“This is a lot of work in order to have sex,” she said as she power-walked—she was running late—down Second Avenue to the Upper East Side brunch place Logan had suggested. It sounded like something she would say to Max. It was something she would say to Max—and then he would remind her that he could be on an airplane within two hours. She and Max, to her continuing surprise, had settled into a real friendship. They talked on the phone every few days, reporting in on their New Year’s resolution progress and shooting the breeze about life in general.
But she wasn’t talking to Max now; she was talking to Leo. She hadn’t taken Max up on his offer to be the person she checked in with before and after her date. For some reason, she was perfectly comfortable joking with Max about her sex problems, including him being the solution to them, but when it came to reporting in to him about actually having sex . . . not so much. It felt weird. Just like when she’d talked to Max on the phone on New Year’s Eve and she suddenly hadn’t known what to say when it became clear he’d been entertaining a guest earlier that evening.
“Maybe you need a friend with benefits,” Leo said.
She pushed thoughts of Max aside. “Maybe this guy can be that. How does one broach that subject?”
“Wait until after the deed is done. No need to sign him up for the gig until you know if he has the right qualifications, if you know what I mean.”
That made sense, but she hoped Logan worked out. It had taken her so long to find him. Honestly, she’d thought the whole point of Tinder was that it was easy. Apparently if you had standards, it wasn’t any easier than the real world. When she’d talked to Max about New Year’s resolutions, she’d expected “get divorced” to be the hard one. But here it was the end of February and she’d had a promising initial meeting with a lawyer, but she still hadn’t had sex.
She thought about Max’s rule about singular encounters only. That might be smarter, if less efficient, than setting up a regular thing with someone. Less risk of anyone getting too attached. Not that she was in danger of doing that. That was why she had her list. She’d perused it on the subway, in fact. Even though she had it memorized, she liked to look at it with her own eyeballs sometimes, to see it there in black and white.
She slowed as the restaurant came into view. Logan was on the patio. He looked exactly like his photos, which was something she’d been led to believe often wasn’t the case. “Oh,” she said to Leo, “I am going to have fun.”
She did not have fun.
It started with the fact that the restaurant was a keto place.
“Brunch with no bread!” she’d joked after ordering “pancakes” made out of cream cheese and eggs. “Life with no bread!” She thought about the pasta she and Max had hoovered before Christmas. “Or pasta!”
“Ketosis is no joke,” Logan said after ordering a breakfast “sandwich” in which the “bread” was sausage patties, as well as an assortment of meaty side dishes. “You would not believe what can happen when your body goes into ketosis.”
“Right, sorry.” Note to self: no ketosis jokes. She wasn’t completely clear on what ketosis actually was, but apparently it wasn’t funny. But that was fine. Once they were done with this initial meeting, they didn’t need to eat together. “So, the keto diet. That must be a lot of work.”
“Not really. Once you experience the amazing effects of it, you realize that it is so, so worth it. But actually, I’m transitioning to the carnivore diet.”
“What’s that? Like you only eat meat?” She laughed.
“Yes.”
Oh, jeez, he was serious.
“Well,” he added, “eggs, too. Some people allow dairy, but I haven’t had dairy for four years, so obviously I’m not about to start now.”
“Obviously.”
“Some people do a little kale as well.”
“Meat, eggs, and kale. Wow.” His breath must be really bad. “And you said you’re a fitness engineer? What does that mean? I’m imagining you building treadmills, but that’s probably not right.”
“I work on mountain bike suspension systems, mostly.”
“That sounds interesting.” She wondered if people in Eldovia mountain biked.
Their food came, and silence descended. She’d hoped he might ask her some questions, to keep things from getting awkward, and to keep her from having to do all the work, but he didn’t. She glanced at his bulging biceps and reminded herself that after this, it didn’t matter if he was a bad conversationalist who only ate rib eyes.
“Do people mountain bike in the Alps, or is that more of a North American thing?” she asked. “I have a friend who lives in the Eldovian Alps.” She couldn’t see Max mountain biking. The thought of suave, icy-cool Max careening down a mountain wearing all that ugly gear amused her. She had no doubt he’d be good at it if he set his mind to it. She’d never seen him not wearing a suit, so she had no idea how his biceps would measure up to the Carnivore’s, but he had a grace and an easy physicality that probably made him good at rich-people sports.
“There’s a scene over there,” Logan said.
He did not elaborate, so in her quest to keep the conversation going, she asked him some more questions, which he answered cordially but briefly. Eventually she gave up. She had done more than her share, and if the Carnivore wanted silence, she was okay with that.
“So what do you like to do?” Logan said through a mouthful of bacon.
At last, a question about her. Too bad she didn’t have a good answer for it. I like to read books by nineteenth-century women writers and analyze them. But maybe not as much as I should. Okay, no. This was not the venue for a chat about her slow-moving career crisis. She thought about telling him about her secret project, but she hadn’t even told Max yet. She tried to think of something this dude would not find a total turnoff. “I’m a big fan of the beach.” That was true. “My parents live on Long Island, and—”
“No. I mean, what do you like to do?” He waved his hand between them and raised his eyebrows.
“Oh.” She wasn’t sure why the question was so shocking. She’d been up front about the fact that she was not looking for a relationship. In a way, she appreciated the direct approach. “Uh, well . . . I guess I like to go with the flow?”
He shrugged like that was an acceptable if not optimal answer and turned to his final side dish, which was some kind of pulled pork concoction. “Yeah, okay, I was just wondering what turned you on.”
Not you.
Ugh. That was terrible. Asking her that question was more than most guys would do. In her experience before Vince, which was admittedly quite a few years ago now, men usually had to be directed fairly explicitly if she wanted to have any fun herself. So she gave Logan’s question serious consideration. She’d been turned on a lot lately. In fact, the sudden return of desire to her life was what had prompted this exercise to begin with. That accidental hug with Max in Central Park had started it, but then it had . . . not gone away, like a faucet left on.
Except now. It had gone away now. Someone had turned off the tap. She just kept thinking of all that meat being shoveled into the mouth that would, if all went according to plan, soon be on her. She wasn’t a vegetarian, but—yuck. She tried to focus on Logan’s unnaturally good looks, but she kept thinking about the meat mouth. So she transferred her attention to his biceps. Still nothing. She was back to being dead inside.