Slightly Settled (17 page)

“We won’t have to wonder either?”

“Exactly,” he says, squeezing my hand.

Yeah. And what if we kiss and one of us feels something and the other one feels nothing? What if the one who feels something is me and the one who feels nothing is Buckley?

Then I’ll have been rejected by two guys in the space of a single weekend, which has to be some kind of world record. Three guys, if you count Will and expand the time frame.

Then again, Jack hasn’t officially rejected me…yet.

And what if Buckley is the one who feels something and I’m the one who feels nothing?

“I’m going to do it now,” Buckley says, jarring me out of what-iffy-ness.

“Okay. Go ahead….” I close my eyes.

Nothing.

I wet my lips nervously.

Still nothing.

I open my eyes.

Buckley’s face is, like, two inches away.

“I can’t do it,” he says. “I want to, but I don’t want to ruin—”

Take-Charge Tracey cuts him off by grabbing his head, pulling him closer and kissing him. Brazen, I know. But I can’t help it. I wouldn’t be able to stand it if we got this far and I didn’t find out….

That kissing Buckley six months later isn’t like kissing a friend at all.

That I’m attracted to him.

That my heart is pounding and it isn’t impossible to imagine taking things further than this.

When we pull apart, my eyes snap open and I have a moment of dread. What if Buckley is wearing a distasteful ex
pression and it’s clear that he wasn’t as into the kiss as he seemed?

Enough with the what-ifs, already. Sheesh.

His expression isn’t distasteful. But it is uncharacteristically anxious.

“Was that okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I tell him, smiling. “Very okay.”

He looks relieved. “I thought so, too. I’m glad you did it. I thought it might ruin our friendship.”

“It didn’t,” I say. “Right?”

“Right,” he agrees with a grin.

I find myself looking for his dimples before I remember that he’s not Jack.

We sit there on the edge of the pool table, side by side, swinging our legs.

“Want to play another game of pool?” he asks.

“Maybe. Do you?”

“Maybe. Do you want another beer?”

“Maybe in a minute.”

“Okay.”

We sit there in companionable silence.

Then Buckley asks, “So now what?”

“Hmm?”

“What happens next?”

“I don’t know,” I say, not sure if he’s referring to the next five minutes or the grand scheme of our relationship.

“Maybe we should try a real date,” Buckley suggests.

Grand scheme of relationship, I conclude.

“A real date would be fine,” I tell him.

“Great. What should we do?”

“We could go see
A Chorus Line
.”

“I really think that closed a few years ago, Trace.”

“Then we could go see the Radio City Christmas Spectacular,” I tell him, remembering. “I’ve got two tickets to see it on Friday night.”

Technically, I already asked Jack, but there’s no way he’s going to go after what happened Saturday morning. I’m sure he’ll say he’ll be stuck in Atlanta Friday night. Or maybe even all weekend, just to be sure I won’t try and corner him into another date.

“That would be fun,” Buckley says. “I haven’t seen it since I was a kid.”

“I’ve never seen it.”

We smile at each other.

Look, I want to see the Radio City show with Buckley. Really, I do.

It’s just…

I still feel a little pang of regret at the thought of Jack.

Okay, a huge pang that’s more of a stabbing
pain,
really, when I think about how I’ll never know what the surprise was, and, even worse, how we’ll never have a chance to see where things might have gone with us just because I made one stupid, stupid mistake.

I mean, kissing Buckley was great.

But kissing Jack was great, too.

With Jack, there was more…

Mystery.

Less…

History.

Not in a bad way. It’s just…different.

Buckley and I have already been through so much together. We know each other’s favorite foods and favorite au
thors, biggest fears and worst pet peeves, our quirks and faults and goals. In fact, sometimes it seems that the only thing I don’t know about Buckley is what he’s like in bed.

Not that I haven’t imagined it.

And not that I don’t want to find out….

At least, I might want to.

But not yet. Certainly not tonight. And with my track record…

“I think we should both go home,” I tell Buckley.

His grin fades. “Oh.”

“Not because you kissed me, or anything—”

“Um, Trace?
You
kissed
me.
”

“Oh, right. Whatever. The kiss isn’t why. It’s just…I’m tired and it’s late and we both have to work tomorrow morning. And if we stay here for another game of pool and another beer—”

“And another kiss—”

“Exactly—who knows what will happen? It might be something we’ll both regret in the morning.”

“And it might not be.”

“Right. But, Buckley, I’m just too exhausted to find out tonight. Okay?”

“Sure. It’s fine.”

“Really?”

“Really. No big deal.”

I can tell he means it.

There’s something really nice about being with somebody you know so well.

Outside, we walk two blocks over to Broadway. My feet are killing me in these shoes. I’d give anything for Band-Aids for my heels.

Band-Aids make me think of Jack. He wanted to give me a Band-Aid for my sore knee after I fell the other morning in his hallway.

You know, it’s definitely better if Jack and I stop seeing each other, if only because that way, I won’t have to worry about glimpsing Mike in his underpants again. Maybe, in time, I’ll even get the hideous image out of my head.

“Are you okay, Tracey?” Buckley asks.

