Deep Surrendering Read online

  He sighed and was silent for so long I thought the call had dropped.

  “Yesterday was amazing. Last night was…yes, the kissing was more than good, I’d say. At least for me. You are very talented, Marisol.”

  “Well, in addition to my Master’s degrees in Business Admin and Education, I also have a Master’s in Kissology.” He let out a burst of unexpected laughter.

  “Those must have been very…informative classes.”

  “Oh, they were and the coursework was exhausting.”

  “I can only imagine.” The tone of his voice was reminding me of our “coursework” from last night.

  “We need to talk about…what happened after the kissing. When you jumped up from the couch as if you were on fire and left without an explanation. Now, if I were to listen to my mother’s advice, it would be to shut up and pretend it never happened. But, unfortunately for you, I’ve spent most of my life trying to not be my mother. So. What happened after the kissing?”

  My speech seemed to stun him momentarily.

  “What happened after the kissing. Well. That is a loaded question that would require quite an explanation.”

  “Wow, you’re long-winded with your explanations.” I just wanted him to get to the point and tell me about his crooked penis so I could assure him that I didn’t care a whit about it and we could move on to date three.

  “I…I really don’t think this is the kind of thing I can do over the phone. Can we meet?” Well, I wasn’t looking my best at the moment.

  “Sure. How about my apartment? An hour?”

  “See you then.”

  He hung up without any further pleasantries and I went back to Chloe, who was bouncing in her seat for information.

  “Well?”

  I sat down slowly, picking up my half-finished latte and sipping it carefully.

  “Mari.” She knew I was teasing her, but I wanted to let her suffer for a few seconds. It was good for her. Taught her patience.

  “You whore, tell me.”

  “Well, it was kind of awkward and he didn’t really give me an explanation, but we’re going to meet up at my apartment and talk. So I’m guessing it’s more than just a crooked penis.”

  And now I was freaking out. If his issue needed an explanation that had to be delivered in person, it was probably…delicate. Or explosive. Maybe he had an explosive penis.

  “That doesn’t sound good. That probably means he’s a serial killer. I should hide in your bedroom, just to make sure.” For Chloe, this was a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

  “Chlo. Would Rory let me go out with a serial killer?”

  “Only if she didn’t know he was a serial killer.”

  This was getting us nowhere.

  “I know if I don’t let you come, then you’re going to barge in, aren’t you?”

  “I might.”

  I sighed. “Well, we need to get going, because he’s coming over in an hour and I need to make myself presentable.”

  “You look fine. If he can’t appreciate you as you are, then he doesn’t deserve you.” Typical best friend, thinking the world shined out of my ass, and any guy who didn’t think I was perfect wasn’t worth my time.

  “I’ve known the man for all of two days. I’d like to give the allure that I look fantastic all the time. At least for a week.”

  I paid the bill and we headed back to my place.

  “Nope,” Chloe said as I tried on yet another dress.

  “God, what do you want from me? You’ve turned down every single one so far. I don’t have a whole lot of clothes, you know.” My few designer pieces had been found after much thrift shop searching and were very dear to me.

  “I want you to be yourself. Right now you look like you’re trying too hard,” she said from her position on my bed, a pillow under her chin.

  “Well, if you’re such a fashion genius, what should I wear?” I pulled my dress over my head and put my hands on my hips.

  “This,” she said, holding up a dark blue top I didn’t even know that I owned, and a flared black skirt. “And some black boots. Trust me.”

  I was skeptical, but I put the outfit on. I had to admit that it was really cute.

  “Whoa, too much swirling there, babe. You’re gonna need to wear some tights or something so you don’t show him EVERYTHING on the second date.”

  “Technically this is the third date,” I said, pulling some tights that I’d worn all of once out of my drawer. I hated the damn things, but Chloe was right. I couldn’t flounce around showing everyone my lady business.

  I left my hair down because it was behaving today, but I gave it a good brush before I applied some makeup and posed for Chloe to show the final effect.

  “I’d do you,” was her response to the outfit. “Also, you might want to stop fiddling with the hem of that skirt or else he’ll know you’re nervous.”

  I didn’t know I’d been doing that, but as soon as Chloe pointed it out, I was conscious of it. “Thanks. Now I’m even more paranoid than I already was.”

  She got up and stood behind me in the mirror, putting her chin on my shoulder. “Don’t be paranoid. You’re beautiful and smart and funny, and he’d be a dumbass not to see that. So there.” She smacked me on the butt and I winced. “Now go get him.”

  I’d managed to get Chloe to go back to her apartment by agreeing to go clubbing with her at a gay bar. Five minutes before he was supposed to pick me up, Fin was at my door in a lovely gray shirt, black pants, and a light purple tie.

  “Wow,” I said because I couldn’t help myself. He had one hand behind his back and revealed a bouquet of lilacs. As soon as the smell hit me, I grinned like an idiot and had to resist the urge to throw my arms around his neck. Lilacs weren’t a very easy flower to find, but somehow he had.

  “Wow doesn’t do you justice,” he said, handing me the flowers. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, memories flooding my mind. I hoped tonight I could make new ones.

