good-looking Brooklynites enjoying a Saturday night. I got more than a few looks from women, which was nice, though I wasn’t interested. I’d had a couple of steady girlfriends in my life and almost no one-night stands. They weren’t my thing. It wasn’t something I admitted to any of the guys I knew, because with other guys you’re always supposed to pretend to be a horndog looking to score, but I was a single-woman kind of guy. A serial dater, you could call me. I didn’t want a stranger. I wanted someone I knew, someone I could talk to, someone I was comfortable with. Though my last relationship had ended a year and a half ago, and I hadn’t had anyone since.
I still didn’t want any of the women here, though, as attractive as a lot of them were. I wanted Mina.
I caught a glimpse of Eric at the back, sitting at a table. He saw me and waved me over. A palm tree blocked my view of whoever he was sitting with, so I patiently made my way through the crowd toward him.
My view shifted and I could see a woman—pretty, with long black hair—sitting next to Eric. Had he brought a date? He wasn’t dating anyone that I knew of. I got closer, and my view shifted again. Sitting next to the dark-haired woman was another woman, her blonde hair tied up in a ponytail. The three of them were the only ones sitting at the table.
My stomach sank. Fuck. Eric had roped me into some kind of double date without telling me. The bastard.
I was absolutely in no mood for a date, so I paused, deciding to turn around and leave. After all, he’d lied to me and told me this was a guys’ night; I didn’t care if Eric thought I was rude. But as I started to turn on my heel, the two women noticed me and waved shyly.
Great. Now, if I turned and left, they’d all watch me go. I paused, then made my way toward the table again. I’d have one drink, then make up an excuse and leave. And later, I’d kick Eric’s ass.
“Hey, man,” Eric said as I approached. He got up and pumped my hand, slapped my shoulder as if we hadn’t seen each other in years, instead of being guys who lived and worked together. “Glad you came. This is Rachel.”
The woman with black hair smiled at me, and as I shook her hand, Eric beamed. I gave him a glare from the corner of my eye. His answering look said: I know you’re mad, but please don’t fuck this up for me. I wondered what was going on.
“Hi,” I said to Rachel.
“Hi,” she said.
“I met Rachel at that wedding I went to a few weeks ago,” Eric said, talking into the silence. “Remember? Anyway, she finally agreed to go out with me, but she would only come if she could bring her cousin.”
I leveled my gaze at him, watching him sweat a little. “Okay,” I said.
“So here we are, and Rachel brought her cousin, and it seemed kind of weird just having three of us, and I invited you,” Eric said in a breath. He was nervous, I realized. The lie about guys’ night, the fact that Grim wasn’t invited—it was all because Eric had planned this evening. It was important to him because he really wanted this date with Rachel, and because this was the only way she’d agreed to go on a date with him. He’d gone to some pretty big lengths. He must really like her.
“I see,” I said, still noncommittal.
“Anyway, now there are four of us,” Eric said. “Wait, what am I doing? I didn’t introduce you to Rachel’s cousin.” We all turned and looked at the blonde, who had risen from her chair. She was decent-looking, I supposed, though she was thin in a way that was meticulously maintained, and her fussy blouse and dress pants made her look a little fastidious. Still, she took one look at me and her chilly demeanor melted. She gave me a smile and held out her hand.
“It’s so nice to meet you,” she said. “My name is Helen.”
I had planned to stay for one drink, but they pressured me into staying for a second one. Eric and Rachel talked quietly while Helen peppered me with questions, leaning across the table. Where was I from? How long had I been in New York? Did I like being