Sauvignon Blanc

I was lying on the couch in my apartment watching television and eating pretzels when I heard my phone buzz. Tom and I had been texting back and forth a bit about our days, so I figured it was him. I was surprised to see it was a new message from Moose.

“Hey, how’s your week going?”

Moose had texted me the night I got back to California asking me how my flight was and now, a few days later, he was reaching out again. He wasn’t being flirty, though, and I did actually feel like he was trying to be a close friend.

“Is it Friday yet?” I asked before adding another message. “Haha, it’s okay. Work’s been tough but whatever. How about yours?”

Moose started talking to me about a new project he was working on. We chatted back and forth for a little while as I simultaneously flirted via text with Tom. Maybe things would work out this way. Maybe Moose and I could be really great friends and things with Tom could develop into something real. If only my work life could be going this well.

After my trip home, I was putting in at least 10 hours at work a day. I had to work on contacting new clients, creating new marketing proposals based on market research, and collecting more data from all of our customers for various reports that my Larson requested even though he basically ignored anything I ever gave him. So many people had been laid off that I felt like I was doing the work of five different departments.

The only positive was that Pete was by my side. We’d be two of the few people left in the office and he always came up with the best places to order dinner from. I don’t know where he found these places, but I made a mental note to expand my horizons from my usual spots.

“How’d you find this place?” I asked as I finished a bite of my thin crust pizza slice and closed my eyes as if that helped me savor it anymore.

“It was easy,” Pete began as he ripped off a piece of bread and popped it in his mouth. “I leave my apartment.”

I rolled my eyes as I took another delicious bite. Once I was done chewing, I replied, “As a matter of fact, I’m checking out a new restaurant tonight.”

“Oh, with that new guy?” Pete asked as he wiped his hands and began moving his computer mouse around.

“Yeah, Tom,” I responded. It really irritated me that Pete wouldn’t call him by his name. It was as if he didn’t think Tom was worth remembering.

“You doing anything else?” Pete asked before looking toward me and raising his eyebrows.

I shrugged and began to feel myself turning red. “Maybe,” I replied as I opened my laptop to get back to work. “Hey, can you send me that spreadsheet?”

“Nice transition,” Pete replied with a laugh.

After a long week, I did want to ‘do something else’ with Tom and I felt like it was time. Tom and I had been seeing each other for over a month and besides my minor confusion over Moose, things had been going extremely well. So, I put on my cutest bra and panty set that night as I got dressed to meet Tom at the restaurant.

Dinner was nice. Our conversation flowed well and before I knew it, he was asking me if I wanted to come over.

“Well, it is kind of late,” I began as I saw a look of disappointment form on his face. “So, only if I can stay the night.”

His expression immediately changed. “Oh, well, yes!”

I laughed as I leaned up and kissed him. The restaurant was close to his apartment, but Tom quickly took out his phone and ordered us a ride.

Once we walked through the door, Tom turned to me and asked if I wanted a glass of wine. “Sure,” I responded with a smile as I put my bag down. Tom walked into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.

As he poured the bottle, he asked, “Do you want to know a secret?”

I bit my bottom lip. Uh, oh. Was he about to tell me something weird? “Um, sure,” I replied with some reluctance.

Tom paused for a second as my suspense built. “Remember how you ordered Sauvignon Blanc on our first date?”

I cocked my head to the left as I thought. “Um, I guess.”

Tom laughed. “Well, the next day, I went out and bought this bottle of wine. I wanted to have it here even though I didn’t know when I was going to see you again. I knew I wanted to keep you around.”

I didn’t even take a sip of my wine before I pulled his face close to me and began kissing him. He slowly put the wine bottle and his glass down on an end table as he maintained our kiss. I put mine down, as well, before gripping his shirt and stepping backwards towards his bedroom.

We didn’t even speak as we made our way onto the bed. Tom was on top of me, slowly making his way down to the hem of my dress before shimmying it up my body and over my head. I followed suit and began unbuttoning his shirt. I had never seen Tom without a shirt and boy, he did not disappoint. He had really muscular arms and nicely toned abs. I had to hit the gym the next day. He kissed down my neck and made his way towards my breasts.

We continued playing around for a while before finally having sex. I let out a soft moan as I felt him fill me.

“I’m so happy you came over tonight, baby,” Tom softly whispered in my ear.

At that moment, I could not agree with Tom more.

This Guilty Feeling in my Stomach

My sister took a deep breath as her fingers gripped the wheel tighter.

“I guess you’ve got a handle on your road rage?” I asked as I slouched lower in the passenger seat.

