Just Friends With Benefits (5 page)

“Sure I do. Hold on.”

After Eric gave me Hille’s number, he laughed and said, “You think you have enough to talk about with Hille to take you through an entire dinner alone?”

“Of course! Why would you say that?” I wasn’t entirely convinced either but alcohol always helped.

“He’s as buttoned-up as his business shirts, that’s all. But then again, you never shut up so I guess it could work. Just keep the drinks flowing.”

“Are you calling Hille boring, Eric?” I was surprised Eric would say anything bad about a fraternity brother.

“No. He’s definitely not boring. He’s my brother and I love the guy. I just doubt he was watching ‘The Love Boat’ in his formative years, like you.”

Eric had a point. We didn’t have much in common. But there was always baseball and I knew Hille was also a Yankee fan.

“But there’s always baseball!” Eric said.

“You scare me sometimes, Eric.”

“Why’s that?”

“Never mind. I should go.”

“Okay, have fun and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Considering Eric was quite the wild child before meeting Jess, I grinned.

“Which leaves your options wide open,” he said.

Still grinning, I said, “Thanks, Eric. Talk to you soon.”

“See ya.”

Once I crossed ‘Call Eric’ off my ‘To do’ list, I went to the Zagats website to choose a place to eat dinner. I wanted the restaurant to be close to my hotel so Hille wouldn’t simply put me in a cab after dinner. I could spend more time with him if he walked me back to the hotel and I stood a much better chance of getting him inside my room. I didn’t want to waste a free dinner on Applebee’s, but since the firm would review my expense account, couldn’t exactly justify going to Per Se either. After much deliberation, I chose Del Friscos, men loved steak houses.

Pleased with my decision, I started dialing Hille’s number and immediately felt my intestines in my throat and wondered how I was going to disguise my eagerness to hang out with him. I wished I could do a shot first but that would be really desperate, even for me. And, it could get me fired.

After the phone rang three times, his voicemail picked up. I listened to his outgoing message. “You’ve reached Craig. Leave me a message and I’ll call you back.” It was exactly the same as Paul’s except that Paul included ‘maybe’ before ‘I’ll call you back.”

“Hi Craig, it’s Stephanie. It’s Monday afternoon and I’m just calling to let you know I’m actually gonna be in New York this week for a closing. If you’re around, I thought we could get together for dinner on Wednesday— my treat, well, my firm’s treat. If you already have plans, no biggie, but it would be great to see you.” I concluded the message by leaving my phone number at work and my cell. I was pretty certain I sounded very casual and nonchalant about the whole thing.

After I hung up, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I wanted to make an appointment for a mani/pedi and wax but would have felt much better if I knew for certain I’d see Hille. I scheduled the appointments anyway and forced myself to get some work done. I was resigned to having a very low billing day but had to account for at least eight hours of my time and there was no billing number for contemplating outfits, and getting up to date on current events so I could easily converse on Hille’s level. It also occurred to me that it might be a good idea to familiarize myself with the Franklin General deal.

After two hours, I hadn’t heard back from Hille and I picked up the phone to cancel my appointments. But then I placed the phone back on the receiver. I was going to New York, the most amazing city in the world, or at least in the United States. The trip was worth the pain of an eyebrow wax whether or not I got to see Hille, even though the bikini wax was more likely to come in handy if I did. He was probably just really busy at work and hadn’t gotten my message yet. Back in school, Hille always thanked the driver before exiting the cross-town bus, even when he was drunk from free beer at the Towne Tavern’s happy hour. He was raised too well to simply blow off my call.

Finally, as my day wound down and I was getting ready to log off my computer, my phone rang and it was a 201 number. Please be Hille, please be Hille, I said to myself.

“This is Stephanie.”
Please be Hille
.

“Hi, Steph, it’s Hille.”

“Hey there! Did you get my message?” No, a guy who has never called me before just decided to call me out of the blue on the same day I left him a voicemail that I was going to be in his town. Sometimes I was such a dork. But at least I was very much in touch with my dorkiness.

“So, does that work for you?” Hille asked.

I realized I was so busy berating my dorkiness I hadn’t heard a word he’d said. “Um, I’m sorry, Craig. My colleague was talking to me at the same time you were speaking. I missed what you said.”

Hille chuckled and said, “Nice, Steph. I get ignored at work all the time. Didn’t expect it from you.”

“Sorry. So, what’d you say? Will you be around on Wednesday night?” I held my breath.

“Yeah. I don’t have plans so that would be great. What time were you thinking?”

Trying not to let my voice give away my excitement, I evenly responded, “I’m honestly not sure what time I’ll be through but I made, I mean I can make a reservation for eight. I’ll certainly be finished by then and we can always get a pre-dinner drink or three if we’re really early. Have you been to Del Friscos?”

“No, but it’s right near my office and I’ve heard all good things.”

Moving my hands in a horizontal circular motion, I did the Cabbage Patch dance in my chair. “Cool. I’ll make a reservation for two then and I’ll call you on Wednesday afternoon when I know what time I’ll be there.”

“Perfect. Looking forward to seeing you, Steph. Twice in one week. That hasn’t happened since college.”

“I know! Okay, talk to you soon.”

After I hung up, I played his words in my head over and over again,
looking forward to seeing you, Steph.

