But I can’t do that because I’m already soaked in shame that I slept with him.
Not because the sex was bad—it was, um, fantastic—it just feels like he wants this a little more than I do.
He always has.
“If you really believe I’m so wrong,” he says in a lawyerly voice, “and true love is not real, and soul mates are Hollywood bullshit, then prove it.”
He’s sitting at full attention, knocking his knife against the table like this is very serious business rather than awkward posthookup conversation between two people who are never going to speak to each other again.
“Prove it how?”
“Let’s make a bet. See who knows more about relationships: the romance writer or the divorce attorney.”
“And how would we do that?”
“With evidence. Five couples, five years. We both predict who will stay together and who will break up. We’ll meet again at our twenty-year reunionand see who was the most accurate. If it’s you, I’ll admit true love is a fantasy. If I win, you admit soul mates exist.”
“You’re just trying to get me to come to the next reunion.”
He considers this.
“Well, I did enjoy fucking you.”
Dear God.
“What?” he asks, watching me squirm. “You didn’t like the sex?”
“I did,” I concede weakly. “So much that it’s annoying.You’reannoying. Were you this annoying in high school?”
“Yes!” He grins at me. “C’mon, Marks. Are you scared you’ll be cowed by my superior insight into relationships?”
I’m not cowed. I just feel discombobulated by the fact that my high school boyfriend is sitting across from me, the image of a successful, fit, confident professional, wearing no shirt (with thick, manly chest hair he did not have the last time I saw him in such a state), talking to me as though we are adults who just had sex. Reallygoodsex.
I don’t know why I’m surprised. We always had chemistry. But there’s the kind of chemistry you have when you’re grinding in someone’s parents’ guesthouse during a rager—the kind of chemistry you have when you’re trying to find furtive places to hook up, and every hour of not feeling each other’s skin is a frantic torture—and then there’s this.
This is… mature. Adult. Playful. Knowing.
It’s like the meet cute in a rom-com.
Except I don’t believe in rom-coms.
I learned at an early age what happens to so-called happy endings.
But I do believe in my ability to read people. When you write the tropes of romance, you can see people replicating them in real life. They can’t help it. They breathe these narratives in with the air.
But people are not characters created in a lab to be perfect for each other.
As someone who studies these things for work, I can look at a couple and see the needs they can never possibly meet in each other. The irreconcilable wounds that will drive them apart.
I can see how it will end.
I’m not saying Ilikeknowing this. I’m just saying if I could write my friends’ relationships for them, I would.
So accept his bet?
No problem.
I could win it in my sleep.
