He had somehow created a monster.
It wasn't supposed to be bad, not like this. He'd already spent twelve hours alone with her, for God's sake, on top of all the dinners and dancing they'd had on their group dates. He was supposed to be at least somewhat over the sweaty palms and outfit changes and second guessing.
Their nightly phone calls didn't make it any better. Despite all her reassurance, he couldn't bring himself to believe that she wasn't, for whatever reason, going out with him just to let him down easy. She was gorgeous; she was a spy. It didn't get any more exotic than that. He was just a boring recent college graduate, slogging away at a firm until his life could really start. They had nothing in common.
Except flying. And the kind of music they listened to. And she was the perfect height, and she fit just right in his arms when they danced, and when they were together, he'd felt eyes on him, in a way that he never had before. In jealousy and envy, in speechless adoration. Sure, he'd run in the perfect pass before, he'd scored the winning goal, but when he was standing with the most gorgeous girl in the entire room, in the entire city, smiling up at him, he was on another plane altogether.
And it scared the hell out of him.
Three days before their date, he managed to sleep through the entire night. Two days before, he woke at three o'clock in the morning and had to convince himself not to call her. He could count the hours by her teasing e-mails and the interminable lag between when they were both pretending to do work. He could hardly concentrate on anything, when his mail notifier blinked calmly in the corner of the screen at him.
No new messages. No new messages. One new message.
He was checking the weather forecast when another email arrived, protesting that she would be fine with whatever he had in mind, even a loud cheerful Greek restaurant where they'd have to sing happy birthday twice in the space of forty-five minutes and she would mispronounce everything and play footsie with him, the vinyl booth cushion squeaking when she shifted her weight. Ned had been hoping for a clear night, just cool enough to make the offer of a jacket worthwhile, but now there was something blue and curving and covered with spikes descending from the blank mass that was Canada, on the time-lapsed forecast map, and the usually cheerful sunshine graphic was gone, replaced with an animated storm cloud.
He had been the one who insisted on Saturday night. It was only fair that he'd get to monopolize the major date night of the weekend. It was all supposed to fall into place. But that grey storm cloud, frowning as it flashed jagged bolts of lightning into the temperature graphic... that grey storm cloud promised that nothing was going to go right.
He clicked the reply button and sat with the cursor blinking at him. He wished that he could be the guy he pretended he was in his emails to her. Flirty, a little bit cocky without being arrogant, calm and assured. He wished he could forget the utter letdown when he'd appeared at her door for their first date and found that she wasn't there.
Tell me more about what this footsie will entail, he typed, and smiled.
Saturday dawned grey and cool, and he went to the gym, in the hopes that when he emerged a few hours later, exhausted, the wind would have swept the city clean, the rain evaporating in the sunlight. He rounded the weight machines three times, worked out on the elliptical until he was almost trembling with exhaustion, trying to drive all his nervous fear out. He stepped off the machine, his palms resting just above his knees as he tried to catch his breath, and the cheerful blonde newscaster on the televisions facing him looked a little like her, and all his hard-won calm was lost.
At six o'clock that night he had been staring at the clock on his VCR, keeping track of the unbearably slow passage of time, telling himself that calling her apartment as he had last time would be bad luck. Even though he wasn't superstitious. He just couldn't shake the feeling that it wasn't going to go right, that she'd be gone again...
Then his doorbell rang.
He glanced at the jacket, tossed over the back of the couch, and glanced through the spyglass, then opened the door. She stood there, smiling, and for a moment he was speechless.
She wore a dress under the loose charcoal trenchcoat, hugging close to her chest, tied behind her neck, black to the waist, white skirt ending just above her knees. She looked clean and elegantly casual, where Belinda would have looked flashy and overblown.
"I'm really sorry," she said, and he could only register plum lips and the flutter of heavily black lashes. "I was going to call you, but we lost track of time, and... anyway. Kent's been at our place practically all weekend." She rolled her eyes. "I just had to get away from them."
