waved it away. “His fiancée didn’t want kids. Look, he’s nice...maybe a little weird...good-looking, the way you like ’em.”
Whatever that meant. Winnie had agreed in the moment because she hadn’t had a date in six months and was starting to feel dried out. Amber set up the date via text while sitting sideways on a lawn chair, blowing smoke away from Winnie this time. The guy had agreed right away; Winnie guessed he felt dried up, too. Dinner would be at a restaurant downtown, Winnie was to meet him there, and if things went well, they could grab a drink at Von’s after. But when the day rolled around, she hadn’t wanted to go. Her friends were going to Marymoore Park for a concert and someone had backed out, leaving a spare ticket. She was about to text her date and cancel, but he texted her first.
I’ve stalked you on social media and still can’t decide if a distressed leather jacket or a suit jacket would impress you more.
Winnie, who had been lying on her back in bed, sat up suddenly, having a strong opinion on the matter. Winnie was very protective of animals; she had a theory that one day they’d get angry enough to take the world back from people. The ones who would be spared were definitely the vegetarians, more props to the vegans. She did not eat, wear, or put animals in cages for this reason.
Faux leather or real? She’d texted back. She’d been wearing a Nirvana hoodie with a yellow smiling face and she wound the string around her finger as she waited for his answer.
I’m about as faux as they get, he replied. She’d liked his dry humor and she liked that he’d admitted to looking at her social media; she’d tried to do the same but his was set to private and the only photo visible was of a group of five men. Winnie had no idea which one he was.
She texted her friends to let them know she wouldn’t be coming, after all, and got ready for dinner instead.
Nigel, as it turned out, was the opposite of what Winnie pictured. He was small, though well put together—symmetrical, like a gymnast, with thick black hair swept stylishly away from his face. When he greeted Winnie in the lobby of the restaurant, wearing dark denim and a white T-shirt, she’d immediately felt disappointed. She imagined he’d be more dapper, but there he was—his face unremarkable, his eyes the most boring brown. Winnie was in the process of fixing him—adding a beard, dressing him in colors more suited to his skin tone—when she lost track of her thoughts. Nigel was smiling. The transformation was so stunning that she’d suddenly felt shy. And he wasn’t wearing just any jeans, she saw now, they were designer. She reached up to secure her hair at the nape of her neck and then ran her hand down the length of it until it sprang free of her fist. Nigel’s eyes watched all of this like someone observing a dancing poodle, good-natured amusement on his face.
“Faux nervousness or real?” His sensual mouth curved around the question, pulling into a lazy smile.
Winnie had butterflies. She wasn’t even embarrassed that he’d picked up on it; it made him seem older, sexy.
“Ask me again after we’ve had a drink,” she’d said decidedly.
By the time dinner came, Winnie was on her third cocktail and she was more focused on Nigel’s hand slowly climbing up her knee than she was on his boring face. She didn’t think he was boring anymore. In fact, she’d never felt more electric. They had sexual chemistry, but it wasn’t just that. Where Nigel seemed subpar in the looks department, until he smiled, he was extraordinary in every other department. He never moved his eyes from her face, not the entire night; not even when their server in her slinky dress tried to make eye contact with him. They would often drift down to her lips while she was talking, which made Winnie squirm in her seat. And he asked her intelligent questions; questions that were so intense Winnie felt both sad and relieved to be talking about it at the same time: “How did your father’s death affect the way you viewed your mother?”
Before Nigel, Winnie had only dated athletes, and a variety of them, too. There had been a rugby player, a tennis player, a quarterback, and a professional fisherman. Winnie had often wondered why she was attracted