Love at 11 (6 page)

And so I spilled the whole sordid tale to a guy I barely knew. To his credit, Jamie listened to the whole 411 on my family situation without interrupting once.

“Wow,” he said as I finished the tale. “You’ve had a tough day, huh?” He reached over and squeezed my hand. In any other circumstance, the move might have seemed a bold come-on. But at that moment, it was simply a gesture of comfort. One I definitely appreciated.

“Yup. You could say that.”

Before he could respond, the waiter appeared to take his drink order.

“Do you have Mojitos?” he asked, picking up a drinks menu and paging through it.

The waiter looked at him as if he were from Mars. “Mo-what?”

“Guess not, huh?” Jamie said. “How about a Seven and soda? And get the lady another one of those pink drinks.”

“Thanks.” I smiled as the waiter left, sucking down my beverage so I’d be ready for round two. “What’s a Mojito?”

“It’s this Cuban drink. Rum and mint. I got addicted to them when I spent three months working on a documentary in Miami last year. Most bars in So-Cal have yet to catch on.” He grinned. “But hey, here we can choose from twenty varieties of Margaritas so I guess we should count our blessings.”

I laughed. The tequila snobbery in San Diego had always amused me. Napa had wine tasting; we had tequila. Some bottles cost over a hundred dollars. There was this one bar down the street that boasted a tequila club. If you could drink shots of their fifty different brands, (not all in the same sitting, mind you!) they’d buy you a plane ticket to Cabo San Lucas.

“I’d like to try a Mojito,” I said. “So if you find a San Diego bar that serves them, let me know.”

“You know, they were one of Hemingway’s drinks of choice,” Jamie informed me.

I was impressed. “Really? Now I definitely want to try them. Hemingway was kick-ass. I loved his books.”

“Me, too. Especially the
Sun Also Rises
.”

“Ooh, yes.” I nodded enthusiastically. “That’s my fave, too. I used to imagine how cool it’d be to be a writer like Jake in gay Paris, loafing around all day and hitting the bars all night. The unrequited love with him and Brett. It’s so romantic. Tragic and romantic.”

“It’s definitely given me inspiration.”

I cocked my head in curiosity. “Are you a writer or something?”

“Aspiring. Well, I did publish one small-press book. A sci-fi action-adventure. Not exactly Hemingway,” he clarified, his cheeks coloring a bit.

“Really?” I’d never met a real author before. “Can I read it?”

His blush deepened. “I guess. If you really wanted to. And you’re not just being polite.”

“No way.” I shook my head. “I’m never polite. Bring it in tomorrow.”

“It’s a deal.”

The waiter returned with our drinks. I was having so much fun talking to Jamie, I suddenly realized I hadn’t thought about my tragic life in ten minutes. Amazing. The alcohol helped, too, warming my insides and making my troubles seem inconsequential.

“Where’s your fiancée?” I asked, remembering for a moment that the attractive man charming me from across the table belonged to someone else. Not that it mattered. We weren’t on a date. We weren’t even flirting.

“In LA,” Jamie told me between sips. “She has about a month left at her job before she moves down here.”

“Ah, I see. So you’re down here all by your lonesome,” I couldn’t help but coo in mock sympathy.

“Not really. You’re here, aren’t you?” The corners of his mouth quirked up in a grin.

Now it was my turn to feel my face heat with embarrassed pleasure. Oh, how I wished he wasn’t half of a committed couple. How serious was the engagement anyway? The woman didn’t even move down with her man? She left him alone in a strange city? Didn’t seem very loving to me! Maybe he was looking for a way out of the relationship. That was why he moved down to San Diego. Hey, you never knew.

Before I could ask him more about this fiancée character, a scantily dressed waitress approached our table. She held out a tray full of florescent-colored shot glasses.

“Care for a shot?” she asked. “We have Scooby Snacks, Ding Dong Dogs, and Oatmeal Biscuits.”

I had no idea what any of those were, but they looked delicious. And this
was
supposed to be my night for getting trashed. I raised my eyebrows at Jamie, wondering what he thought of the idea.

“We’ll take two Scooby Snacks,” Jamie said, answering my question by handing the woman a twenty and a five. “Actually make that four.”

The woman placed four shots on our table and headed for her next round of victims.

“What do you think they are?” I asked.

“Only one way to find out!” He took a shot in his hand. I grabbed another. “To new beginnings,” he toasted.