Ned found his voice. "Bess and Kent?"
"Yeah, they've been all over each other since last night." He moved back and she strode a few steps inside, smiling when he offered to take her coat. Her shoulders were smooth, her arms and fingers bare as she turned to face him.
"Sorry, our reservation isn't for..." He checked his watch. "Far too long. Did you want something to drink? We can go early, see if there's a bar..."
She raised an eyebrow, her gaze tracing over him. Coal-black suit, crisp white shirt, black tie, perfect hair. "There's a bar at this quaint little Greek restaurant? Don't you think you're a little overdressed?"
"Don't you?" he returned, taking her arm, his fingers resting at her elbow.
She laughed a little, as he piloted her to the couch. His coffee table was gleaming. His coffee table hadn't gleamed since he'd bought the damned thing. "Bess wouldn't take no for an answer. After she saw this on me, I was either wearing this or nothing."
"Well, if that was the choice..." He sat down beside her. "I don't think there's any quaint little Greek restaurant that would've turned you down."
As soon as they left the apartment, they heard it at the same time, the sudden soft hush of the rain. Nancy walked to the hall window, resting her fingertips against the glass, as the sheets of water descended to the gleaming streets. She turned to him with a rueful smile on her face.
"You knew this wouldn't be easy, didn't you."
She shook her head, opening her mouth to say something, but changed her mind. "Come on," she said lightly.
Under his enormous black umbrella, they stood on the streetcorner, watching the taillights swish through the puddles, and Ned glanced over and caught Nancy staring at him. "What is it?" he asked, smiling.
"I'm just..." she shook her head again, as a taxi stopped before them, and Ned put his arm down and opened the door for her. With a swish of her white skirt, she slipped over in the seat, and he joined her, shaking the umbrella out before pulling it inside. He reeled off the address, noting that Nancy hadn't slid all the way into the other seat, and their hips were a mere inch apart. She gave him a speculative glance, but didn't finish her comment.
"Out with it," he demanded.
"Are you okay?"
He looked down at his hands, loosely clasped between his knees. "Do you want to know the truth?"
"Yeah."
He smiled. "I'm nervous as hell," he told his hands.
"Hey, I already know you snore."
He looked over at her in surprise. "I do not."
She smiled. "See?" she said. "What do you have to be nervous about?"
"Everything. Except... well, at least you did show up this time," he murmured.
She put her hand over his. "I told you I wouldn't be here unless I wanted to be. Don't tell me that you don't believe me."
He was quiet for a minute. "What are we doing here?" he asked quietly.
"'Cause this is where you asked for."
Nancy and Ned turned toward the driver in surprise, and he smiled at them. "We're here."
Ned held the umbrella over her shining head as they walked up to the restaurant, with its demure striped awnings dripping onto the gleaming sidewalks, the faint glow of the candles from the dim warmth of the restaurant. She put her hand over his again, when he reached out to open the door for her.
"I don't know," she answered, then smiled. "But whatever we are doing... I don't really want it to stop."
He held her gaze, her fingers warm on his, and then smiled. "Me either," he said softly.
The rain meant that the restaurant wasn't as crowded; he'd managed to call in a favor for his reservation, mindful of the fact that he usually saw couples lingering around the entrance every night. He ordered a bottle of wine, which made her chuckle.
When the waiter walked away, he gazed at her for a long moment, then pushed back his chair and leaned toward her. He slipped his fingertips just behind her ear, watching her blue eyes widen.
"What..."
"Just checking."
She smiled. "They know they're dead if they even think about calling me tonight."
The waiter arrived with their bottle, and Nancy nodded, her fingers clasped under her chin, when the waiter asked if she'd have a glass. "Why do I have a feeling that you listened just a little too hard to what I said?"
He smiled. "Some things," he admitted. "I have to admit, I didn't know if you were the kind of girl who would go for this kind of thing..."