“I’m fine,” I say quickly. “I’m really glad about the kiss. Really.”

“I didn’t mean that. I mean…you’re limping.”

Oops. “I’m fine,” I say again. “My shoes just hurt.”

He puts his arm around my shoulders. Which doesn’t help me walk at all, and doesn’t lessen the pain or anything, but still, it’s a sweet gesture.

The sidewalk and street are shiny from the rain, but it’s stopped at last. The temperature feels a little warmer than it was earlier, and mist hangs heavy in the glow of passing headlights and the streetlights across the way in Madison Square Park.

There are twinkly white Christmas lights and poinsettias in store windows.

Oh, yeah. It’s Christmastime.

Again, I think of Jack. I think of kissing him by the Rockefeller Center tree in the falling snow.

Buckley hails a cab for me and opens the door for me to get in. He’s always been a gentleman, but now it strikes me as a romantic gesture, like the arm around my shoulder and the hand-holding in the bar.

He would be an attentive boyfriend.

“Night, Trace,” he says, and bends to kiss me on the forehead before closing the door.

I smile and wave.

Then the cab lurches and I’m careening down the avenue toward home.

I reach for the seat belt. The buckle feels sticky.

Why is everything in New York so filthy? I fasten it anyway and wipe my hand on my jeans.

By the time I turn to take one last look at Buckley through the rear window, I can’t spot him anywhere.

Oh, well.

I settle back against the seat and smile contentedly.

Buckley kissed me at last.

Wow.

Okay,
I
kissed
him
.

Still wow.

And I get the feeling that if I’d wanted it to happen again, it could have.

And it still can, considering that we have a date—a real date—on Friday.

Talk about complicated.

And exhausting.

I lean my head back against the seat, too weary to stress about the many grimy heads that may have touched it before mine.

I close my eyes and remember how Buckley’s lips felt against mine.

Then I stifle a huge yawn and rub my aching neck muscles, longing to crawl into bed.

Five more minutes, and I’ll be there. Alone—and grateful for that, for a change.

I’ve spent the last six months nursing a secret crush on Buckley, wondering what it would be like if he were my boyfriend.

Now that it’s not such a far-fetched possibility, I’m starting to think it’s not such a good idea to rush into things.

After all, Buckley has been there for me since June.

He’s not going anywhere, and neither am I.

Except home for Christmas, which just might give me the rest—if not the perspective—that I need.

Jack called.

Oh my God.

He left me a message.

Oh my
God!

“Hi, Tracey. It’s me, Jack. I hope you’re feeling better. Give me a call if you feel like it. I’m home. It’s Sunday. Maybe you’re out, or just…sick? I hope you’re not still sick. Feel better. Okay, ’bye.”

Standing there, staring at the answering machine as the tape whirs and rewinds, automatically erasing, I am stunned.

He sounded so…
normal
. Sincere.

Not at all like somebody skittishly trying to avoid a desperate woman who apparently considers him her boyfriend.

Is it possible that I didn’t screw things up with him after all?

Is it possible that we’re still…seeing each other?

But what about Buckley?

Talk about lousy timing. Why did he have to choose tonight to kiss me?

Um, hello? You kissed him, remember?

Shut up with that already,
I scold my inner self. Buckley was
the one who brought it up. And he was
about
to do it. I just took the bull by the…

What is it that you take the bull by?

The balls?

Or is it the horns?

Do bulls even have horns?

They definitely have balls.

So, apparently, do I. I mean, I grabbed Buckley and kissed him. So it’s as much my fault as it is his.

Thanks to me and my balls, Buckley and I have a date Friday night to see the Rockettes.

But what if Jack wasn’t traumatized from seeing that picture of himself in my apartment?

What if he’ll be back from Atlanta on time and he wants to see the Rockettes, too?

Too bad there isn’t a way to go with both of them.

If I were a zany sitcom heroine, I’d buy another set of tickets and I’d take both Jack and Buckley to the show. But I wouldn’t tell them, because zany sitcom heroines are big on secret capers.

I’d meet both guys there and I’d spend the night running back and forth between the two of them, pretending to be going to the ladies’ room and back to the usher for another program and outside for a cigarette….

For a moment, I wonder if it could actually work.

Then I remind myself that I am
not
a zany sitcom heroine.

I am a real-life chick with a knack for sabotaging her own love life.

Why did I have to ask Buckley to the show?

Why did I have to ask Jack?

It’s all my Secret Snowflake’s fault for giving me the tickets in the first place, I think grimly. My Secret Snowflake’s fault, and of course Will’s fault, because everything wrong in my life is Will’s fault.

I look again at the phone.

Should I call Jack back?

Probably.

But I don’t.

I’m too tired to think clearly, let alone carry on a rational conversation.

I crawl into bed.

My last thought, as I drift into a deep sleep, is that I’ll probably dream about Jack. Or Buckley. Or maybe Jack and Buckley in a
ménage à trois
.

But I don’t.

I dream that I’m starring in an all-nude version of
A Chorus Line
on Broadway. The drunks from the bar are playing the other dancers, and Will is playing one, too. It’s opening night and the audience is packed and I’m all pumped up to go on.

Only, when I make my entrance—you guessed it.