“You still into him?” Simone asked as we got ready to leave our apartment.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Didn’t he dump you before your cousin’s wedding?”
That was the thing about Simone. She remembered details about my life that even I had forgotten. She was right though. The last time I’d seen him, he was supposed to come with me to Lizzie’s wedding. She was two years older than me and there was a silly family rivalry between us two, as to which of us was more popular, more successful etc. etc. Lizzie always seemed to win on that score. She’d gotten into a better college, she was always skinnier than me and then when she got a boyfriend, of course he was a heart surgeon hero. Ok, just an ordinary family doctor, but still. Her wedding was a big deal to me, I wanted to take my hot boyfriend along.
Then the day before, he called me and said he’d been offered a ride to some resort with a couple of snowboarders.
“No.”
“Come on, babe, this is a great shot for me.”
“You promised to come to the wedding with me!”
“I know… But weddings aren’t really my vibe… and this is too good an opportunity to pass up on.”
I was going to look like a sad single girl at my thin, pretty cousin’s wedding. It was my worst nightmare.
The thing about Zane was, of course, the mountain connection. It wasn’t anything I could say out loud, but it was true. He had a big thing for mountains, if they were covered in snow. The other thing was, Zane was super hot. He was tall, well-built, with proper abs and sculpted muscles that looked like he lived in a gym
I’d agreed to meet him at a bar and as soon as he saw me come in, he walked towards me, picking me up and kissing me.
“Babe, so good to see you!” His face was tanned dark and his teeth sparkled bright white. “Just got back from Hawaii, the waves were rad!”
That was Zane.
Always barreling from one adventure to the next, he could not stop moving long enough to catch a breath. I listened to him talk about the water for what felt like a very long time before I said I was tired and wanted to head back home. He was hurt. “We haven’t seen each other in months.”
“I know, but I’ve started a new job and I spent all day cleaning the old digs and I’m really exhausted.”
“Are you still angry with me?” he asked, making puppy dog eyes.
I wasn’t really but I’d seen a side of Zane that hadn’t been that attractive. Or not attractive at all. A guy who was always looking to have fun was not the kind of guy you could depend on. Even when he said he’d be there for you. If the waves were great somewhere else or the snow was fresh nearby, he’d leave in a second.
“I was looking forward to spending some time with you,” he said in a low, sexy voice. “I even got us something to add a little zing to the night,” he said, lifting his eyebrows suggestively. For Zane, normal sex was not exciting enough either.
I remember the time he wanted to tie me up with silk scarves and I had refused. Saw too many movies on that topic. None of them ended well, ever. He said he was willing to be tied up too, so I did what he wanted. Only problem, of course, being that I didn’t really know how to untie him. He got so turned on by the whole thing that he pulled the knots too tight while we were having sex and when I wanted to untie him afterwards, I couldn’t get the knots to budge.
It was quite a nightmare. I had to look for a knife to cut him loose and ended up nicking his hand in the process. There was so much blood and then I had to keep the blood from spurting all over the bed and the carpet while he was still tied up. Zane was yelling at me to get the ties off him, while I was yelling at him to lie still and stop screaming at me. Then we had to rush to the hospital and explain to the nurse that the cut on his wrist was not a suicide attempt, but a sex game gone wrong.
“Should I call the police, honey?” she asked him in a low voice, looking at me like I was some kind of psychotic sex fiend.
“No, no, I was into it, it was my idea!” Zane said, pulling me close. I didn’t know where to look.
“Let’s meet up another time,” I said, getting up. “I’m really tired.”
“I’ve got something for that too!” he said quickly going through his pockets.
“No, not tonight,” I said, a bit sadly, as I always felt when it became clear to me that one of my mountain men was clearly not The One. I hated it when that happened. The moment I realized that the person in front of me, despite all their best efforts and intentions, really wasn’t my one true love.
But I was feeling rather down.
Then Will offered to share their pizza with me and I spent the evening with them in front of the television watching a family movie and it cheered me up. Zoë snuggled into me on the couch and Will was joking around with us, which was quite unlike him. It seemed like he had a sense of humor after all.
I checked him out from the corner of my eye ,and I liked what I saw. He was lying on the other couch, laughing at the movie, his blue eyes crinkling as he laughed. I liked the way he was able to relax, that two beers were enough for him, that he didn’t have to take drugs or go on a crazy adventure to be happy. Being here with his daughter and me was enough for him. I tried to think of the last time I’d spent a night watching TV with a guy, but I couldn’t. I’d never gone out with men who wanted to watch a movie. There was one guy, I suddenly remembered, who wanted to be in a movie, but that was something quite different. I’d ended that relationship rather suddenly, come to think of it. He was called Paul, Paul Something… and what had his connection been to the mountains again?
I could see him quite clearly in my mind’s eye, not the most handsome of all of them, but that’s right! His parents had a cabin in the mountains, and he loved going there. He offered to take me, and the idea of a cabin in the mountains sounded very romantic. He’d made a log fire and produced some wine along with a video camera he wanted us to use that evening. Suddenly being that far from civilization did not seem like a good thing at all.