The Overlap (27 page)

I went through my getting-ready-for-my-special-date ritual but even as I did, I could feel the twin sentiments of delicious anticipation of the night ahead but also the tremendous anxiety given all that had transpired with Zack – and with Dustin – that had brought us to the occasion of my “second first date.” My mind flip-flopped back and forth between hot, erotic recollections and dark moments of remembering what it had been like to think that Zack and I were done forever. But those moments of despair were behind me now; at least that’s what I tried to convince myself.

As we had done on our first date, I was to meet Zack at
Vivant
rather than have him pick me up. And as on our first date, I grabbed a cab outside of my building. I half-expected to find the same driver as that night, but instead it was someone totally different. Not that that particular detail mattered, of course.

The driver got me to
Vivant
at two minutes before 8:00, and when I approached the
maître d’
stand the thirty-ish guy there looked at me and asked:

“Would you happen to be Miss Barnes?”

Memories of hearing those very same words, standing in this exact same spot, less than three weeks ago came flooding back.

I nodded and he asked me to follow him to Mister Buchanan’s table. Sure enough, Zack was seated at exactly the same table where we had eaten dinner on our first date, and I was certain that this was no coincidence; I was sure that he had specifically arranged for this table.

He stood when he saw me following the
maître d’
and I saw that he was wearing an untucked fuchsia shirt and jeans. I looked down and saw the black horsebit loafers. Zack noticed that I was checking out his clothes, and at the same time, he was checking out mine. We both started lightly laughing at the same time, and then I said:

“I guess we both had the same idea, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” he said as he came around the table to kiss me, nodding at the
maître d’
as he did that we were all set now; that he would take it from here.

I hesitated, then blurted out what was on my mind.

“I guess we’re made for each other, right?”

Zack smiled.

“I guess so.”

*     *     *

His meeting up in Burbank had been a success. Zack had gotten his deal with the studio, and even while he was still doing work for MetroGen he would start working with the other studio. Pretty soon, he said, he might have to hire one or two other consultants to help with his increasing workload. Even as he was telling me all of this, I started thinking about the possibility that he wouldn’t be working at MetroGen much longer because of this new client. He hadn’t said as much but of course that was always a possibility; in fact, an inevitability. Still, as I had learned myself over the past week and a half, I had no guarantees myself that I would still be at MetroGen for any specific period of time. It was up to Zack and me to make sure that the bonds we built would be strong enough to deal with working in different parts of the L.A. area, or even with one or both of us out of town; that nothing like we had gone through would ever happen again as long as we were together.

We celebrated with a bottle of Cristal, and then a bottle of some Cabernet that I didn’t know of but I knew from sneaking a peak at the wine list cost almost $600 for the vintage he had selected. Zack was obviously in a celebratory mood, and I was determined that after we left the restaurant, I would help him continue the celebration after we got back to his apartment.

In the meantime, though, I did turn the conversation in a serious direction for about half an hour right after our entrees arrived. I wanted Zack’s opinion on my “accidents of geography” theory that had come to me on my plane flight back to L.A. on Monday. After he was done listening, he said:

“Yeah, I definitely see what you mean.”

He paused, swirled his Cabernet a couple times and stared into the glass as he did; as if he were looking for some sort of revelation in the miniature crimson whirlpool in his wineglass. Finally he looked back at me and said:

“You know what, though? I don’t think it will last. I know it’s common in consulting for all of us at one time or another, but think about it. With you, it’s not just getting shuttled back and forth between here and Chicago on short notice – not to mention that no-notice trip to New York – but it was all made worse by having just met me and things getting started with us. I know it all seemed like a TV show or a movie, you know, with me leaving just as Dustin comes back in town, and then you leaving just as I get back; all of that. But that sort of thing can’t keep going on, right?”

He halted to look at me, as if he expected some sort of response. I didn’t know how to answer – it sure felt like my fate wasn’t in my control – so I just shrugged.

