Something Borrowed Read Free

scene 7B is dingy and smoke-filled. I like it
    anyway it's not sleek and it's not a dive striving to be cool because
    it's not sleek.
    Dex points to a booth. "Have a seat. I'll be right with you." Then
    he turns around. "What can I get you?"
    I tell him whatever he's having, and sit and wait for him in the
    booth. I watch him say something to a girl at the bar wearing
    army-green cargo pants and a tank top that says "Fallen Angel."
    She smiles and shakes her head. "Omaha" is playing in the
    background. It is one of those songs that seems melancholy and
    cheerful at the same time.
    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