"Turn down a fantastically expensive French meal, a bottle of wine, and your charming company? What kind of girl would that make me?" She covered her smile with a sip from her wine glass.
"An entirely unknown quantity," he admitted. "What kind of food do you like? For next time we do this."
"Anything, really," she said. "George cooks relatively healthy, usually Asian meals, Bess loves Italian, and I just make whatever's quick and simple."
"Is there any place you want to be that you haven't already been?"
"For the next weekend getaway you plan?" she asked, one eyebrow raised, and he laughed.
She considered for a moment. "I want to be in Ireland on a sunny day," she said. "I want to spend a week on an island with water so clear I can see my feet in it. I've done a lot of the things I always wanted to do. I haven't marked everything off my list, but I'm trying. Where do you want to go, Ned?" She propped her chin on her hand. "Do you know yet, what you want to be when you grow up?"
He shook his head. "I don't know who I want to be," he said. "I have a pretty good idea of who I don't want to be; I see people like that every day. I don't want to wake up on my sixtieth birthday and realize that I wasted my life watching other people's money grow."
"So what do you want to remember, on your sixtieth birthday?"
Ned's gaze shifted away from Nancy's face, to a couple at another table, a girl's slender tanned arm stretched across the pristine white cloth, her date's fingers resting against hers. "For a long time I thought the only way I'd be successful was if I woke up next to a woman who loved me, if I had children, grandchildren, a comfortable house, a car with a good speaker system," he said, and chuckled.
"Not anymore."
He shrugged. "Part of not believing in true love, is knowing how unlikely that scenario is."
"I don't think it's unlikely." He glanced down, but was startled by the sharp reprove in her voice.
"Stop it. I can see what you're doing."
"And what am I doing?" He met and held her gaze, although he could feel his skin prickling with sudden warmth.
"Telling yourself that whatever I'm saying isn't true."
"I wasn't," he protested weakly.
She searched his eyes for a moment. "How old were you the first time someone broke your heart?"
He shook his head. "I don't think someone you don't love can really break your heart."
"Yeah, but tell me about her anyway." Her expression told him she would brook no argument.
Over their elaborate and almost intimidatingly beautiful meal, each course nearly dwarfed by the expanse of white plate around it, he detached from the words he could still somehow faintly hear coming out of his mouth, as he told her about the first, the only, the girl he'd begun dating the year he was seventeen, who had broken up with him a week shy of their one-year anniversary. He had never told the girl that he'd loved her--
"What was her name?" Nancy asked softly, her fork motionless on her plate.
"Jenny," he replied, breathing the word like a curse.
But it hadn't mattered. Even what he'd whispered in the privacy of his own head, back in that distant time when his parents' questions were still vague and good-natured, when it was all over she was gone. She hadn't been at the class reunion. Nancy's presence at his side had been, among other things, a buffer against that chapter from his past coming back to him for another round, and he could tell from the expression on her face that she was glad he hadn't intentionally denied her an opportunity to meet his old flame.
"She made you doubt everything."
He shook his head. "She just helped me figure out that a wife and grandkids wasn't the be-all and end-all of existence."
"It isn't," Nancy agreed. "I guess I'm just a little disappointed to hear you talking like this..."
"Why?"
She smiled. "You're too young to be this bitter," she replied. "And if this girl, the one you really didn't love," she repeated, doubt twisting her voice, "could manage to hurt you this badly, I don't see how there's any hope for me."
"You're stronger than I am."
Nancy poured herself another glass of wine, then asked with her eyebrows if he wanted a refill. Their fingers touched when he handed her his glass. "I don't believe that," she replied. "There's a huge difference between being able to aim a gun, and when to make a judgement call on when to pull it. There's a huge difference between twenty-five and twenty-seven. And you, my friend," she said, handing him his glass, and he felt his skin tingle pleasantly at the brief press of her fingers against his, "haven't had enough to drink, and I haven't had enough psychology classes..."
