All the Frogs in Manhattan Read online

  Sam was already waiting for me when I get to the waiting room.

  "Those fuckers are relentless." She pats gently at her crotch and I know the feeling. It stings, but I'm relieved it's over.

  "Let's go take a walk in the park." Sam skips out of the salon, her mood chipper for a Saturday morning at the end of June.

  But I don't bring her mood down. It's beautiful outside and Central Park is probably beautiful at this time of early afternoon. The city is practically empty, all of the residents have flocked to the Hamptons or other vacation homes. After a rough workweek, all I want to do is grab an ice cream cone and sit by the pond.

  Central Park isn't mobbed with people like it is in the spring, but there are a decent number of runners and intramural sports teams out at this hour. We begin to walk, falling into step together and checking our walking apps before putting our phones back in our purses.

  “Did you pay the rent?” The thought jumped into my brain as I watched a couple buy two hot dogs from a vendor.

  “Yep, and the cable bill. Dude, my fault that the bill was so high, I drunkenly bought Deadpool like five times On Demand last month. Ryan Reynolds is just too fucking hot. I pause it on his ass for like ten minutes each time.”

  I shake my head at her nonsense. “It’s fine, it’s just coming out of your alcohol share for the month. You owe me a bottle of Riesling.”

  Sam pounds a fist to my own. “Not like you’ve been home much. The Hamptons, work, Oliver. It’s like you actually have a boyfriend. Don’t become one of those crazy girls who dumps all of her friends the moment she feels like she found the one.”

  My steps stutter a bit. “I haven’t been that absent, have I? And Oliver is a friend that has a penis. We are sex buds. That’s all, I’m not like shacking up or posting vomit-inducing selfies of us on Instagram.”

  And it was true. After the weekend in the Hamptons, he’d gone over to the wacko Dean’s house and even went in to get my stuff when I was too chicken to face him and his parents. Their group of friends would probably spread slut rumors about me in the city for going home with another guy, but I didn’t even care.

  The weird vibe between Oliver and I remained throughout the car ride home, but he insisted on driving me all the way home to the West Village. We talked over the awkwardness, about his family, his life back in California. He inquired about my parents, about what it was like growing up in New Jersey. We talked about things that we never normally talked about, mundane details and get to know you stuff. It wasn’t boring, but it wasn’t our usual banter. We both knew that we’d crossed some sort of line by having a sleep over, by staying in the same bed. I wouldn’t say that my feelings towards him had changed, but maybe we were both trying to ignore the fact that we’d broken the arrangement.

  We both probably felt the same way about things, but were too scared to voice it for fear of making the situation even worse. If we said something, it made the tension real.

  After about five days, he’d texted me asking if I wanted to come over around 10:30 p.m. I wanted to go, to see him and to have sex, and so … I did. The whole cab ride there, my stomach had been in knots. But when I finally got to his mansion of an apartment, and saw him, and talked to him … I realized that maybe I’d been imagining it all in my head. Oliver was the same Oliver. We bantered for a few minutes and then got right down to it, this time in his actual bed strictly missionary style. I came once with a bit of finicking and him letting me basically rub myself on his pelvis from below using my feet to dig into his ass. All was right again, and for that I was glad.

  Sam listens to me as she scrolls through her phone. Only after I’ve walked a few feet forward do I realize she’s not next to me anymore. “Sam, what—”

  “No. Fucking. Way.” She’s staring at her phone as if it contains the magic secret to losing weight without diet or exercise.

  “What?” I stroll back to her, my flip-flops clacking on the black pavement.

  Instead of answering, my roommate just thrusts her phone in my face, an Instagram picture lighting up the screen. I get closer, squinting my eyes at the photo of someone’s hand. And a very large rock sitting on a certain left finger. It’s pear-shaped with little halo diamonds running along the outside edges, and it’s freaking huge.

  “Nice rock,” I comment. I have seven just like it saved on my wedding Pinterest board.

  “No, look who’s it is!” Sam jumps up and down like a rabid dog.

