Liar's Guide to True Love (21 page)

Nick looks around at the not-so-quiet crowd in Starbucks, but thankfully has no more questions. “Well, I gotta get to this job site. Just thought I’d say hi. I’ll see you later.”

Yeah, okay. Working near Nick’s office—bad idea, I see that now, thanks. I sigh and pack up my notes so that I can pay a visit to some vendors for upcoming weddings.

Wedding Tip: In all the excitement about the wedding
day,
don’t forget to prep for the wedding
night.
It’s probably the part that the Groom looks forward to the most.

That evening when I get online I see that Kate is on IM.

Another IM window pops up. OMG!

I really mean this.

I log off IM, and then realize I didn’t sign off from Kate. Oh well, she’ll understand. Always does. Guess I’ll have to think of this seduction plan quick.

I pick through my lingerie drawer—the good thing about having dud dates recently is that all my best La Perla is clean and ready to go. (Are “best” and “La Perla” redundant in the same sentence? I suppose so, but there are subtle differences in how certain styles lift and shape aren’t there?). Oh yes, I discovered La Perla while on a shopping trip for an Upper East Side Bride’s “trousseau”—a wedding planner’s job covers all aspects of the wedding, including the wedding night and honeymoon if needed. In this case the keenly observant UES Bride noticed my eyes widen at the prices, despite my attempts to remain stoic. Sure, I had heard of La Perla, who hasn’t? I just didn’t
get
La Perla’s prices. UES Bride insisted I try on a demure bra and panties combination—I was trying to be professional after all. And until then I just hadn’t realized how
va va voom
I could be in a seemingly standard blush pink bra and boy shorts.

Tonight I need a little something special, something more Seductress and less flower-doodles at Starbucks, but still casual for the last-minute nature of this date. It is a date right? But even so I can’t let him think I’ve primped and prepped after I’ve primped and prepped. I put on a dark violet push-up with just the right amount of lift under a casual violet cotton tank top that has a neckline
just
deep enough to show a little peek-a-boo lace if I happen to shift my shoulders a certain way. Bikini panties and jeans, and I’m almost ready to go—no, I’m not one to wear a thong and super low-rise pants that show off a tramp stamp and rhinestone polyester thong. I apply a bit of mascara and gloss (Bobbi Brown is reliably unclumpy and non stick on both fronts). I run a brush through my hair and leave it down to give it a little shine while steering clear of the all-business ponytail.

I decide not to wear jewelry—unusual for me, but keeping within the “I just ran out the door” look. Plus, if everything goes as planned, I do not need any potential earrings-tangled-up-in-watchband hiccups. I had a Bride whose flowing, wavy locks (three hours in rollers and under a dryer), got knotted in the Groom’s cufflink during their first kiss as husband and wife. They went down the aisle with his arm around her neck as if she was one of his college rugby buddies.

Above all, no Chanel No. 5. I am convinced it was the whiff of his mother that thwarted my plans last time.

I arrive at Nick’s address in Soho, a modest brick building. No doorman, so he buzzes me up. As I approach his door I realize I’m nervous. Nervous to see what his apartment is like, knowing it will probably reveal more about him than a number of dinner dates.

Nick opens the door and smiles. “You look great,” he says, standing in the doorway. “I didn’t know women could get ready that fast.”

He noticed that I “got ready”? But before I’m disappointed that he was able to see through my façade immediately, I see that his hair is still a little damp from a shower and he’s clean-shaven. “You clean up pretty well yourself,” I say, in my best attempt at sultriness. I lean in and raise my face to kiss him. He kisses back, softly, then a little more passionately. I pull back as he guides me into his apartment. We are off to a good start.

I am stunned by Nick’s apartment. I imagined that it would be very contemporary, lots of black and white in the decor, track lighting, an Eames lounge chair. While I was right about the lounge chair, and it is black leather, his apartment combines just the right amount of updates to a traditional décor—perfectly modern without the coldness of contemporary. An exposed brick wall is painted white, and on it he has hung a combination of black and white photos—art prints mixed in with group shots of what I presume to be family and friends. There are stacks of books on every available surface, but before I can determine the titles, a window at the back of the apartment captivates me.

