“Jeez.” My eyebrows raise by themselves.
“What’s that look for?” Daniel smiles.
“Well, you said that you haven’t slept with many men. If that’s a low number for you what’s a high number? I mean . . . what are your numbers for women?”
Daniel laughs. “Too many to count, I’m afraid. I meet some beautiful people in my industry, sometimes the temptation is just too great.”
Disappointment fills me and I screw up my napkin and throw it onto the table in disgust. “I wish I was more like you,” I sigh.
“Meaning?”
“You know, all liberated and cool and”—I pause as I think of the right terminology—“I guess, free.”
Daniel’s face falls. “You don’t feel free?”
Oh God, why did I say that? Now I sound like a freaking drama queen. “What I meant is, I guess I would like to be in your shoes, you know, sleeping with whoever I wanted to for fun.”
“You don’t have sex for fun?” Daniel frowns.
This is all coming out wrong. “I mean, I have in the past. I guess I just got out of the swing of it as I got older.”
“How old are you?” he asks.
“Twenty-seven. I had a few boyfriends in high school and college, and then after that I had a long-term boyfriend. We broke up a year after my parents died.”
“Your parents died?”
I sip my drink; how did we get onto this subject?
Why did I say that?
“They were involved in a head-on collision car crash,” Rebecca replies; she knows how much I hate saying that out loud.
Daniel’s eyes come to me in a question.
“My mother died at the scene, my father died on the way to hospital. The driver that hit them had a heart attack and veered onto the wrong side of the road.” I feel the heaviness come over me as my chest constricts, and I glance up into the kind eyes of Rebecca, who gives me a soft smile and takes my hand across the table. I had just moved in with Rebecca at college when my parents died. She’s been my rock and a wonderful friend and has been there for me on many lonely sad nights.
“I’m so sorry,” Daniel whispers. “Do you have any other family?”
“Yes.” I smile. “I have a wonderful brother, Brad, and I have a sister who . . .” My voice trails off.
“Who what?” Daniel asks.
“Is a raving bitch,” Rebecca snaps. “I have no idea how the two of these girls are genetically related. They have nothing at all in common. Chalk and cheese.”
Daniel smiles in surprise as he looks between us. “Why, what’s she like?”
“Beautiful.” I sip my drink.
“Entitled and mean,” Rebecca interjects.
I smile sadly. “She’s not so bad. She’s taken our parents’ death the hardest and somehow her personality changed overnight. Brad and I have held each other up and limped along and yet, all she wanted to do is be on her own. She hasn’t handled grief the same as we have.”
“You don’t see her at all?” Daniel asks.
“No, I do see her,” I reply. “I’m just usually upset or ruffled after she leaves. You know when you spend time with someone and they kind of suck the life out of you. She likes money and fame and having the designer handbags and all her gorgeous boyfriends. I feel like”—I pause as I try to articulate myself—“I feel like she’s replacing our parents’ love with objects.”
“You don’t like designer things?”
“I guess.” I shrug. “Everyone likes nice things, don’t they? It’s just not my priority.”
“Kate is very good with her money,” Rebecca interrupts.
“That’s code for tight.” Daniel laughs as his eyes flick to me. “Are you tight, Kate?”
“I am not tight.”
“Oh, you are too,” Rebecca scoffs. “She won’t spend any money on herself at all and is always saving for a rainy day. She wears the same ten outfits and hides behind those big thick glasses.”
“I need them to see, Rebecca,” I announce, indignant. “And I just don’t see the point in spending a fortune on clothes and dressing up fancy all the time.”
“You work in central London with some of the hottest men in the capital and you’re too busy wearing sensible office clothes to attract any of them.”
I roll my eyes in disgust. “Trust me, there is no one at work worth impressing.”
Daniel’s eyes linger on me and, as amusement flashes across his face, he clinks his wineglass with mine.
“What?” I ask.
“I think I just found my new project.”
Four hours and three bottles of wine later, and with Stevie Nicks playing in the background, Daniel says, “Then what will I write?” He laughs.
We are sitting on the couch still talking way too much nonsense, and filling in a profile on a dating app for Daniel on my computer. Apparently this is a priority when you move to a new city.
Who knew?
The question reads: