No Strings

“Did I say hours?” Sarah put down her champagne glass. “With your hot self, looks like you just had to wait a minute.”

Emma’s phone dinged once more. And then, a third time.

What have I gotten myself into?

Sarah grabbed her phone. She began scrolling through options. “Nope. No. Oh, God...no.” Sarah held up the phone and showed Emma a picture of a man trying to shove a foot-long hot dog in his mouth in one go. Emma wrinkled her nose. Who would want to have sex with...that?

“I feel like I’ve just wandered into an ugly bar, and I’m going to spend the next twenty-four hours being harassed.”

“Maybe.” Sarah flicked through a few more pictures. “Oh my. Here’s the man for you.” She showed Emma another one, this one of a man in a full Spider-Man suit, his face covered.

Emma barked a laugh. “No, it’s not. Look at his... You know.” She pointed to the picture’s groin where his very little bit was fully outlined for nearly all to see.

“Ew!” Sarah cried and dissolved into giggles. “No baby carrots for you!”

Sarah flicked through a few more. “Oh, this guy is nice. Mr. X? Sounds...intriguing.”

“Mr. X? Uh, no.” Emma shook her head.

Sarah kept flipping. Then, she stopped on one. “Ooh...he’s cute.” Sarah showed the screen to Emma and showed a blond, blue-eyed thirty-something in a suit.

“I guess so.” Emma shrugged.

“Guess so? He’s one hundred percent Christian Grey. And even his name is cute... Happy Fun Time! I am setting this up.”

“Sarah!” Emma tried to grab her phone. “Don’t!”

“You’re on for tomorrow night, at the bar in the Ritz-Carlton downtown.”

Emma blew a strand of hair out of her face. “Why did you do that?”

“Because I knew you wouldn’t.”

CHAPTER TWO (#u642a87a7-22e6-5654-8e97-14fcca252f06)

EMMA HAD SPENT twenty-four hours trying to figure out a way to cancel this date. But as Sarah had pointed out countless times, it was only a drink. If she didn’t like Mr. Happy Fun Time, she could simply walk out of the bar and never talk to him again. Yet, the idea of meeting a man just for sex, well, she just didn’t know if she’d be able to go through with it, even if she wanted to.

I’m just going to meet him. Have a drink. Then, tell him politely that maybe we could have more dates before we...uh...do it... IF we ever do it and that’s a big if.

Emma would need about six dates before she’d even consider taking her clothes off. Maybe twelve. Emma realized with a start that she’d never even had sex with a man she wasn’t almost or totally in love with already. When her friends were hooking up in college, she was tied to her high school boyfriend long-distance. Then after college, she began her relationship with Devin. That was before he took a job in Seattle and told her they ought to see other people six months ago.

Emma had thought they’d been headed for marriage, but turns out, she was just headed for...dating apps.

She stood before her closet studying the contents and wondering what on earth she was supposed to wear on this date that was almost, surely going nowhere.

“Hmmm,” she muttered, as she pulled out a flowered sundress which screamed summer and wouldn’t work for the cool September night she was expecting. Besides, it showed too much leg. Don’t want to give the wrong impression, she thought. Oh, wait, I already have, because this is NOST.

No strings.

She sighed and pulled out a black turtleneck sweater. Maybe she ought to show up wearing this and baggy sweatpants and see whether or not she’d send the shallow Mr. Happy Fun Time running. She grinned to herself, but then decided against it. She put the sweater back in her closet and tried to dig around for something middle of the road. Emma lamented the fact that she was wasting so much mental energy on what she was going to wear on a date that she didn’t even want to have in the first place. She ought to be outlining more chapters in that book she planned to write.

She glared at the closet, wishing it was her computer screen.

“I should cancel this date,” she told her closet. “I should text him and cancel.”

She whipped out her phone and pulled up the Nost app. Then Mr. Happy Fun Time’s picture came up: blond, sophisticated suit, like a successful and rich businessman. Well, what could it hurt? Just because his picture looked like something she’d find on a corporate About Us page didn’t mean that he was all that stuffy. Maybe he had a sense of humor. Maybe he’d be quick-witted. Maybe he’d just buy me drinks, she thought, as she remembered her less than stellar bank account balance that month. The freelance gigs had been a little less than hot and heavy these last few weeks, and she’d had to lean on credit cards more than she’d like.

I don’t need men to buy me anything, she reminded herself. Just because her budget was tight didn’t mean that she wasn’t a fully functional independent woman. One more reason to cancel. She was already buying into the patriarchy—the idea that this guy in the suit should buy her a drink.

Of course, Sarah would say that casual sex proved her independence from men. Emma shook her head. Feminism was complicated. She glanced once more at her closet, grabbed a pair of jeans and one of her favorite off-the-shoulder sweaters and paired it with a pair of ankle boots, no heel. Emma stood five-seven, so she already knew she was better off assuming Mr. Happy Fun Time was shorter than her. Emma didn’t care, but she knew men did. It had been her experience that men lied about their height. He said he was five-eleven, but that could mean anything.

She pulled on her outfit, dusted on some light makeup and then checked out her reflection in the mirror. Even she could tell she looked tense, even when she plastered on a fake smile and tossed her blond hair over one shoulder.