“Truthfully,” Zack continued, “I believe that
we
control our fates and the only time we aren’t in control is when we give up that control.”

“What about when I broke up with my college boyfriend after graduation,” I countered, thinking about how Andrew’s and my relationship ended. “Suppose that he wasn’t headed to Wharton while I was moving to L.A. Suppose instead we were both staying in Phoenix. Maybe I wouldn’t have gone through with the breakup then, even though we really needed things to be over between us. So maybe it was only because of another accident of geography, or whatever you want to call it, that I actually went through with it, you know?”

Zack shrugged, thought for a second, then said:

“Maybe, but what about the guy you told me about in Miami, the one before Dustin, that you broke up with after just a couple weeks. If you were truly this perpetually helpless victim of ‘accidents of geography’ you would have just stayed with him for another couple weeks because you were leaving Miami anyway, and you would have just waited for the fates to put you on the plane to L.A. to end things for you. And in the meantime you would have just kept sleeping with him, like you yourself had no control over what you were doing. But that’s not what happened, right?
You
decided things were over, and even though you were both in class together, seeing each other every single day,
you
ended it.”

He paused for another round of wine swirling and wineglass gazing before continuing.

“Here’s what I really think,” he looked at me with determination in his eyes. “If
you
want us to be together, then those ‘accidents of geography’ will fade away. Maybe it was all just a test; you know, to see if we could make it through a rough patch being apart, with the other complications. But we made it... right?”

Zack looked at me, his eyes demanding an answer.

“Yes; we made it,” I agreed with him, smiling warmly as I spoke those words.

“So just keep telling yourself: ‘I control my fate, no matter where I am or where I get sent.’ Even if you get sent back to Chicago on Monday...”

My face must have immediately conveyed the horror I felt at such a notion even being a possibility.

“It’s okay,” Zack chuckled. “Even if that happens,
you’ll
be the one in control of who you’re with, and where you sleep...”

This time I must have winced so severely that the painful embarrassment I felt at Zack’s words might have been noticed by everyone else in
Vivant
tonight. But he just kept talking as if my face was totally void of passion.

“...and you won’t feel that lack of personal empowerment that also made you feel totally helpless. You know what I mean?”

I just nodded and steered the conversation in another direction. Zack was so matter-of-fact about what had happened. Not quite emotionless; “mature” or “worldly” maybe? Whatever it was, I felt a little bit uneasy that he was so accepting about what I had done with Dustin. Yesterday, when we talked things out at
Cerise
, he had showed more emotion and even seemed really upset a couple of times as I rambled through my confession. Now, though, he was back to the hot L.A. guy who had turned me on so much with his sophistication, or whatever you wanted to call it.

But it didn’t matter. I was the one who had taken us to the brink with what I had allowed to happen with Dustin, but here was Zack saying over and over that he wasn’t going to let that ruin things between us. So enough second-guessing and mind-reading and all of that from me; time to look at the future – our future – rather than the very recent past.

We finished our dinner. No port or sherry or Remy Martin for us tonight, though. Zack paid the bill and I followed him out of
Vivant
where he quickly hailed a cab to take us back to his apartment. I snuggled up against him in the cab the same way I had after we had gone to dinner at
Solazarse
, the night we slept together for the first time. We arrived at his building and he tossed the driver a twenty as we both exited towards the sidewalk.

The same slow ride in the elevator, kissing each other the entire time, up to the fifth floor.

The same short walk down the hallway to Zack’s apartment.

The same resumption of kissing after we walked into his apartment.

And the same fantastic sex that had been so vivid in my imagination for days after my first time with him before fading in memory to the point where I almost wondered if it had actually happened.

Never again would I go through that feeling again, I told myself as I surrendered to the intense combination of pure lust and something that felt as close to love as I had ever felt thus far in my life.