“I try to utilize some deep breathing exercises,” Theresa said with a smile. “It’s working, isn’t it?”

It was late Sunday and my sister had graciously volunteered to drive me back to the airport. There was always traffic by JFK airport and my sister didn’t usually handle traffic well, so I was impressed by her cool demeanor.

To pass the time, and because I couldn’t really stop thinking about it, I told my sister the whole Moose situation. Everything. By the end, she was essentially stunned.

“So, even though you’re going back to California, he basically confessed his love to you?”

“You’re so dramatic,” I responded with a laugh. “He did not ‘confess his love.’ He was just drunk and said that he ‘thinks about me.’”

“Well, it sounds to me like love,” Theresa responded as she checked her blind spot and changed lanes. “So, now, what about Tom?”

I let out a sigh. “I know,” I responded as I rubbed my eyes. “I like Tom. And things are going really well with him. As soon as I got home from talking with Moose, I felt so much guilt as I really processed everything. But it’s complicated because we haven’t ‘defined the relationship,’ so I didn’t do anything wrong but, I don’t know, it doesn’t help me shake this guilty feeling in my stomach.”

“Maybe that means you should ‘define the relationship,’” my sister suggested. “Besides, if you haven’t slept together and you haven’t labeled it, you’re right. A kiss isn’t even that big of a deal.”

She was right. All I did was kiss Moose and I probably wouldn’t even see him again for a few months. I knew this from a logical standpoint, but I knew there was more I wasn’t admitting to myself: I couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss and how things would be different if I weren’t going back so soon.

But, like Moose said, we would have to work on our friendship before anything else. There were already so many other obstacles for us in addition to me being across the country and seeing someone else. I owed it to myself to see how things played out with Tom.

And once I landed in California, I turned my phone off airplane mode and saw that I had a text message from Tom. “I know you’re probably exhausted, but I’m unbelievably eager to see you. Want to grab dinner tomorrow night?”

I smiled and instantly accepted the invitation. Now I had something to look forward to after a grueling Monday back in the office.

The next day practically flew by as I got through all my emails and tasks for the day without many problems arising. I quickly changed into a romper before heading to the restaurant to meet Tom. We had a nice dinner and caught up about our weekends. He told me a little bit more about his mom and sister’s visit, when he added that Kim actually visits a lot.

“Her and her boyfriend are actually considering moving closer to the city,” he added before he took a sip of his red wine. “She’s going to be here again in a couple weeks and she actually, um, wanted me to see if we wanted to get dinner with the two of them.”

My heart began skipping a little faster. Dinner with the sister was definitely a sign that things were still moving in the right direction. He looked into my eyes with a sincere eagerness and I felt bad for even waiting a few seconds to respond.

“Of course,” I finally said with a smile. “She seems really cool. You guys are close, huh?”

“Not really,” Tom replied with a shrug. “You think she’s cool now, but I feel bad that you have to put up with her.” He laughed as he said this, so I smiled and took it in jest, as well. Still, the way Tom was talking made me really feel like this thing we had could be real. I tried to ignore the thought of my kiss with Moose as it lingered back into my head to make me feel guilty again.

Tom and I walked around the streets of Santa Monica, hand in hand, for a little while after dinner before he asked if I wanted to go back to his apartment. I contemplated for a moment. I was honestly more than ready to sleep with Tom, but I knew that I would be distracted if I went that night so I politely told him that I was tired.

“I completely understand,” Tom replied as he squeezed my hand. “Let me walk you back to your place?”

I happily accepted and slightly leaned against Tom. As we continued walking and talking, it became even clearer that we had so much in common and we had some real chemistry. I was so happy I hadn’t thrown any of this away.

When we arrived outside of my apartment, I turned and kissed Tom before he could even initiate. I wanted to show him that while we might have been moving somewhat slowly physically, it wasn’t due to a lack of sexual desire. I gripped my hands around his neck as I kissed him slow and deep. I felt his hands steady on my hips and began leaning my body closer to his. After a few minutes, I slowly pulled away.

“You know,” Tom began as he looked down and tried to suppress a smile. “Between that kiss and that romper you’re wearing, you’re making me very, very eager to see you again.”

“I hope so,” I replied as I kissed him again. “Let’s get together this week.”

“Deal,” Tom replied. After a few more minutes, his Lyft arrived and we had one last good night kiss.

Can we just talk?

I wiggled out of my wedges and slipped on flip-flops before grabbing my bag to head back out of my house.

