What Love Looks Like by Lara Mondoux Page A

ticket.”
    “That’s amazing.
Thank you!”
    “Oh, my pleasure .”
    “How ever will I repay you?”
    “Oh, I know exactly how,” he said, arousing me.
“You’re flying into LaGuardia on a Friday morning and staying until Sunday.
Sound good?”
    “Sounds perfect.
I can’t wait.”
    “Neither can I.”
    “So how was your
weekend?”
    “You know, same
old,” he said vaguely. Sometimes I got the impression that he was unwilling to share
details of what he’d been up to. I knew he liked to party, and maybe he sensed
that I wasn’t exactly a wild child and toned it down so as not to put me off.
    “Care to
elaborate?”
    “Not really.” He
chuckled.
    “Come on, I want
to know what you do when I’m not around!”
    “All right, all
right. I was up till about 4:00 a.m. last night at my buddy’s house playing
poker. Just a bunch of dudes. After, we went to this place, Café Citron. And
tonight I’m going to a preseason Yankees game with some people from work.”
    “Sounds like a
fun weekend,” I said with envy.
    Our
conversations never lasted long. Truth be told, we didn’t have a whole lot to
talk about other than how we felt about each other. Of course I found that fact
mildly alarming, but the moment I remembered his face my fears always quelled. In
the very beginning, every new discovery about him was like uncovering a hidden
treasure. But now that we'd answered most of the basic questions about one
another, we were struggling to maintain interest in each other’s daily lives,
which we really knew so little about. But before hanging up the phone, we ended
all of our conversations with “I miss you,” which was a huge step in the right
direction.

 
    Later
that night, I was back at work. The dinner I’d arranged was for a group of
financial advisers who ordered our top-of-the-line banquet menu, which rang in
at $125 per person. I projected a roughly $11,000-event after calculating in
the wine that I sold them, which meant a decent payoff for Maureen and me. The
event was held in our Board Room. It was an impressive space that sat up to
forty-five comfortably. The two large flat-screen televisions appealed to our
largely male clientele. White tablecloths adorned sixty-inch round tables, and
the elegant burgundy and aubergine chairs were both plush and decorative. The
deep colors of the room lent themselves to both intimate and corporate-style
events. I had spent a lot of late nights in that room and had grown to know
every inch of it well.
    When
the event ended, I stuck around as I always did and helped the servers tidy up
the room. Most of the guests had made their way to the bar. One man lingered,
though. He was one of the younger guys in the group and was a quirky sort of
handsome. He timidly asked if I was allowed to have drinks with clients after
work. Part of me wanted to oblige him, if only because I almost never had any
stories about my social life to share with Jay (lately I’d taken to making up
stories up just so I wouldn’t seem boring). But I declined. Somehow I thought
that having a drink with the financial adviser would be disloyal to Jay, even
though there’d been no mention of exclusivity.
    “Why didn’t you
take him up on his offer?” Ryan asked, startling me. Evidently, he’d heard the
entire conversation.
    “That guy? Oh I
don’t know—I’m not really in the mood.”
    “Are you sure
it’s not because of the other guy from New York?”
    “Well, yes
that’s part of it too,” I said.
    “You’re going to
have to turn down a lot of guys right here in Columbus if you stay with him.”
    “What are you
talking about?”
    “Elle, I’ve
worked tons of events with you, and I see how often the guys here hit on you,”
he said. Strangely, I sensed frustration in his voice.
    “You’re crazy.”
    “You just can’t
tell when it’s happening. When they’ve had a few drinks and come over and start
talking your ear off at the end of the night, it’s not because they want