*     *     *

“We should go away this weekend” were the words I woke to that Thursday morning. Before I could even focus my eyes, I felt a smile come to my face not only at the sound of Zack’s words, but in response to the sudden feel of his right hand sliding its way down from my belly button. I felt my legs part for his fingers. Apparently Zack wasn’t wasting any time with preliminaries this morning... though the fleeting thought occurred to me that maybe he had been kissing my neck or touching me while I was still swimming my way out of the night’s sleep, and I just wasn’t aware of it.

Anyway, his fingers began to play with me as I croaked out:

“Go away?”

“Uh-huh,” Zack murmured as he lowered his lips to my neck, his lips coming to rest against my skin that hadn’t fully come awake yet. Still, I felt an instant, delicious chill as his tongue lightly flicked back and forth a couple times.

“Where would we go?” I lazily asked, thinking that this was an “interesting” conversation we were beginning, considering what his tongue and fingers were doing to different parts of my body.

“How about San Diego?” I felt him breathe into my neck. “La Jolla?”

It was my turn for an “uh-huh” response. Even as I felt his fingers begin to press a little bit harder, my mind instantly conjured up pictures of Zack and I seated across from each other on the elevated deck of a lavish restaurant, only yards in from the Pacific ocean. It’s twilight; we’re slowly savoring our sumptuous meals, smiling lovingly at each other. Then the scene shifts to the two of us walking barefoot on the beach after dinner as the sun drops beneath the horizon, knowing that very soon we’ll be back in our beachside hotel room, luxuriating in each other.

Zack pulled his head away from my neck, hovered above me for a second or two, and said “San Diego it is” before he moved his face down to join his fingers in proceeding with his special wakeup this Thursday morning.

*     *     *

Kensington eyed me suspiciously when I told her about Zack’s weekend getaway invitation.

“Last week at this time everything was over with him...”

I interrupted her.

“I
thought
everything was over,” I corrected.

“Whatever.” Kensie’s semi-bitchy side was surfacing this morning, and I wondered if she and Rick had had an argument or something like that.

“Anyway,” she continued, “one week ago you were back with Dustin, and now you’re going away this weekend with Zack.”

I felt my eyes narrow.

“What’s your point, Kensie?”

Using her name obviously signaled Kensington that she had entered the danger zone.

“Just that your life these days is like this long, epic drama,” she answered, reprising her words from when we had lunch together yesterday. “I mean, I’m glad that you’re all happy and everything now, but last week you were so miserable, plus you thought you had gotten back together with Dustin, or whatever you call it.”

She paused.

“I’m just glad you’re able to handle all this up-and-down stuff with two guys, the job, the travel; you know, all of that at the same time.”

I took a deep breath. We were in one of the break rooms on our floor at MetroGen, and just the two of us were there. Still, I kept my voice low given that any second, someone could walk through the open doorway with absolutely no notice.

Before I had a chance to respond, Kensie asked me about the details of this sudden weekend getaway.

“I’m only going to work a half day tomorrow,” I told her. We’re going to leave at lunchtime and drive down there before traffic gets too bad.”

I paused again.

“But other than that, I don’t really know what the plans are; Zack is taking care of everything.”

I looked at Kensie, about to say something else; but then I stopped, wondering if I really should. Then I thought to myself: WTF.

“What’s with you? You seem all pissed off about me, or Zack and me, or something like that. What’s going on?”

She rolled her eyes in that “oh, okay; I’ll tell you” sort of expression.

“I don’t know,” she started. “Rick keeps asking me all the time about you and Dustin, and saying things like ‘It must be really tough on Lindsey to have been back working with Dustin for only a week and then get sent away.’ You know, things like that. And then this morning when we were getting ready...”

She caught herself, and I couldn’t help smirking.

“Kensie had a sleepover; Kensie had a sleepover,” I said a couple times in a sing-songy kind of voice.

“Big surprise,” she countered, but not nastily. Not only didn’t we really have any secrets from each other, but we were both about the same age and enjoying the sexual freedom that comes with being young, hot single women out in the L.A. professional world after college.