Claire They kissed like they were talking about the weather. And not the tornados of the Midwest or the searing wildfires of California. Just a tepid peck on the lips, as exciting as a partially cloudy evening.
All around them, Manhattan heaved like an impatient dragon, its sidewalks shimmering like scales sweaty with humidity. Streetlamps blazed, and the horns of taxis wailed. Everything in the city was alive—feverish, irrepressible.
Everything except Claire and her date.
It was the third time she and Glenn had been out together, and now they stood outside the perfectly acceptable restaurant where they had both eaten perfectly acceptable chicken with a sautéed vegetable medley. The conversation had been perfectly acceptable, too—not bad but not great. Just . . . fine.
Glenn smiled at her. He was tall enough that she couldn’t see the balding patch on the crown of his head, but she knew it was there. He had nice teeth—he was a dentist, so he’d better have—and he seemed to wear a uniform of standard-issue polo shirts in tame shades of blue, paired with tan chinos.
They were supposed to be heading to the opening of a new exhibit by a Spanish artist. Claire’s best friend—one of the lawyers she worked with—was married to the gallery owner, and he was throwing a swanky party with cocktails and a live band tonight.
“Should I get us a ride?” Claire asked.
Glenn kept smiling in that mild way of his.
“Um . . .” She looked around them to see if she’d missed a cue about what was going on, but no dice.
He took her hand. “I was wondering,” Glenn said, shouting a little to be heard over the street noise. “Would you like to be exclusive?”
Claire blinked at him. “Exclusive?”
“You know, not seeing anyone else?”
She frowned, but just a tiny one—the kind that only the person frowning really knows is happening while the rest of the world goes on blissfully unaware. “Oh, I know what exclusive means, but . . . why?”
Glenn let out a short laugh. “Because I thought it might be nice if we didn’t kiss anyone else.”
She didn’t think he
was kissing anyone else. And Claire certainly wasn’t seeing other men. She was a corporate attorney at one of Manhattan’s top international firms, on the cusp of partnership, which meant nearly all her waking hours were spent at the office. It had taken her and Glenn weeks to find a compatible evening in their schedules for this third date.
“Also,” Glenn was saying, “because we’d be good together. We’re both smart and we have our lives figured out—which, to be frank, even though we’re both thirty-one, is no longer a given for our generation. We’re both practical and clearheaded. It’s the foundation for long-lasting success.”
Claire sighed. She’d grown up on epic love stories and movies, like the
Outlander books and
Titanic. So Claire wanted fire and passion, a man who stayed with her not because it was sensible, but because he couldn’t imagine a life without her. And Glenn’s speech was nowhere near what she’d once dreamed of as a romantic declaration.
But she wasn’t getting any younger, and he
was the kind of man you wouldn’t be embarrassed to bring home to the family— if Claire’s parents were still alive or she had any siblings, which she didn’t.
Yet if she and Glenn were this bland at the start, what kind of future would this relationship hold? Besides a high probability of predictable stability?
A taxi pulled up at the curb near them, vomiting out passengers onto the sidewalk. Immediately, two different couples—red-faced from the heat and humidity—lunged toward the open door, fighting to claim the car. Getting a ride on a Saturday night in Manhattan was no small feat.
Glenn stepped away but didn’t do anything to help shield Claire from the melee. Not that she needed a man to save her, but she wouldn’t have minded a little chivalry.
“So, what do you say?” Glenn asked once one of the couples had victoriously crammed themselves into the cab and left the other pair growling and punching at their phones, trying to find an available ride.
“Say to what?” Claire asked, her mind still on the minidrama over the taxi.
“Being exclusive. You and me, together.”
“I think . . . Well, I like you, Glenn.”
He grinned at her with his very straight teeth.
“But the thing is . . .” Claire took a deep breath. “Don’t you think we deserve more? I mean that in the nicest way possible. Maybe you’re right and we would be a good team, but don’t you deserve something more than just a well-functioning team member by your side? Don’t you deserve someone where, when she’s gone, you still think about her all the time? Someone you want to text whenever you have a break in your schedule? And after a long day, you want nothing more than to curl up next to her and hear all about
her day? Because, if we’re being honest, I doubt you feel that way about me. Right? And I . . . I respect you, Glenn, but I don’t feel that spark with you, either.”
Glenn crossed his arms across his polo shirt, which was now sweat-soaked at the pits. He closed his eyes briefly—had she gone too far? But he’d said he appreciated Claire’s clearheadedness, right? Like the attorney she was, she’d laid out a well-thought-out argument for their respective happiness. It just didn’t involve being together.
When he opened his eyes, he nodded calmly, as if he’d just considered a patient’s description of a toothache. “What you described is, indeed, the fantasy. But that’s all it is—a fantasy. And, Claire, come on, you care more about practicality than passion. Look at your life. You’re a lawyer. And you chose to go out with
me, a dentist. We are people of responsibility. A little boring, a little uninspired, perhaps, but steady. Fantasies are for dreamers, not for dentists and lawyers like us.”
For the second time in just minutes, Claire found herself blinking at him. If Glenn had gotten angry or stomped off or something else dramatic, she could have taken it. But instead, he had returned her careful line of reasoning with a rational argument of his own—one that walloped her in the stomach far harder than if he’d told her to f*** off.
“Claire?”
She shook herself out of her thoughts.
“No,” she said.
“I’m sorry. What?”
“No,” Claire said, looking him in the eye. “You’re really nice, Glenn. And maybe you’re right, but I’m not ready to give up yet. I still want—”
“The impossible?”
She bit her lip, then nodded. “Yeah.”
Glenn laughed without humor, but he was too placid a person to be angry. “All right, then. Best of luck to you, Claire. I hope you find the love of your life.”
“You, too, Glenn.”
He nodded once, then headed off toward the subway station.
Claire allowed herself one more long exhale. And then she turned in the other direction and began to walk toward the gallery where her friend Yolanda was waiting for her.
Claire trudged through Greenwich Village, mostly oblivious to the people and storefronts as what Glenn had said about her echoed in her head.
Boring. Uninspired. You care more about practicality than passion. Was it true?
Claire’s life
was remarkably predictable. She woke every morning at 5:30 a.m., went for a run through Central Park, came home and showered, then made the same oatmeal with raisins, walnuts, and cinnamon for breakfast. She left her apartment at 7:25 to catch the train, which got her through the front doors of the law firm at 7:47—enough time to grab a coffee from the break room and read through any emails that had come in overnight before hopping on client calls starting at 8:30. The only thing Claire couldn’t predict was when each workday would end, because sometimes there were calls with clients on the West Coast or even in Asia.
But my reliability is why my clients love me, Claire thought, trying to reassure herself.
Copyright © 2024 by Evelyn Skye. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