I was home for a little while, sitting on my childhood bed and texting Moose, before I agreed to meet him at a park near my house. I walked down the street, looking at how all the houses on my block had changed and remembering how many high school nights I spent on these streets. I stood outside of the park for a few minutes before Moose arrived on a bicycle.

“You know, you can still get a DWI on one of those,” I said with a pointed look.

“Calm down, nerd,” he replied as he swung one leg over and off of the bicycle. “It would’ve taken me thirty minutes to walk here. Besides, it’s just back roads to your house and I’m barely even drunk anymore.”

I rolled my eyes. “I don’t believe that.”

“Which part?”

“That you’re not drunk anymore.”

Moose walked with the bike closer to me and soon, we were just walking down the street together. “I swear, I stopped drinking a couple hours ago. Why? Do I seem drunk to you?”

I let out a sigh. “Not in demeanor, but you never want to ‘talk’ about anything unless you’re hammered, so…”

“That’s so not true,” he quickly refuted.

“It so is true,” I responded. “Think about it. Have we ever discussed anything serious over the years before having a few drinks.”

Moose looked down at his feet. “Okay, you’re making it sound much worse than it is.”

“I’m not trying to make it sound like anything.”

“Fuck, Caroline,” Moose said as he looked over in my direction with the slightest curl at the corner of his mouth. “You know it’s not like that. It’s not that I’m only interested in talking to you when I’m drunk. It’s just, I don’t know, always been hard for me to talk about this stuff. Especially with you. You keep pretending like you don’t get that.”

For once, I actually didn’t have a response to Moose. He was kind of right. I knew how hard it was for him to communicate with me about what he was thinking or feeling, so why did I simply pretend like there was nothing going on?

“Maybe,” I began as I nervously bit my bottom lip. “Maybe I could’ve tried to help you open up a bit more. I’m sorry.”

“No, no,” Moose said as he stood up a little straighter as we walked. “You don’t have anything to apologize for. It’s my issue. I’ve always been like this.”

We walked in silence for a few seconds. “Well,” I began after thinking about it for a moment. “I’ve always tried to avoid confrontation, so I guess between the two of us, nothing is ever going to get addressed.”

He laughed. “Yeah.”

We were silent again for a few moments as we walked up and down different streets in my neighborhood.

“Hey,” I began as I placed a hand on Moose’s forearm and stopped walking. “I actually forgot why I was mad at you in the first place. We haven’t discussed that you had a girlfriend when we hooked up over the summer!”

Moose’s face and neck began turning red and I could practically see the tension forming in his neck. “Oh, yeah. Well, it wasn’t that serious yet and I mean, that’s no excuse. My behavior that night was totally inexcusable and disgusting. I’m sorry things went as far as they did and I’m glad you suggested stopping it when you did. I thought you stopped me because you knew about her.”

“I wouldn’t have even let you kiss me if I knew about her,” I asserted.

“Let me kiss you?” Moose asked with a smirk. “Uh, you went to kiss me.”

“Oh, please,” I responded with an eye roll. “First of all, you totally kissed me. And second of all, that is so not the point.”

Moose laughed before a saddened look took over his face again. “I know. And you’re right. Caroline, you have no idea, I have thought about that night over and over again and how I could’ve done things differently to not be such an ass. But,” Moose took a deep sigh before continuing. “No matter how many times I go over it, I don’t regret that we kissed. Jacky and I broke up a couple months later and I mean, we had a good relationship and everything, but I barely think about her. You know who I do think about? You.”

We both stopped in our tracks. For the second time during the conversation, I was speechless. Moose was finally opening up and I couldn’t help but quickly wonder how my life would’ve or could’ve been different if he had just done this years ago. Could things possibly change now?

Regardless of what could be, the fact still remained that I lived across the country.

“I think about you a lot, too,” I responded. It wasn’t a total lie, but I left out that the past few months, I only thought about how disrespectful he had been towards me. “I mean, we’re not even friends like we used to be.”

“Well, whose fault is that, Miss California?”

I laughed. “No, but I mean before that. We never really hung out just the two of us like we used to and we couldn’t really have a conversation without there being tension.”

“Fair enough,” Moose responded. “How about this? Let’s work on our friendship. I promise to talk to you more and not make things weird if you promise to try and not kiss me again.”

I laughed and playfully rolled my eyes. “Okay, I’ll try.”

“Okay, we have a deal,” Moose said before turning towards me and pausing. “But before that, I need to do one more thing.”

Then, Moose leaned down and gave me a deep, passionate kiss. I damned myself when my knees weaken.