Something Borrowed - Emily Giffin [33]
"Well, of course we had to get ready!" Darcy says, looking down to admire her outfit.
Hillary insists that we need a kick start to our evening and orders a round of shots. She hands them out as we stand in a tight circle, ready to drink together.
"To the best summer ever!" Darcy says, tossing her long, coconut-scented hair behind her shoulders. She says it at the start of every summer. She always has wildly high expectations that I never share. But maybe this summer she will be right.
We all throw back our shots, which taste like straight vodka. Then Dex buys another round, and when he hands me my beer, his fingers graze mine. I wonder if he does it on purpose.
"Thank you," I say.
"Anytime," he murmurs, holding my gaze as he did in the car.
I count to three silently and then look away.
As the night wears on, I find myself watching Dex and Darcy interact. I am surprised by the territorial pangs I feel as I observe them together. It is not exactly jealousy, but something related to it. I notice little things that didn't use to register. Like once, she slipped her four fingers into the back of his jeans right at the top. And another time, when he was standing behind her, he gathered all of her hair in one hand and sort of held it up in a makeshift ponytail before dropping it back at her shoulders.
Right now, he leans in to say something to her. She nods and smiles. I imagine that his words were "I want you tonight" or something along those lines. I wonder if they have had sex since he and I were together. Surely, yes. And that bothers me in some weird way. Maybe that happens whenever you watch someone on your List with someone else. I tell myself that I have no right to be jealous. That I had no business adding him to my List in the first place.
I try to focus on Marcus. I stand near him, talk to him, laugh at his jokes. When he asks me to dance, I say yes without hesitation. I follow him onto the crowded dance floor. We work up a good sweat, dancing and laughing. I realize that although there is no great chemistry, I am having fun. And who knows? Maybe this will lead to something.
"They're dying to know what happened on our date," Marcus says into my ear.
"Why do you say that?" I ask.
"Darcy inquired again."
"She did?"
"Yup."
"When?"
"Tonight. Right after we got here."
I hesitate and then ask, "Did Dex say anything?"
"No, but he was standing right next to her looking pretty darn interested."
"Some nerve," I say playfully.
"I know, the nosy bastards… And don't look now, but they're staring at us." His face touches mine, his whiskers scratching my cheek.
I drape my arms over his shoulders and move my body flush against his. "Well then," I say. "Let's give them something to look at."
* * *
So what's the deal with you and
Marcus?" Hillary asks me the next morning as she picks through the pile of clothes that have already accumulated beside her bed. I resist the urge to fold them for her.
"No deal, really." I get out of bed and promptly start to make it.
"Potential?" She pulls on a pair of sweats and ties the drawstring, cinching them at hip level.
"Maybe."
Last year Hillary broke up with Corey, her boyfriend of four years, a nice, smart, all-around great guy. But Hillary was convinced that as good as the relationship was, it wasn't good enough. "He's not the One," she kept saying. 1 remember Darcy informing her that she might revise that opinion in her mid-thirties, a statement Hillary and I both rehashed at length later. A classic, tactless Darcyism. Yet, as time passes, I can't help wondering if Hillary made a mistake. Here she is, one year later, embroiled in the fruitless blind-dating scene while, rumor has it, her ex has moved into a Tribeca loft with a twenty-three-year-old med student who is a dead ringer for Cameron Diaz. Hillary claims that it doesn't bother her. I find that very hard to believe, even for someone with her moxie. In any case, she doesn't seem to be in a hurry to find a Corey replacement.
"Summer potential or long-term potential?" she asks me, running her hands through