“New beginnings!” I chorused before I downed the shot. It was delicious. Tasted like whipped cream and pineapple. I grabbed the other one and proceeded to suck that down as well.

“Hey, wait for me!” Jamie cried, grabbing his other shot. “I’m not having a pretty girl drink me under the table!”

I beamed, licking the whipped cream off my lips. He thought I was pretty. This sexy, cool, motorcycle-riding, ex-film photographer thought I was pretty.

We talked. We laughed. We drank a few more rounds. And by the time midnight rolled around and the DJ came on to start spinning some tunes, I was feeling pretty darn good.

“I love this song!” I cried, as The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven” started playing. “I’m a total sucker for eighties new wave.”

“Yeah. Me, too. Especially the British stuff.”

“Really?” He was too good to be true. Way, way too good to be true. He was so cool and nice and he liked ‘80s Brit Pop? I sucked down the rest of my fourth (or was it my fifth?) K9 Kosmo. “We should go dancing.”

“You think?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye. “Definitely. And there’s a club right down the street.” Suddenly I had a bundle of energy. “It’s way cheesy, but they do play eighties.”

“Cool. Sounds like a plan.”

We finished our drinks and left the bar. While trying to coordinate my feet for the walking thing one had to do when one bar-hopped, I realized I was drunker than I’d thought. Jamie propped me up a bit to make sure we traveled in a straight line. We laughed and giggled the whole way down the street.

When we got to the club, I tripped. Damn platform shoes. The bouncer took my lack of coordination as alcohol related and told Jamie I was too drunk to enter.

“But I want to hear eighties music!” I protested as Jamie led me away. I liked the feeling of his strong arms possessively wrapped around my waist. If he were my boyfriend I’d want him to always walk with me this way.

“We can come back another time,” he comforted. “Unless you know another club around here.”

“I know! I have eighties music at home. It’s only a block away. We could have a dance party in my living room.”

“Hmm, I don’t know,” Jamie said with a teasing look. “Do you have Depeche Mode?”

“I do!” I cried triumphantly. “I have lots of Depeche Mode. Even some of the early bootleg singles.”

“Then lead the way.”

*

Argh, my head.

My head really, really hurt. And I was dying of thirst.

I pulled the blankets over my head to block the rays of strong San Diego sun from blasting my sensitive morning eyes. What time was it? Why was I naked?

Uh-oh.

A flashback of memory—a snapshot of my body on autopilot—hit me like a rock dropped from ten stories up.

The last thing I remembered clearly was leaving Moondoggies. With Jamie. Getting refused at the next club. With Jamie. Going back to my apartment.

With Jamie.

The rest was blurry. But what I did remember was truly horrifying. Blasting ‘80s music from my stereo. Mixing up margaritas (like I needed more alcohol!) in my blender. Jumping on my bed, singing and dancing like a retard to Simple Minds.

Making out with Jamie like there was no tomorrow.

I slowly rolled over to face the other side of the bed. To confirm my worst fear. Was there another body in my bed?

There was.

Not just any body, either. But a sexy, rumpled, naked, sound asleep, Jamie body in my bed.

Again. Uh-oh.

I groaned. How could I have been such an idiot? Gotten so drunk I didn’t even remember having sex with the guy? That was so bad. So alcoholically bad. On about a million and three levels:

a) Having sex and not remembering it.

b) Having sex and not remembering it with a guy I barely knew.

c) Having sex and not remembering it with a guy I barely knew who happened to have a fiancée he was going to marry in three months.

d) Having sex and not remembering it with a guy I barely knew who happened to have a fiancée he was going to marry in three months and that I had to work with day in and day out for the foreseeable future.

Now what should I do? Did I snuggle up next to him and pretend I had planned the seduction? Get the hell out of bed and pretend I’d slept on the couch, hoping he didn’t remember, either? Make breakfast? Leave the country and open up shop as a WWJD bracelet maker in Tijuana?

Hmm. Speaking of, what
would
Jesus do in a case like this? No, bad question. He wouldn’t have gotten himself in this mess to begin with.

I noticed with some relief a ripped open condom package on my nightstand. One of the ones Jodi had stuffed in a drawer one time “just in case.” Thank god, even in my drunken blackout I’d still had the wherewithal to be safe.

