Emily Giffin - Something borrowed

A moment later Dex slides in across from me, pushing a beer my way. "Newcastle," he says. Then he smiles, crinkly lines appearing around his eyes. "You like?"

I nod and smile.

From the corner of my eye, I see Fallen Angel turn on her bar stool and survey Dex, absorbing his chiseled features, wavy hair, full lips. Darcy complained once that Dex garners more stares and double takes than she does. Yet, unlike his female counterpart, Dex seems not to notice the attention. Fallen Angel now casts her eyes my way, likely wondering what Dex is doing with someone so average. I hope that she thinks we're a couple. Tonight nobody has to know that I am only a member of the wedding party.

Dex and I talk about our jobs and our Hamptons share that begins in another week and a lot of things. But Darcy does not come up and neither does their September wedding.

After we finish our beers we move over to the jukebox, fill it with dollar bills, searching for good songs. I push the code for "Thunder Road" twice because it is my favorite song. I tell him this.

"Yeah. Springsteen's at the top of my list, too. Ever seen him in concert?"

"Yeah," I say. "Twice. Born in the U.S.A. and Tunnel of Love. "

I almost tell him that I went with Darcy in high school, dragged her along even though she much preferred groups like Poison and Bon Jovi. But I don't bring this up. Because then he will remember to go home to her and I don't want to be alone in my dwindling moments of twenty-somethingness. Obviously I'd rather be with a boyfriend, but Dex is better than nothing.

It is last call at 7B. We get a couple more beers and return to our booth. Sometime later we are in a cab again, going north on First Avenue. "Two stops," Dex tells our cabbie, because we live on opposite sides of Central Park. Dex is holding Darcy's Chanel purse, which looks small and out of place in his large hands. I glance at the silver dial of his Rolex, a gift from Darcy. It is just shy of four o'clock.

We sit silently for a stretch of ten or fifteen blocks, both of us looking out of our respective side windows, until the cab hits a pothole and I find myself lurched into the middle of the backseat, my leg grazing his. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, Dex is kissing me. Or maybe I kiss him. Somehow we are kissing. My mind goes blank as I listen to the soft sound of our lips meeting again and again. At some point, Dex taps on the Plexiglas partition and tells the driver, between kisses, that it will just be one stop after all.

We arrive on the corner of Seventy-third and Third, near my apartment. Dex hands the driver a twenty and does not wait for change. We spill out of the taxi, kissing more on the sidewalk and then in front of Jose, my doorman. We kiss the whole way up in the elevator. I am pressed against the elevator wall, my hands on the back of his head. I am surprised by how soft his hair is.

I fumble with my key, turning it the wrong way in the lock as Dex keeps his arms around my waist, his lips on my neck and the side of my face. Finally the door is open, and we are kissing in the middle of my studio, standing upright, leaning on nothing but each other. We stumble over to my made bed, complete with tight hospital corners.

"Are you drunk?" His voice is a whisper in the dark.

"No," I say. Because you always say no when you're drunk. And even though I am, I have a lucid instant where I consider clearly what was missing in my twenties and what I wish to find in my thirties. It strikes me that, in a sense, I can have both on this momentous birthday night. Dex can be my secret, my last chance for a dark twenty-something chapter, and he can also be a prelude of sorts-a promise of someone like him to come. Darcy is in my mind, but she is being pushed to the back, overwhelmed by a force stronger than our friendship and my own conscience. Dex moves over me. My eyes are closed, then open, then closed again.

And then, somehow, I am having sex with my best friend's fiance.

I wake up to my ringing phone, and for a second I am disoriented in my own apartment. Then I hear Darcy's high-pitched voice on my machine, urging me to pick up, pick up, please pick up. My crime snaps into focus. I sit up too quickly, and my apartment spins. Dexter's back is to me, sculpted and sparsely freckled. I jab hard at it with one finger.

He rolls over and looks at me. "Oh, Christ! What time is it?"

My clock radio tells us it is seven-fifteen. I have been thirty for two hours. Correction-one hour; I was born in the central time zone.

Dex gets out of bed quickly, gathering his clothes, which are strewn along either side of my bed. The answering machine beeps twice, cutting Darcy off. She calls back, rambling about how Dex never came home. Again, my machine silences her in midsentence. She calls back a third time, wailing, "Wake up and call me! I need you!"

I start to get out of bed, then realize that I am naked. I sit back down and cover myself with a pillow.

"Omigod. What do we do?" My voice is hoarse and shaking. "Should I answer? Tell her you crashed here?"

"Hell, no! Don't pick up-lemme think for a sec." He sits down, wearing only boxers, and rubs his jaw, now covered by a shadow of whiskers.

Sick, sobering dread washes over me. I start to cry. Which never helps anything.

"Look, Rachel, don't cry," Dex says. "Everything's going to be okay."

He puts on his jeans and then his shirt, efficiently zipping and tucking and buttoning as though it is an ordinary morning. Then he checks the messages on his cell phone. "Shhhit. Twelve missed calls," he says matter-of-factly. Only his eyes show distress.

When he is dressed, he sits back on the edge of the bed and rests his forehead in his hands. I can hear him breathing hard through his nose. Air in and out. In and out. Then he looks over at me, composed. "Okay. Here's what's going to happen. Rachel, look at me."

I obey his instructions, still clutching my pillow.

"This will be fine. Just listen," he says, as though talking to a client in a conference room.

"I'm listening," I say.

"I'm going to tell her I stayed out until five or so and then got breakfast with Marcus. We got it covered."

"What do I tell her?" I ask. Lying has never been my strong suit.

"Just tell her you left the party and went home… Say you can't remember for sure whether I was still there when you left, but you think I was still there with Marcus. And be sure to say you 'think'-don't be too definite. And that's all you know, okay?" He points at my phone. "Call her back now… I'll call Marcus as soon as I leave here. Got it?"

I nod, my eyes filling with tears again as he stands.

"And calm down," he says, not meanly, but firmly. Then he is at the door, one hand on the knob, the other running through his dark hair that is just long enough to be really sexy.

"What if she already talked to Marcus?" I ask, as Dex is halfway out the door. Then, more to myself, "We are so screwed."

He turns around, looks at me through the doorway. For a second, I think he is angry, that he is going to yell at me to pull myself together. That this isn't life-or-death. But his tone is gentle. "Rach, we are not screwed. I got it covered. Just say what I told you to say… And Rachel?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm really sorry."

"Yeah," I say. "Me too."

Are we talking to each other-or to Darcy?

As soon as Dex leaves, I reach for the phone, still feeling dizzy. It takes a few minutes, but I finally work up the nerve to call Darcy.

She is hysterical. "The bastard didn't come home last night! He better be laid up in a hospital bed!… Do you think he cheated on me?"

I start to say no, that he was probably just out with Marcus, but think better of it. Wouldn't that look too obvious? Would I say that if I knew nothing? I can't think. My head and heart are pounding, and the room is still spinning intermittently. "I'm sure he wasn't cheating on you."