One of the Guys (3 page)

Looks
like Bradley Cooper.
Naughty smile, nice body.
Thoughtful.
He brought me coffee, didn’t he?
 
He has a good job. Owns his own business!
Loves what he does. He’s talented. We spend a lot of time together already.
Hmm…

*

Kate
slid onto the bar stool and watched with amusement as Lucy and Jackson
navigated around each other in the kitchen. They were so cute together. Jackson
was stirring pasta sauce that was bubbling away on the stove while Lucy chopped
vegetables for salad. Kate leaned over the counter and picked up a red pepper
slice out of the salad bowl.

“Jackson,
do you know who Chris went on a date with on Sunday?” Kate asked, crunching on
the pepper.

Jackson
lifted the wooden spoon to his lips to taste the sauce. “I can’t remember. It
might have been the beer girl from the Rocky Pass Pub.
Unless
she was Friday.
Why?”

“Does
he date a lot?” Kate asked.

Jackson
held the spoon out for Kate to try a taste. “Define ‘a lot.’”

Kate
slurped the sauce off the spoon. “Good,” she said, wiping her lips. “I don’t
know. I mean, is he serious about anybody or just dating around?”

Jackson
chuckled. “Chris?
 
Serious?
 
No way.
 
He just dates around.”

Lucy
stopped chopping a cucumber and shot Jackson a look. “That’s putting it
mildly.”

Kate
looked back and forth between Lucy and Jackson. “What does that mean?”

Lucy
pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows at Jackson. Jackson lowered the heat on
the sauce and gave the spaghetti noodles a stir. “Chris is kind of a man-whore.”

Kate’s
eyes widened. “What?”

“Kind
of?
 
You mean
he’s a total man-whore,” Lucy echoed, scooping up the cucumber slices and
dumping them into the salad bowl.

“Really?”
Kate asked.

“I
know he’s your friend and all, but he’s such a player,” Lucy said.

“Worse
than Max?”
Jackson asked.

“Max
is harmless,” Lucy said, grabbing the salad tongs and tossing everything around.
“He flirts with everybody and half the time he’s not even serious. You said Chris
just goes after anything with a pair of boobs!”

Jackson
attempted to come to Chris’s defense. “He’s a guy!”

“I
know, but he’s just kind of… sleazy,” Lucy shuddered. “I don’t know what it is.
I mean, he’s kind of cute, I guess, but he kind of grosses me out. I don’t know.
Sleazy.
That’s the only way I can describe him.”

Kate
sat back in surprise. “Really?” she echoed.

Jackson
looked at her. “Like you’ve never seen Chris in action?”

Kate
thought about it.
Had
she ever seen
Chris in action?
 
Had she ever bothered
to pay attention? A lot of times, when they went out for beers after work, it
was just her and the guys. Or else they were at Kevin’s house, playing poker on
Saturday nights. “Not really.”

Lucy
carried the salad bowl to the table. “Jackson once said he was ruthless.”

“I
think I used the word ‘relentless,’ babe,” he said, opening a cabinet and
handing Lucy a stack of plates and bowls.

“Same
thing!”
Lucy said. “What Jackson means is that if Chris
sees a chick that he wants to take home, he won’t give up. He usually ends up
taking her home.”

Kate
rested her chin in her hand and looked back and forth from Lucy to Jackson. “But
they don’t mean anything?” she asked. “He’s not dating anybody seriously or
anything?”

Lucy
snorted as she set the table. “I don’t think he takes anything seriously. Well,
except maybe
himself
.”

“No,”
Jackson said, playfully swatting Lucy on the behind. “He’s not dating anyone
seriously.
Says he hasn’t met the right girl yet.”

“But
I bet he sure is having a good time looking,” Lucy grinned.

Kate
considered things as Jackson drained the spaghetti and Lucy pulled the garlic
bread out of the oven and sliced it. Chris hadn’t met the right girl yet. She
hadn’t met the right guy. Maybe they were right for each other?
 
She’d have to think about it, and figure
something out.

Kate,
Lucy, and Jackson sat down at the table and ate dinner together. Lucy
entertained them with stories about her fourth grade students and Kate talked a
little bit about the painfully long meeting she’d had with a bride and her
overbearing mother that afternoon. When dinner was over, she offered to clean
up and declined Lucy and Jackson’s invitation to go out for and get ice cream
for dessert.

Left
alone in the kitchen, it dawned on Kate how quiet the house was with Lucy and
Jackson gone. She loved Lucy and Jackson, and was glad they had found each other
again, but sometimes she got tired of feeling like the third wheel, as she so
often did. It kind of reminded her of high school; she’d always suspected
something was going on with Lucy and Jackson, and as a result, she always felt
like she was a little bit of an outsider. She went into the living room and
turned on the stereo, cranking up the volume. She returned to the kitchen to
scrape the plates and rinse the dishes before she put them in the dishwasher. As
she wiped the counters clean, she couldn’t get Chris out of her mind.

She
had to admit that she had always been attracted to him, ever since her boss had
introduced them at the office a few years ago. It was hard not to find him
attractive; he was very charming and good-looking. They saw each other often
through weddings and work, so they spent a lot of time together and eventually
learned that Jackson was a mutual friend.

Jackson,
Chris, and their friends ended up hanging out a lot as a group, and none of
them seemed to care that Kate was the token girl. Because of her busy work
schedule and single-girl status, she was always up for grabbing a beer after
work, getting wings at Hooters, or going somewhere to watch football on Sundays.
She was just like one of the guys.

