Rachel Burke - Love Bites

It was true. LA didn’t feel like home without Renee. Sure, I had made a few friends at school and at Sphinx, but for the most part, Renee and I did everything together. When she left, it didn’t feel the same. And besides that, the girl was an absolute saint. How she could forgive me after what happened with David was beyond me. But regardless, she was my best friend, and she was here. Therefore I would brave the coldest of winters to be with her, because I loved her.

Truthfully, though, everything worked out for the best. Renee was now six months pregnant, engaged, and happier than I’d ever seen her. Dylan and Renee were perfect for each other. David and Renee… weren’t. My aching heart wanted to say that he was perfect for me, but my head knew that wasn’t true either.

#2 – David does not live here. Therefore, I do not have to worry about seeing him everywhere I go.

I swear, people in love need a live-in therapist. It’s all we think about. It’s all we talk about. After David broke up with me, I couldn’t go anywhere. Everything reminded me of him. Our favorite restaurant, our local bar, the supermarket where we shopped. I couldn’t go any of those places. It was almost as if it would’ve been better if he’d died in some tragic accident or something. At least then I wouldn’t have to worry about bumping into him in line at Von’s.

Here, I was safe. Nothing reminded me of him. He was thousands of miles away. It’s like it was all a dream.

But deep down, I knew that as far away as I was from him, he was still here. He was always here. I couldn’t escape him.

I glanced down at the paper again. I couldn’t think of a number three.

Los Angeles, CA

February 2009

I always know that I’m going to sleep with a guy by the way he looks at me. It’s usually an intense stare, he’s usually Italian, and I usually end up regretting it. That’s just how it goes.

I was less than an hour into our morning meeting at Sphinx when I noticed it. The Stare. I was seated in the conference room with the marketing team for their weekly conference. They met every Monday at 10am to go over marketing strategies for new game releases, and Vincent thought it would be a good idea for me to join the meetings, even though I hadn’t a clue about anything they were discussing. As one of the girls talked about an upcoming convention, I caught eyes with Vincent from across the table. I quickly reverted my gaze back to the girl so he’d think I was paying attention. I wanted to make a good impression. But when I looked back at him a few minutes later, he was still staring at me.

Oh boy.

It’s easy to differentiate a professional stare from a sex stare. A professional stare ensures that the employee is comfortable and attentive on his or her first day of work, but seizes once eye contact is met. A sex stare does not. A sex stare is confident and will maintain eye contact even after the contact is broken, thus intimidating its target and causing he or she to become nervous.

And damn it, it always fucking works.

By the third eye-contact connection, I already knew I was going to sleep with him. The stare wasn’t making me uncomfortable. Instead, a familiar nervous-yet-exciting stomachache appeared. I looked down at my outfit, trying to see myself as he did. I was wearing a black fitted sweater, my favorite pair of Bebe jeans, and black stilettos. Undoubtedly the most feminine outfit in our entire mini-gaming world. I twirled my long brown locks between my fingers. I felt his dark, Italian eyes on me. I liked it.

My eyes drifted to his left hand. No wedding band. Check. Rolex watch. Silver cufflinks. Double check. Navy collared shirt, tanned skin, slightly gelled hair. Very put-together. I pictured him in an expensive sports car. A Porsche, maybe. Black. I pictured myself in the passenger seat. I wondered if he had a girlfriend.

It suddenly occurred to me that maybe I had been looking in the wrong places. I mean, didn’t a lot of couples meet at work? It was pretty obvious by now that I wasn’t going to find Mr. Maturity at UCLA, nor was I going to find Mr. Monogamous on the Sunset Strip. Vincent was older, good-looking, and, judging from his appearance and title, did well for himself financially. He was a catch. And based on my appearance, age, and the burning stare from across the conference table, it appeared that the feeling was mutual.

My first few weeks at Sphinx were a joke. I made zero professional contribution whatsoever. Instead, my days went something like this:

10am: Get coffee and bagels for Vincent.

11am: Have coffee and bagels with Vincent in his office. Pretend to talk about work. Talk about anything but work.

12pm: Have lunch with Vincent.

1pm: Pretend I am checking my professional emails. I am an intern. I do not have professional emails.

2pm: Pretend to pay attention to Vincent’s social media tutorial when what I am really paying attention to is how close he is standing to me.

3pm: Attend “off-site meeting” (happy-hour drinks) with Vincent and “vendors.” Pretend to know what “vendors” are.

Repeat.

Surprisingly, Vincent waited an entire month before asking me out. By then, I was practically panting for it. He, of course, pretended the invitation was to “celebrate” all the hard work I had accomplished during my first month. I knew better. Not only because he stared at me like I was a Krispy Kreme, but because I hadn’t accomplished jack shit in the past four weeks.

The bad news was that he was going to be working from Sphinx’s London office for the next month, so our date was postponed until his return. The good news was that we had already covered everything that you cover on a first date, so I figured I was good to skip the three-date rule and prematurely put out. I knew everything about him that I needed to know. He had grown up in Milano and moved to the United States when he was eleven. He lived in Beverly Hills. He had a ten-year-old son, whom he mentioned having on the weekends, thus the reason he didn’t go out much. Ah, a divorced dad. I wondered if my parents would disapprove.

I couldn’t wait to tell Renee about my upcoming date. I had been gushing about Vincent since my first day at Sphinx, and I could tell she was relieved that I finally had a love interest, too. Her daily David Whitman anecdotes had grown more than tiresome and I hadn’t even met the guy yet. They were still in the newlywed stage, where they mainly just had sex at his place. David lived alone. I understood.

I was bent over the kitchen stove making a grilled cheese when I heard the sound of our front door open.

“He asked me out!” I yelled to Renee, flipping my sandwich onto a plate. I barreled into the living room, but stopped dead in my tracks when I realized she wasn’t alone.

“J,” Renee said cautiously, as if she felt bad catching me off guard. “This,” she gestured behind her, “is David.”

Wow. I was not expecting that. Naturally, I wasn’t expecting David to be standing in my living room, but I also wasn’t expecting to feel the sinking in the pit of my stomach when I met him. Never in my life had I met someone and felt so instantly drawn to them. And he hadn’t even said anything yet. He just grinned at me like we were having a private joke. The only two people in the room. In the universe.

“He asked you out, huh?” David joked. There it was again, that mischievous, one-dimpled grin. His eyes went slightly wild when he smiled, like he was scared, surprised, and amused all at the same time. I couldn’t help but smile back.