Page 81 of The Match Faker
“Well.” He elongates the word, his lips tipping up. “I promise, it’s fun.” He takes my hand again. “Okay if we walk? It’s not too far. I wouldn’t do that to your poor feet.” He nods to my high-heeled boots. A considerate gentleman.
I’d put it on the scoresheet if I didn’t feel so unstable in the heels in question all of a sudden.
He side-eyes me as we step outside. “And you might think it’s a little kooky.”
“Kooky is good,” I say.
It pleases him, if the way his eyes light up in response is any indication.
We stop at an intersection and wait for the light to change. Nick takes his wallet out and discreetly presses a bill into the hand of the unhoused man shivering against the mailbox nearby. It should melt my heart. Endear him to me further. But at this point I’m numb to it. Detached from every feeling I should have for him, all the ways he’s shown me exactly why we matched with each other so well.
He leads me down a side street and at the next intersection, we turn onto King Street. My stomach drops. King Street is a long street, there are hundreds of potential destinations. There’s a good chance where we’re going isn’t even on King Street at all.
So what if we just so happen to be walking in the direction of Moonbar.
“Where are we going?” I ask, my steps slowing, thoughts racing.
He runs his hand through his hair, looking sheepish. “So, I got hit by a bus, right?”
“Yeah. How are you doing by the way?” I can’t believe I haven’t asked him about that yet; I’ve been so caught up in my own head.
The sidewalks are filled with inebriated twenty-somethings. Navigating King Street on a Saturday night is like playing a game of dodgeball where the balls are human beings with delayed reaction time who get in the way of your dodge. A man runs from a bar, cutting right in front of us, and Nick puts his arm out to stop us from colliding. The man pukes next to a perfectly empty trash can.
“I’m fine. Totally fine,” Nick says. “Like, miraculously fine.” He squeezes my hand, leading me forward again. “But the reason it happened is because I was rushing, not paying attention, you know?”
A woman screams directly behind us, the sound so bone-chilling the hair on the back of my neck stands up. My fight instincts kick in but are quickly doused when she follows the scream with a cackle and staggers past us with her friend on her arm.
Nick and I wince and laugh in tandem. “Sorry,” he says. “I should have anticipated this.”
“It’s fine,” I lie. Whatever it is, it is not fine. I am not fine.
“Anyway, I’m in this rush to get to our date,” he says.
His hand is warm in mine, so warm I can feel him through my leather gloves. Notmygloves, actually. These are Nick’s gloves.
“I’m crossing the street, jaywalking because who doesn’t, right? And I get clipped, which sounds like no big deal, but turns out getting clipped by a bus will throw you into a car fifteen feet away.”
My stomach lurches at the image he creates. “Oh my god.”
“My doctors think the coma was how my brain protected itself, you know? And when I woke up in that hospital bed, Ithought,oh fuck. I couldn’t remember what happened, but by the look of all the machines surrounding me, I knew it must be bad. And then…” He shrugs. “It wasn’t. They couldn’t explain it, but honestly, I didn’t ask any questions. It was a wakeup call. A reminder to slow down, stop taking things for granted. A real YOLO moment as the kids say.”
I wince. I don’t need Jade to tell me that the kids don’t say that.
“Yeah, that makes sense. I’m so relieved.” And I mean it. Nick is a good man and I hate to think what might have happened, or what his loss could have meant for his corner of the world.
The night is temperate for early March, but his nose and cheeks are pink from the cold. It’s easier to watch him like this, in profile, than to look him in the eye. One degree of separation that gives me the space I need to calm myself.
“That’s why I wanted to come here,” he says, stopping on the sidewalk and taking my other hand in his. “It would be easy to say this was cursed or bad luck, but I wanted to come back. Or come for the first time. And what’s more YOLO than karaoke.” He points over my shoulder.
I turn, that sense of detachment and unreality back as I take in what I already knew I’d find: Moonbar in neon.
I’m going to be sick.
“I…I…”
He’s already opening the door.
“Nick, I…”