I tried to crawl out of bed, but at that moment the sleeping Jamie rolled over, tossing a heavy arm over my body and pulling me closer so I was spooned against him. I was stuck. Extremely comfortable, but stuck.

I felt his hot breath warm my skin and tried to think back to the night before. Damn it, why couldn’t I remember the hot sex I’m sure we must have had? I bet it was incredible. He was incredible. Not that I should be thinking about that. After all, he was taken. And not just kind-of taken, but wedding-invitations-and-white-dress taken.

Oh my god, I was the other woman.

How ironic that I’d been out mourning the fact that my father had cheated on my mother and had inadvertently helped some other guy cheat on his fiancée. And not just any other guy, but my new coworker! How was I supposed to work with him now? Would I have to go into Richard’s office and beg for a new photographer to combat the awkward morning-after syndrome?

Jamie grunted contentedly and snuggled in a bit closer. Was he conscious? Could he possibly know whom he was holding in his arms? Maybe he had been completely aware of his actions this whole time. Had he been as drunk as I? I couldn’t remember. Was he a good guy who made a mistake or a jerk who liked to cheat on his fiancée by taking stupid, drunk girls home and screwing them?

I suddenly felt disgustingly dirty. Why had I been so easy? Slut girl: give her a drink and watch her spread her legs. Except, that wasn’t me at all. Hell, I could count the guys I’d slept with on one hand and still have a thumb left over. What in the world had possessed me to drunkenly hook up with a guy I barely knew who was getting married in a few months?

I thought of Jen, sound asleep in LA, trusting that her fiancé was alone in his bed too and not curled up, buck naked, in another woman’s arms. She trusted him, and I’d helped him betray that trust. My stomach rolled, and not just from the hangover. I needed to get up. Now.

I squirmed out from under Jamie and vacated the bed. Scanning the room, I found a pair of boxer shorts and an old t-shirt strewn on the floor. After donning the ensemble, I walked to the bathroom.

Staring in the mirror wasn’t pretty. I looked like hell on toast. Black circles under my puffy eyes. Makeup smeared. Bleh.

I brushed my teeth and washed my face and then hit the kitchen to make eggs. What the hell, right? Even the “other woman” needed to eat a balanced Atkins breakfast, and maybe it would get my mind off things at the very least. I tried to swallow down the guilt, but it determinedly rose like bile to my throat. The smell of the scrambled eggs only served to nauseate me further. “Maddy?” a sleepy voice behind me said a few minutes later. I whirled around. Jamie stood in the doorway, deliciously rumpled. He’d donned his blue jeans but no shirt. I scolded my eyes for straying a second too long on his perfectly sculpted chest. After all, I’d already done more than my share of sampling the forbidden goods already. Time to get my mind out of the gutter and behave like a responsible human being. I realized my heart was pounding in my chest as I waited for what he’d say next. Then I remembered my manners.

“Do you want some eggs?”

“Maddy, I’ve got to ask you …” He raked a hand through his mussed hair in a way that made me pretty sure his question wasn’t whether the eggs came from cage-free chickens.

“Yes?” Cool, calm, collected. Whatever he wanted to ask me, I’d be okay with it.

“I had a lot to drink last night and I wasn’t sure … Well I woke up and …” He looked around the apartment. “Are we at your place?”

“Yeah,” I said quietly. He didn’t even remember agreeing to come here. Guess that answered my question about his level of sobriety.

“Oh. Right. And I woke up in …” He pointed vaguely toward the bedroom. “… and I didn’t know …”

“You want to know if we had sex.” I spelled it out, shocked at how clear and cold my voice sounded.

“Y-yeah.” His face reddened at my bluntness. He hadn’t been so shy last night.

“I don’t know, Jamie. I don’t remember either. But I woke up in my bed naked. And you were naked next to me. So I’d say chances are pretty darn good.” I realized I sounded angry. Hurt.
Don’t let him see that you care.

“Oh God,” he cried, sinking down onto the sofa, head in his hands. “Oh God.”

I stared down at him, not sure what to do or say. This was so outside of my expertise it wasn’t even funny. I’d never had a one-night stand before. And I certainly had never hooked up with someone who had a fiancée. What would Miss Manners suggest in a case like this?

“Don’t worry,” I said harshly. “It’s no big deal. Just forget it ever happened.” I actually had reservations about letting the jerk off the hook like that, but it took two to tango and so really, I was as guilty as he was, right? Best to just move on and forget it ever happened.