you left him?”
Wiggling my toes inside my socks, I made sure to keep my eyes there. “Oh. I guess I didn’t… exactly leave him?” I swallowed my embarrassment with as much dignity as I could. Because I shouldhave, I really should have terminated that relationship on date one. “He was the one that broke things off. The reveal was his bigplot twist.”
Lucas didn’t speak. Not a word. And I… God, what in the world was I doing? Why was I telling him all of this? We could be friends without me revealing stuff that didn’t exactly reflect well on me.
“And that’s enough of a rundown for today,friend.” I finally met his gaze, finding him with an expression that I decided to ignore. “That’s why I swore off men and dating apps.” That much was true. After that trail of failed pseudo-relationships, I decided to take a break from… real-life love and focus on the fictional kind. “Lina might be right, though. Maybe all I need is to go out and experiment with dating again. And by going out, I guess I mean re-downloading Tinder.”
His forehead furrowed in a strange way.
I felt the need to fill in the silence again. “It’s far from ideal but I can’t afford or think of anything else.” I started fidgeting with my fingers, so I decided to sit on them. “I could prepare a checklist with all the things I need to take home from this… research, like Lina said. An experiment. So, I’ll pick a man and go through the motions. The phases of dating. The natural arc of getting to know someone emotionally, from fun or basic things like getting flowers or experiencing the butterflies of going on a first date, to the more… advanced stuff. Like that first brush of his hand against mine. Or when he leans forward and I know he’s—” I stopped myself, noticing that I was rambling. “Anyways.”
I eyed the man in front of me again, waited until a few more seconds passed.
“Ehm…” I trailed off, wondering if I should maybe nudge him with my finger, check if he was okay. “I think we had one or five Cronuts too many. Can you feel the tips of your fingers tingling? Cold sweats? Maybe I should get you a glass of water.”
I’d shifted by about half an inch when Lucas’s hand shot in my direction. His palm fell on my knee, and I looked down just as he said, “No.”
My brows rose. “No to water?” I gawked at that warm and heavy palm as it heated the skin through my jeans, feeling the tiniest bit breathless. “Would you like a glass of milk?”
“No, Rosie,” he repeated with a determination that made me look up as his fingers squeezed my thigh softly. “I’ll do it.”
Blinking, processing, I mentally recapped, searching for whatever he could possibly be offering to do. “You’ll… get me flowers?” I asked as I felt his hand lift off my leg. I sagged back, a little relieved that now I could think more clearly. “I don’t think I’ve ever gotten flowers from any man I dated, but—”