  “Once again, I’m so sorry about bolting last night. It was nothing you did, and I know that sounds like a line, but it’s the truth. I know we just met, but I really like you and I’d like to spend more time with you.” I stepped aside to let him into the apartment, which was a hell of a lot cleaner than it had been last night. Actually, it was probably cleaner than it had ever been.

  “I wish you could have told me this last night instead of just leaving. That was kind of a dick move, you know.” He chuckled as he followed me toward the kitchen. I had to find a glass bottle to put the flowers in, since I didn’t actually own a vase. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d needed one.

  “Yeah, it was. But running seems so much more easy than actually telling the truth.” He still hadn’t really told me anything, other than he liked me.

  “So what is the truth?” I asked, filling up the bottle and sticking the flowers in it before setting it on the middle of my kitchen counter. “Chloe thinks you have a crooked penis, and I said that I wouldn’t care. I’d get over it. I mean, by the time we got to that stage. We were pretty close last night.”

  “Yes,” he said, “we were.” Then he seemed to absorb the rest of what I’d said. “Wait, you thought I had a crooked penis?”

  I shrugged one shoulder. “It was a possibility. Is that it? Crooked penis?”

  He laughed, throwing his head back. “No. There is nothing wrong with my penis. I’ve had plenty of compliments on it.” I was sure he had, along with compliments on the rest of him. From what I’d seen so far, it was all complimentary.

  “Look,” he said, stepping closer to me. “I think we moved a little too fast last night. Maybe we should…put on the brakes a little and go slow. See where this leads.” He was asking me to let what happened last night go and pretend it didn’t happen.

  I guessed I could do that.

  “Deal. But don’t let it happen again,” I said, admonishing him with my finger.

  “Deal.” He lunged out and bit the tip of my finger.
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  This time Fin took me to a performance of the play Noises Off, which I’d seen before, but not in a long time.

  “I wasn’t sure if you liked musicals or not, so I figured this was a safe choice,” he said as he bought the tickets.

  “When it comes to musicals, as long as it’s not Cats!, I’m good.”

  He shuddered at the mention of Cats!. “Agreed. Cats! is pretty much the worst thing ever to happen to musical theater.” A straight guy who could admit he loved musicals. Where the hell had he come from and how was I on a date with him?

  After we laughed our faces off at the play, we went to dinner at a little hole-in-the-wall Thai place that Fin said he’d seen good reviews about.

  “Have you been to Thailand?” I asked after we ordered.

  He nodded. “A few times. It’s one of the most beautiful places in the world, but, like I said, I didn’t get to see much of it. I’d be in the middle of these meetings and I’d look out the window and imagine just getting up, leaving the room and going to the beach.”

  “And what stopped you?”

  He smiled. “My father’s wrath. Losing my job. It’s true that I don’t love it like I used to, but that doesn’t mean I want to quit. Besides, it’s kind of impossible to get out of a family business, as you probably know from Rory.” The only difference was that Rory adored her job and she’d worked her entire life with the one goal of working with her father. It was rare, I supposed, to actually choose the same thing your parents wanted for you. I certainly hadn’t.

  “But I don’t want to sound like I’m whining. I have opportunities some people would give anything for and I don’t want to seem ungrateful. What about your family? I’ve been going on about myself. I want to know about you.” Right. Me. I’d much rather talk about him.

  “There’s not much to tell. I told you about my grandmother and that’s…that’s really all there is to know.” I didn’t want to get into my family history this early in a relationship. Most guys were satisfied with me saying that I didn’t want to talk about it, but I didn’t think Fin would be that easy to distract.

  He wasn’t.

  “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it. We all have our secrets.” From the way he said it, I could tell that there was a lot more to him leaving last night than I could probably imagine. Much more than a crooked penis.

  “Thanks. I really appreciate that.” Our food came and we talked about work and school.

  “So, are you one of those people who just never leaves school and gets a million degrees?” Fin asked, swiping a shrimp from my plate and flashing me a smile that said he knew he was going to get away with it. If only he wasn’t so good looking. I would have a much easier time resisting him if he was a little less attractive. But it just wasn’t how he was put together. It was the way his eyes flashed, letting me know that he had devilish thoughts in his mind, and the way his smile tipped just slightly to the side.

  “No. I just want to defer my loans as long as possible.” I had added up how much I owed, and the figure made me want to curl up in the fetal position and cry.

  “That makes sense,” he said, nodding.

  I sighed. “I don’t know. I guess I just want to prove that I’m smart.” It sounded so stupid when I said it out loud like that, and I cringed inwardly and wished I could take it back.

  “Who would say you weren’t smart? I knew you were smart five seconds after meeting you.” That was very flattering. I couldn’t remember exactly what I’d said to give him that impression. It must have been something good. Maybe Chloe could fill me in on my supposed brilliance.

  I shook my head and tried to put it into words. I’d been asked this question over and over and I didn’t have a set answer. “Listen, I’m not going to go into my family situation. I mean, I don’t normally go into it with people I’ve just met. It tends to change how people see me and I don’t like that. Let’s just say I’m being totally mature and trying to prove to my parents and the rest of my relatives that I can make it on my own, and that I don’t need them.”