"Another bottle of wine?"
"Don't change the subject," she told him with mock severity. "There's a huge difference between denial and acceptance."
"Right. I've accepted what I am."
She studied him, until he could feel the drink blushing in his cheeks and he was just beginning to feel uncomfortable under the intensity of her gaze. "You've denied to everyone, even yourself, what you are."
"And what am I."
She shook her head and took a sip of her wine.
"Nearly perfect," he barely heard her whisper. "If you'd let yourself be."
In the taxi, on the way back to his apartment, he felt both a faint, dawning, creeping horror, remembering with some incredulity what he'd said to her, and the wine, which was demanding that he kiss her, or at least stare at her lips while biding his time.
"You know you're not like that, right," she told him, suddenly, when the taxi was at a red light, and she had one arm against the line of the car door, her gaze not quite finding his face. The second bottle of wine, half of which was currently sloshing in the green glass nestled between his gleaming dress shoes in the floorboard, had been a mistake, and he had to fight the urge to take another long sip, because the horror was still nameless, but was fast growing undeniable.
What the hell did I say to her.
"Not like what?"
"Not some player, not some confirmed bachelor who will never find a meaningful relationship."
"And what, exactly, Miss Drew, are you trying to say?"
"You're not accepting, you're in denial."
He leaned in close to her, until he could almost smell the sweet bite of the wine on her breath. "You know," he said, trying to stop the words before he could speak them, but not quite able to remember why part of him thought it would be so hideously wrong to tell her what he was thinking. "I think you're great. Almost perfect. And I wanted everything to be exactly right tonight, but... the rain, and... and Jenny, God, I really shouldn't have talked about Jenny, that was such a mistake. This was supposed to go so much differently. And-- you know what? I take it back. You are perfect. You're too perfect. You're too good for a guy like me. And I wake up every day dreading that you'll figure it out, and this'll all be over, and what I keep telling you, that life, that... that nightmare. It'll be true. All because I wasn't, because I didn't..." He took a deep breath. "Because I couldn't hold on to you."
The cab stopped at the curb in front of his apartment building, and as Nancy sat speechless, the color high in her cheeks, Ned pulled out his wallet and found a few bills, which he tossed to the driver. "Take her back to her place... it should be enough," he muttered, and he fumbled the umbrella open after he managed to find the door handle. He looked back at Nancy, whose lips were slightly parted, her gaze almost wondering as she met his eyes.
"I'm sorry."
He climbed out of the car and juggled the wine bottle and umbrella for a minute, at the front door, before he simply put the bottle down on the pavement and found his key with his free hand, not letting himself look back at her. His apartment, once he reached it, was cool and dim, and his head was just beginning to ache, his shoes squeaking from the rain. He shook out the umbrella carelessly, then propped it against the front doorjamb, where it immediately slid to the floor and made a loud whacking noise upon impact.
"Shit," he muttered, looking at the green bottle clenched in his fist. "Stupid rain. Stupid rain. Stupid."
The bottle went onto the counter, and then he shrugged out of the coal-black jacket, unbuttoned his collar, and sat down on his couch in the dark.
He'd blown it. Never before, on this magnitude, had he managed to destroy what was supposed to have been the perfect night so utterly, so completely as this. Right now she was probably just getting back to her apartment, telling a wide-eyed Bess and George how utterly disastrous the entire evening had been--
His doorbell rang, and Ned pushed himself unevenly off the couch to answer it, berating himself under his breath the entire way. He'd left the door unlocked when he'd come in, and he didn't even bother checking the peephole before he turned the knob. She was out of his league, and if tonight hadn't shown her that...
But Nancy was standing there, her hair darkened from the rain, standing straight and tall and shivering slightly in her charcoal trenchcoat, and he had enough time to draw a single breath before she spoke.
"Change my life, Ned."