My mouth watered as I sat in my aisle seat and watched everyone around me munch on snacks they were smart enough to either bring from home or buy at the airport. I forgot that passengers on shuttle flights didn’t get any food, not even those tiny bags of pretzels. So I sipped my tomato juice and looked forward to the room service I would order when I got to the hotel. I had planned to go to bed early so I’d be refreshed for the closing and my night with Hille but I’d never be able to sleep through the sounds of my stomach growling. And it wasn’t as if I thought I’d be able to fall sleep easily anyway. I’d be too busy imagining Hille’s face as he moved in to plant his juicy lips on mine.

I wondered what the others would say if we started dating. Would they be psyched or think it was weird? I didn’t think we were any weirder a couple than Paul and Hope, although I had to admit they were pretty cute together despite the almost ten-year age difference.

I was picturing my family’s Chanukah dinner with Hille as my date when the flight attendant announced we had started our descent. I had only gotten to the portion of the daydream when Sam and I tried to stifle our giggles while lighting the menorah and reading the prayer. I couldn’t decide whether Hille would be bothered by our mockery of the Festival of Lights or if as a goy (my mom’s word), he’d find it as amusing as we did. I knew my mom would be thrilled I finally brought a date to one of the Jewish holidays. She was always on my back, but each time I had contemplated asking someone, we’d broken up by the time the dinner came along.

Since it was too late to nap, I removed my MP3 player from my carry-on bag and shoved the bag underneath the seat in front of me. I returned my seatback to the upright and locked position and, for the last 20 minutes of the flight, closed my eyes and listened to the songs I had downloaded the night before to inspire me to go for it with Hille. I had already listened to Natasha Bedingfield’s “Unwritten
”
and Van Halen’s “Right Now” when we landed. Michelle Branch’s “Breathe” had just started when I walked through the gate into LaGuardia and headed to baggage claim. Carry-on was not an option since my toiletries alone took up an entire bag.

~ * ~

When the fat guy waved me over, I faked a smile, walked to where he was sitting at the head of the large conference table and proceeded to notarize a set of documents for at least the 40
^th
time that day. I had assumed an 8:00 reservation would give me plenty of time to finish the closing, go back to the hotel and take my time getting ready but it was already past 4:30 and Gina, the other paralegal on the deal, had just left to bring more coffee. I started tapping my foot impatiently until I felt the fat man’s eyes on me and silently reminded myself to chill out. I had asked to come to New York to attend the closing and so I had to suck it up. It would all be worth it when Hille and I admitted our feelings and laughed about how much time we’d wasted crushing on each other silently. And besides, the less time I had to get to ready, the less time I had to stress out. It was all good.

I applied my notary stamp and seal to the last document in the large pile, turned to the fat man, who I knew from witnessing his signature was named Neil, and said, “These are all done.”

Neil reached out his hand and said, “Thank you for your help today.”

Hoping he didn’t notice my head jerk back at his expression of gratitude, I smiled, shook his hand and said, “It was my pleasure.” I blushed, feeling guilty for calling him fat, even though it wasn’t out loud.

Adam, the associate on the deal, witnessed the exchange and said, “Stephanie’s from our D.C. office. We were lucky she was available to step in at the last minute when two of our local legal assistants were unavailable.” He grinned at me and said, “Thanks, Stephanie. You were really helpful.”

“I’m glad I could be here,” I said.

“We’re pretty much through here so you can leave if you want. I need to talk to you about something, though. Do you have a minute?” Adam asked.

A minute sounded awesome to me, certainly better than an hour. “Sure,” I said.

Adam, who was only about two inches taller than me but looked just like Casey Affleck, down to the green eyes, brown hair and even the beauty mark under his lip, walked me to the corner. He scratched his head and my eyes automatically darted to his left ring finger. It was bare. Not that it mattered, of course, since I only had eyes for Hille.

“Is something wrong with my hand?”

Feeling the pink rise in my cheeks, I quickly looked away and pretended to scan the room while ordering myself to think fast. When I turned back towards him, I frowned and said, “I think I lost my lucky ring. I didn’t realize it was missing until I looked at your hand.”

Adam/Casey looked at me thoughtfully. Then he pointed to the conference table and said, “Maybe it’s under the table. You were sitting there for a while before.”

I remained silent while I looked in the direction of the conference table and pretended to consider Adam’s suggestion. Then I widened my eyes and, feigning surprise, said, “Actually, I just remembered! I left it at home. I was afraid to bring it to the big bad city.” I exhaled deeply, smiled and said, “Crisis averted!”

I couldn’t believe how quickly I recovered. Much faster than the time I met this cute guy at a bar and asked his sister to set us up. Since it was actually her husband, it didn’t go over too well.

“So, can you make it?”

Staring at Adam blankly, I asked, “Make what?”

Grinning, Adam said, “Carmines. Everyone on the deal is going out to dinner tomorrow night to celebrate. Can you make it?”

“Sounds great. I was planning on coming in tomorrow to do some post closing work so I’m not going back to D.C. until Friday anyway.” If all went well, I’d be hanging out with Hille again tomorrow but I wasn’t going to jinx myself by saying I had other plans.

“Awesome. Well, enjoy the rest of your night. Anything fun planned?”

“Just dinner with my friend, Craig.” Looking at my watch I said, “I should actually get back to the hotel and change. I don’t like to wear panty hose any longer than necessary!” Wondering if that was too much information, I bit my lip and anxiously scanned the room searching for a subject change.