“Dinner may continue. Dazzling a lady with my dance skills always makes me hungry.”
Before I know it, we’ve finished our second glasses of wine, dinner is done, and I get up to start doing the dishes.
“Let me help you,” Ryan says as he begins clearing the table.
We quickly get a system going where he scrapes the dishes and pots clean and hands them to me before I rinse and load the dishwasher. Five minutes later, the kitchenette is spotless and we’re heading into the living room.
Duke is already sleeping in the bathroom as I sit down in my reading chair, bending my knees as my feet rest against the ottoman. Ryan settles himself on the couch and flips on the TV to watch baseball highlights. He used to sit like that in college. The only difference is, I would be tucked against his side with his arm around me, reading a book and feeling so safe that I’d almost always fall asleep.
“Can I ask you something?” I venture.
“If you’re trying to find out what I charge for dance lessons, you should know that I’m industry-level. I cost more because I’m worth more.”
“Obviously,” I agree. “No, I was wondering...what did you do after we broke up?”
Ryan fumbles with the remote for a second as he turns away from the TV to look at me. “Why do you ask?”
Because I want to know. I want to know what happened to the boy I used to fall asleep with on the couch.
“Idle curiosity. I started writing for the first time a few months after.”
Ryan puts the TV on mute. “I started working out a lot. I think people would have been impressed, but I also grew an off-putting beard, so they kind of cancelled each other out.”
“I doubt that,” I say lightly, “I’m pretty sure ninety-eight percent of the dating pool would vote ‘yes’ for a muscular bearded man.”
“No, I’m not talking about a scruffy, emotionally-wounded lumberjack beard. I mean a creepy, belligerent old-fisherman-blacked-out-at-the-end-of-the-bar kind of beard. Think Forrest Gump in the last leg of his cross-country run.”
“Those were highly effective visuals.”
“I try my best. So, yeah, I went through a temporary werewolf metamorphosis while you jump-started your literary career. I guess one of us handled the split better.”
“I think I would have started writing regardless if we broke up or not. You were just the springboard that made me move at a faster pace.”
“How did you decide what to write?” Ryan asks.
I get more comfortable in the chair, pulling a blue fleece blanket up to cover my legs as I lean back into the cushions. We set a timer for the thermostat, so the room is already getting chilly.
“I was sitting on the stoop at my mom’s house one day as I finished reading what felt like my millionth romance novel. I tried to imagine what I would come up with if I were a novelist and decided to write a chapter. I went inside and was done an hour later. I printed it out, gave it to my mom and she liked it.”
“And a writer was born.”
“After that I just kept going. I took it one chapter at a time and gave each one to my mom for feedback. It was nice for us. It was a good distraction from my dad.”
Ryan smiles but it’s not happy. It’s regretful.
“It also felt amazing to have my mom enjoying something I wrote. She’s never thrown a lot of praise my way, so I was basking in it whenever she would read my work.”
“I’m sure she’s proud of you now, though. You’re a successful author, self-made and living in New York City. You’re a great person. She probably brags about you all the time.”
“I doubt it,” I mutter, knowing too well how in her eyes, I still don’t measure up.
“Why would you say that?” Ryan seems genuinely confused and in a strange way, it makes me feel better. He thinks I’m someone worth bragging about.
“It doesn’t matter. She’s just hard to impress.”
“Sophie and I could do no wrong in our mom’s eyes after my dad left. It was like everything we did had this perfect glow around it.”
The room falls quiet until we hear Duke snoring with rumbling force. I never realized my apartment had such good acoustics. Ryan and I both grin at each other.
“When the divorce was getting finalized, my mom kept telling me that she and my dad met too young. She swore their marriage would have lasted if they started dating in their twenties instead of when they were sixteen.” Ryan’s gaze shifts to the floor before turning it back to me. “You think if we met now instead of in college that things would be different?”
My heart starts to beat faster. “Maybe. But if we didn’t meet in college, you and I might never have spoken at the pre-wedding party.”
“But we would have eventually met at the wedding,” he says.
“True. I’d be stuck in my uncomfortable maid of honor dress and counting down the minutes until I could take off my heels and sneak on the sandals I stashed in my bag.”
“You’d be having a mini-stroke about giving your speech. We’d sneak off to the bar right before to take the edge off.”
“You’d be a bad influence on me.”
“We’d have a great night. You’d talk more than you usually do.”
“You’d talk less than you usually do. You’d show me a bunch of pictures of Duke on your phone to butter me up.”
“I knew it would work since you seemed so sweet.”
“And then the night would wind down.”
“I’d ask you for your number.”
“I’d tell you I don’t normally give out my number, but I’d make an exception for you.”
“I’d text you that night and tell you it was great meeting you.”
“I’d wonder if you’d call me the next week.”
“I’d call the next day.”
“And that would be that.”
“That would be
