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That I’m real.
For a second, I don’t think it’s going to work. I think he’s going to keep ignoring me. Finally he gives in. “Are you going to elaborate or am I supposed to guess?”
“I’ve never been on a real date either.” I don’t look at him when I say it. I look past him, past his profile and out the window behind it. “I mean, Jeremy takes me to dinner and to the theater and the occasional gala but none of that counts.”
His jaw tightens like a fist. “Sounds like a date to me, Daisy.”
I’ve never felt the nervous jumble of butterflies in the pit of my stomach while waiting for your escort to knock on your door. Help you with your coat. Open your door.
Kiss you goodnight.
I’m twenty-five years old and this is the closest I’ve ever come. Eating diner food with a man that can barely seem to tolerate me unless he’s fucking me, before going to find my drunk, degenerate father at a local dive bar. And I can’t even seem to do that right.
“It’s not.” I turn in my seat to aim my gaze out the windshield.
“Has he ever kissed you?”
Of course, Jeremy’s kissed me. We’ve been pretending to be in love for the past eight years. But never in private. Always for an audience. “None of that counts either.”
From the corner of my eye, I watch his jaw clench. His hands tighten around the steering wheel. “Take it from an incorrigible manwhore like me, Daisy—it all counts.”
Before I can say anything, he pulls into the portico in front of my building. Turning in his seat, he shifts into park but doesn’t kill the engine. “Thanks for the dinner company.” He gives me a quick flash of his dimples.
“Do you want to come up?” I make myself look at him, sticking my gaze to his face and refusing to let it slide. “There’s a parking garage with an employee elevator. We wouldn’t have to go through the lobby.” As soon as it comes out of my mouth, I wonder what’s wrong with me. Why I keep picking at him like a scab. Why I want to make him bleed.
The smile fades. “Some other time,” he says. And that’s all he says. No excuses. No made-up reason for why he can’t.
“Okay.” I nod, just as the doorman opens my door and offers me his hand to help me out of the car. “Goodnight, Conner.”
“Seeya, Daisy.”
He shifts into gear as soon as the doorman pulls me out of the car. Within seconds, all that’s left of him is the flash of taillights, fading in the dark.