“That’s
it,” Kate said to herself. They didn’t think of her as a girl. Chris probably
just considered her a buddy; just one of the guys. She’d have to do something
to change his mind about that.

*

           
The following Saturday, Kate was
overseeing a wedding at the Davenport Hotel and Chris happened to be the
photographer. She could see him approaching out of the corner of her eye as she
stood in the doorway of the ballroom talking to the bride’s father.

           
“I just want to say thank you for
the job you’ve done, Miss Thompson. It wasn’t easy, not having Michelle’s
mother here to help her plan, but I know she’s looking down on this evening and
is pleased with the celebration you gave our daughter,” he said.

           
Kate placed her hand on the man’s
shoulder. “I’m so glad that you and your daughter are happy,” she said.

           
“Happy?
 
She’s ecstatic. I can’t thank you enough,” he
said, beaming.

           
“Well, it was a pleasure working
with you, Mr. Banks,” she said, holding out her hand.

           
The father of the bride ignored the
offer of a handshake and instead wrapped Kate in a big bear hug. Kate giggled
and smoothed out her dress as Mr. Banks excused himself to say goodnight to
some guests who were leaving. She turned to look at Chris, who was loosening
his tie.

           
“Ready to get your ass kicked at
poker?” he asked.

           
Kate shook her head. “Not tonight.”

           
“Not giving up without a fight,
huh?”

           
“Nope.
Just not playing.
I have a date.”

           
Kate flashed him a smile and slipped
out of the ballroom behind a few elderly wedding guests.

           
Once in the car, Kate gave herself a
pat on the back for keeping her exchange with Chris short and simple. She
wanted to seem aloof and mysterious while showing Chris that she had plenty of
guys interested in her.

           
In fact, she had a rendezvous with
two gentlemen planned that evening.

           
Ben and Jerry.

           
Kate knew that Lucy had planned on
going out with her sister while Jackson played poker, which meant that Kate
would have the house to herself for most of the evening. She didn’t really have
a date planned, but nobody needed to know that. What she did have was a pint of
Cherry Garcia in the freezer and a ton of movies on Netflix just waiting for
her at home.

           
At home, she hopped right into the
shower and scrubbed her makeup off. She pulled on her favorite nightshirt and
scraped her wet hair up into a ponytail. She rubbed some peppermint-scented moisturizer
onto her heels, pulled on a pair of fuzzy socks, and grabbed her ice cream and
a spoon. Curled up on the couch, she scrolled through her Netflix instant watch
queue, deciding on a girly 80’s movie she hadn’t seen in a long time.

           
She ate half a pint of ice cream and
ignored her cell phone as it beeped in her purse. Someone was texting her and
she was determined to ignore it, because technically, she was supposed to be on
a date.

           
Truthfully, she just hadn’t
feel
like dating. She hadn’t met anybody she thought she
could have a serious relationship with in ages. And that was what she really
wanted – a serious relationship.
Love.
Like Lucy and
Jackson, for example. Their love for each other was so strong that Lucy ditched
her fiancé and moved back from Miami and Jackson had moved home from New York
and was waiting for his divorce to be finalized. Although other people might
not have agreed with their actions, neither of them regretted what they had
done, because they both knew that they were meant to be together.

 
          
Thankfully,
though, they weren’t the annoying kind of couple that grossed people out by
constantly professing their love for each other and showering each other with
lovey-dovey behavior and public displays of affection. Instead, they were…
easy-going.
Comfortable.
Like they
just belonged together.
They were friends and they loved each other and
they didn’t need to say anything or do anything to prove it. That was what Kate
wanted out of a relationship.

*

           
The next afternoon, Kate was leaving
the office when her cell phone rang. “Hi, Mom,” she said.

           
“I haven’t talked to you in
ages!
 
What have you been up to lately?”

           
“Not much.
Work
and all the same old stuff.
Going to meet Lucy for
lunch.”

           
“Have you gone out at all lately?”

           
“Do you mean have I gone on a date
lately?” Kate asked.

           
Her mother stifled a gasp. “Yes!
 
Have you?”

           
“No, I haven’t. All I do is work and
hang out with Lucy and the boys.”

           
“Don’t you think that might be part
of the problem?”

           
“It’s not really a problem, Mom,”
Kate huffed.

           
“You’re my only daughter. I want you
to be happy and get married and have a beautiful family.”

           
Kate sighed.
Here we go again.
“Maybe I don’t want to get married.”

           
This time, her mother really did let
out a gasp. Then she was silent for a moment. “You don’t want to get married?
 
Ever?”

           
Kate sighed. “I didn’t mean that. It’s
just… It’s not easy. I haven’t found the right guy yet, that’s all.”

           
“Well, keep looking,” she said. “He’s
probably right under your nose and you don’t even know it.”

           
“
Riiight
,”
Kate groaned, looking down at her watch. “Look, Mom, I’ve got to go. Lucy’s
probably waiting for me.”

           
“Okay. Talk to you soon. You should
think about coming for a visit. Your father and I miss you.”

           
“I miss you guys, too. I love you,”
Kate said.

           
Tossing her phone in her bag, Kate
hurried down the street to the restaurant Lucy had suggested that morning. The
breakfast and brunch crowd had mostly cleared out, and Kate spotted Lucy
sitting at a table in a window.