  Fin thought about that for a minute. I could see him rolling it over in his mind. Yes, I’d told him that I didn’t discuss this kind of thing with new people, but somehow I knew Fin would understand in the way Rory understood my family drama. We might have completely different lives, but families were all pretty much the same when you got down to it.

  Complicated.

  “I get it. I do. Plus, you get to be called doctor and you don’t have to go to medical school. Unless you wanted to, of course.” I’d toyed with the idea of medical school once upon a time. The reason I’d rejected it was because my parents had been semi-supportive of the idea. Well, as long as I went into something prestigious. Like neuroscience or cardiology. I could have gone into pediatrics and stuck it to them, but instead I went into something that would piss them off even more. Education.

  Just the memory of the look on my mother’s face when I’d told her made me smile to this day. It was second only to telling her that my childhood boyfriend and I had broken up, and weren’t getting married after all. Ironic, considering Rory’s mother wanted her to marry Fin and here I was on a date with him.

  My mother would be all over Fin like a new exclusive pair of Manolos. Even more so. He was exactly what she’d wanted for her little girl. So much for disappointing my parents. But I was going to keep Fin a secret from them as long as humanly possible. Forever, if I could, depending on how this went. I was getting a little ahead of myself.

  “Let’s talk about something else. Tell me something…tell me something about your grandmother. Your face lights up when you talk about her.” Not on purpose.

  I remembered the lilacs that were waiting for me back at the apartment. I almost couldn’t wait to get back to them to bury my face in their blooms and lose myself in their scent.

  “Well, her name was Rosemary and she was terrifying, at least to a lot of people. Very strict, very old-fashioned. No elbows on the table, tea in the sunroom, no yelling, crossed ankles, the whole shebang. She tried teaching me to be a lady, but I don’t think much of it stuck, although I definitely hear her voice in my head whenever I put my elbows on the table, or use the wrong spoon like a caveman. The horror!” I used to mess with her and do things like that on purpose. Instead of getting mad, she would just laugh and tell me that I was her wild child.

  Of course my mother would pick up the slack and give me a good tongue-lashing later, but Gram never yelled at me once for breaking one of her precious rules. As a result, I actually tried, because I wanted to make her happy. To this day I could probably balance a book on my head, cross a room, and sit in a chair without having it fall to the floor. When you learn something like that in your childhood, it doesn’t really go away.

  “What did she look like?” Fin seemed actually interested, so I continued.

  “Well, she was tall and she had the most glorious hair. It was long and thick and curly, and she took great pride in it. She used to let me brush it and braid it. I always wished mine was the same shade of silver.” She would always hum when I brushed her hair and I found myself humming one of her songs right in front of Fin.

  He smiled and I blushed.

  “Okay, that’s enough of that,” I said, and went back to eating. He just laughed at me and stole another shrimp.

  “You are cruising for a bruising.”

  I meant it as a joke, but there was an odd look that passed over his face when I said it. It was gone so quickly, like a blink, that I wasn’t sure if I’d even seen it in the first place. Could have been a trick of the light.

  “So, would you like to get dessert?” he said.

  “What kind of a question is that? Who says no to dessert?”

  He shook his head. “I have no idea. No one I’d be friends with.”

  He paid the bill again, and I was starting to feel a little odd about making him pay for so many meals, even though that was traditional dating practice.

  “So, you get t
o pick where we go since you know the city better than I do.” It was a balmy evening, the heat wafting up from the pavement.

  “How do you feel about gelato?” I asked as we strolled down the street.

  “I’m definitely in favor of it. Plus we did agree that ice cream was part of the third date.”

  I took him to one of those tiny places that’s crammed in between two buildings and only has one table, which was almost always occupied. I got sea salt caramel and Fin went for dark chocolate cherry. We swapped bites with each other as we walked down the street. Pedestrians streamed around us, each on their own mission.

  “Tomorrow is Monday,” I said, realizing too late that I had to go to class tomorrow. Hell and damnation. Why had I decided to complete my degree early by taking summer classes? It had seemed smart at the time, but now I was cursing myself.

  “Yes, yes it is. I’m guessing you have a full schedule.” He tossed the empty gelato container in a trashcan.

  “I have class nearly all day, and I have a study session and I also have a meeting. God, I’d nearly forgotten. You distracted me. I wasn’t paying attention.” I bumped him with my shoulder.

  “I hope it was a good distraction.”

  “Very.” He pulled me to a stop and turned to face me. I knew that he was going to kiss me, and I raised myself on my tiptoes in preparation. He leaned down and brought his face toward mine and…

  Pulled away at the last second.

  I slammed back down on my heels and nearly lost my balance.

  “Is something wrong?”

  He looked away from me. “No. Nothing. I just think that you have a busy day tomorrow, and I have a busy day, and we should…probably call it a night.” It was like being dunked in a bucket of ice. Things were so easy and free with Fin, and then it was as if he slammed a door in my face, turning into a stranger that was cold and distant and locked in his own head.

  “Absolutely. You’re right. At least one of us should be responsible.” My voice was false in my own ears and made me cringe.