This is just research, she told herself. She’d take mental notes and then have a hell of a story to pitch to her editor tomorrow.

She nodded at herself in the mirror, meeting her clear blue-eyed gaze. “One drink,” she told herself. “An hour tops.”

* * *

Emma sat at the upscale bar in the Ritz-Carlton bathed in the fading sunlight of early evening beaming down through the canopy of windows encasing the tastefully decorated lounge. She felt self-conscious as she nursed the Hendrick’s and tonic she’d ordered from the bartender and kept checking her phone. Where was Mr. Happy Fun Time? He was seven minutes late was what he was. Emma glanced once more around the bar and saw three women chatting happily around a coffee table in the lounge, two men in business suits that were about ten years too old to be Mr. Happy Fun Time and both brunettes, and a tourist sitting in the corner in a leather armchair, wearing a St. Louis Cardinals jersey and looking more than a tad underdressed in the swanky bar with the white leather couches and the enclosed-window view of the impressive buildings in Chicago’s Loop. She gazed out the window, across the way at the copper-colored windows of the Time Life office building across the street, and wondered how long she ought to stay before abandoning this futile exercise altogether.

Until I finish this drink, she promised herself, as she rattled the ice cubes around the cocktail glass and took another deep sip of the clear liquid. No date and no story. She couldn’t help but feel a pang of disappointment. Not because she wanted casual sex, but because she had started to like the idea of writing a story about her first Nost date. Skewering it relentlessly. She’d already thought of about 500 words she’d like to cram in it about women’s self-esteem and respecting yourself and a whole lecture she planned to give about the dangers of embracing casual sex. Feeling someone watching her, she glanced up and saw Cardinals Jersey staring. He had a matching baseball hat, too. Bold move wearing rival team paraphernalia in Chicago. She glanced away and focused on her phone. No messages, no Sorry, I’m running late, or anything. Figures. Not like one-night stand seekers cared about manners. Emma studied her drink. Three more sips, probably, and she’d leave.

A new man came to sit in the lounge and she glanced up, hopeful it was Mr. Happy Fun Time, but realized instantly he wasn’t. He was much, much taller than five-eleven, probably at least six-two, and looked like a former wide receiver with broad shoulders, big hands and thick, muscled arms. He seemed to almost change the atmosphere of the lounge somehow, as everyone took notice of the dark-haired stranger who strode confidently to the bar. He slid into an empty stool at the end of her row and signaled the bartender. That was a man, she thought, his muscles evident even through the thick fabric of his shirt. He was a smidgen older than her. Early thirties, maybe? He had a smooth olive complexion but piercing, hazel eyes, not quite green, almost golden.

Wow, but the man had a body. Trim waist, thick legs. He had to be a professional athlete, she thought. Did she know him? Blackhawks? Cubs? Something. Had to be. A body like that was made to be put to work. That was a body that could make a million-dollar contract, no doubt. Model? Maybe he was a model. Or an action star. Someone from the cast of Chicago Fire? Seemed like he had to be famous.

He glanced up for a second, and sent her the smallest quirk of a smile, and that was when she realized she was staring at him like an idiot. She grabbed her phone and glanced down, wondering if he realized she’d been mentally undressing him. Emma felt a blush creep up the back of her neck. I must have sex on the brain, she thought. Look! Nost is already working.

He was handsome, she admitted to herself as she tried not to openly stare. He had jet-black hair and wore a button-down shirt tucked into dark washed jeans. His arms looked muscled even through the fabric of his shirt, and his stomach was flat and hard, not a hint of unfit abs anywhere. He wore a watch on his wrist that even from a distance looked expensive, but no wedding ring, Emma noticed. The bartender served him a top-shelf rye on the rocks. The man took a sip as he pulled out his phone.

This is why we have to use apps all the time, Emma lamented. We don’t see who’s right in front of us.

It reminded Emma of the time her mother asked her why she didn’t just go out with her friends to meet someone. This was why, she inwardly groaned. All the best prospects kept their noses in their phones. Her own phone dinged with an incoming alert, and she grabbed it from the bar. Maybe it was Mr. Happy Fun Time.

She glanced at her phone and saw a message from Nost all right, but it hadn’t come from Happy Fun Time. It had come from “Mr. X,” the same profile that had popped up earlier yesterday. Emma saw a timer already going on the profile signaling how much time she had to reply. Emma also noticed he had both a v and c next to his name: verified and clear, she remembered. Good. That was good.

Just wanted to say hi, since you’re in my neighborhood.

Neighborhood? Huh?

How did you know that?She typed quickly, glancing around, almost as if she’d find someone staring at her.

The maps feature?He offered.

Emma literally smacked her own forehead. Of course. The “who’s closest to me on Nost right now” map. Or, as she liked to think about it, the I have to get laid right now and anybody will do, ANYBODY in a one square mile area feature. She glanced at the map and saw the markers and realized about a dozen Nost users were in the vicinity, hell, the very building she was in. But I’m in a hotel, so duh. She tried to figure out where Mr. X might be, but couldn’t quite make it out. There were so many little triangles, they all overlapped in one big blob.

What does Mr. X stand for?she asked.