It is a huge window, about six feet high. It is rounded at the top (for which I’m sure there is some architectural term that Nick could inform me of). But what is remarkable is that it is leaded glass. The light streaming through during the day must be extraordinary. “You chose to live here because of this window, didn’t you?” I say to him.

Nick looks at me and smiles, then tilts his head a little as he stares at the window. “I told myself I would own my own place by the time I was thirty. I started looking when I was twenty-eight, brown bagging my lunch every day, limiting my going out to one night a week. Whatever I could do to be ready with a down payment once I found the right space. It took me until I was thirty-one to find this place, but as soon as I walked in and saw that window, my mind was made up.” He is so tenderly nostalgic and humble about his achievement (it’s no easy feat to buy an apartment in Manhattan you know), I want to grab him and kiss him right then. He shakes himself out of his reverie. “That was one expensive window, considering the rest of the place was a dump.” He laughs. “I pretty much had to gut everything, put in a new kitchen, bathroom, put up this wall for the alcove here. But the place had good bones—and this window.”

“That’s a pretty big project to take on for your first apartment. All I could handle was a cleaning job and a fresh coat of paint.”

“I never could have done it if I hadn’t known some good contractors through work. They fit me in between some of their bigger projects and I got a good deal.” He gives a little shrug. “And I’m not so shabby around the house myself. I did a lot of the demo, threw up some drywall—the easy stuff.”

The visual image of Nick with dirty hands and swinging a sledgehammer is an unexpected turn on. “I’ll bet you’re good with your hands,” I say pointedly.

He looks at me and cocks his head a little, and I can’t quite interpret what he is thinking. “Should we start a movie? I wasn’t sure what you’d already seen, so I thought we’d just see what’s on Pay-Per-View.” He gestures toward that (very comfortable) leather couch.

“Sounds good to me.” He sits next to me and I carefully slip off my shoes and tuck my bare feet under my legs and lean in to him. He drapes his arm around my shoulders and manages the remote with the other hand. I feel cozy and get tingles all at once, which I didn’t think was possible. How is it that a light touch can thrill me in its newness and yet feel as comfortable as home?

I look around his apartment a bit more as he finds the right channels. There is a T-shirt draped on the back of a chair, as if discarded in a rush after coming in from a hot summer day. A glass with an inch of flat Pepsi left over is on an end table. I catch a few titles of books—
A Walk In The Woods
by Bill Bryson, a biography of Frank Gehry. The bindings are broken, like they’ve been read and are not just for show. His place feels real, not staged, not cleaned up for my benefit. It feels like he is comfortable in his own skin and not afraid to show who he is.

I turn my face in toward his neck, as close as I can get without actually touching him. He smells like soap, just like the last time I saw him, and I realize I adore that clean smell of—Ivory? I never thought the soap of my youth would be such a turn on. “Anything good on?” I whisper, and my lips brush against his neck. He gulps, and I feel his breath quicken. Not the response of
just a friend,
I note to my satisfaction.

“Four hundred channels and not a thing on.”

“Whatever will we do.” Lips on the neck again. I close my eyes and I feel him shift, his clean-shaven chin against my cheek and then his lips on mine. He kisses me softly, then deeply, like he means it.
Definitely not just a friend
.

He kisses me more urgently now, and I get lost in him. In the feel of his lips, his tongue, the smell of his skin, the lines of his chest, his arms, the nape of his neck under my fingers. Before I know it, I’ve lifted his shirt over his head and tossed it—somewhere. He lifts me off the couch and we stumble to what I presume is his bedroom—along the way I’ve lost all sense of direction in an eight-hundred-square-foot apartment. My clothes end up in a pile in the doorway and he lowers me to the bed, kneeling above me. There’s enough light for me to see him shirtless, his chiseled muscles, rising and falling with his quickened breathing. He looks at me hungrily as his hands skim over me—the La Perla was definitely worth every penny.