  Staring at the screen once more, I check the upper left hand corner for the user who posted it.

  What the fuck?

  “Why is Myra posting a picture of an engagement ring?” I’m thoroughly confused.

  “Because Jase freaking asked her to marry him! Are you kidding me?! What is this world that we’re living in?” She throws her hands up and looks to the sky as if God will giver her an answer to this lunacy.

  Me? I’m just gobsmacked. Anger and jealousy rage through my veins, filling me up and turning my organs green with poison. Myra is engaged? She’s only known the guy for a couple of months. And she doesn’t even believe in marriage!

  “How … how did this happen?” I stutter because I just don’t believe what I’m seeing with my own two eyes.

  Sam laughs as if this is the slightest bit funny. “You know her, she was always bound to do this. Either that or marry someone and tell us about it three months later. Who knows if it will even make it to the wedding?”

  I can’t hear her over the numbness in my ears. I date, all the time. I search and I search and I search and always end up finding the worst kind of men, the rejects or the assholes or the totally and completely undateable. And Myra … freaking MYRA, ends up engaged and walking towards the alter before me?! This is the girl who had a lesbian phase for a whole year. This is the girl who went on drunken rants to us at every bar we went to. Rants about how monogamy and marriage were overrated, how men were the keepers of all evil and she’d never be shackled to one like some “female slave of the system.”

  I couldn’t fucking believe it. I should be happy for my friend, should be overjoyed that she found her soul mate and is getting married. But the jealous part of me, the voice inside me that keeps telling me I’ll end up alone, is taking over. The big green monster is making everything inside of me completely toxic.

  “I think I’m going to go for a walk. Alone if that’s okay.” My vision is hazy.

  Sam peers over at me, finally catching onto the horrible panic attack that’s seizing me. “Hey, Gem, this doesn’t mean a thing. We are still twenty-five, younger than the average person getting married these days. You haven’t even lived yet, you don’t need a man to tie you down.”

  But she was wrong. I wanted one, more than I could say. Sure, I loved my career, was happy with my apartment and friends. But I felt it in my heart, there was something missing. I’d been single for a long time, and had always dreamed of finding someone young and spending all of the good years and the bad ones together until we were old and gray. That may sound stupid or romanticized, but it was my wish and it was how I wanted my life to be.

  “I know all of that. I just … need some time.” I was too wrapped up in the panic and jealousy seizing my heart.

  “All right, let me know if I can help with anything. Just text me if you want to go for a drink later or something. I love you.” Sam hugged me, but she knew I needed space. She was a good friend. Unlike me right now.

  After she walked off in the other direction, I aimlessly walked through the park. Sunlight filtered through the trees, and children laughed or ran from their doting parents. A couple with two golden retrievers lay in the grass while they took turns flinging a Frisbee for the dogs to catch. Life went on, even as my heart was aching.

  I thought about the other side of the park. Central Park at night, when creeps and drug dealers invaded. My mother would send me articles through email every week about the most recent bust or rape in the park, warning me never to come here after dusk. My mother was
a walking ball of worry; constantly posting on Facebook about things that caused cancer or how women over thirty could no longer conceive due to the atmosphere.

  It was because of her that I was having an anxiety breakdown on this gorgeous summer day. I loved the woman, and all she’d done for me, but I was a nutcase when it came to things I couldn’t control. And I blamed her.

  Wouldn’t it just be easier if you were handed a slip of paper in grade school that listed the person’s name and physical attributes of who you were supposed to be with. Why did life make it so hard to find him? If we were supposed to pair off and procreate, shouldn’t God or whoever was up there past the Empire State Building and the clouds just clue us in on who that was supposed to be?

  I’d take a sign any day now.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Oliver

  Having been to both coasts for prolonged periods of time, I can attest that they are vastly different.

  The East Coast is all drive and reserved power. People show wealth and happiness by buttoning up, raising their noses, and commanding respect. They talk fast, work loud, and live by their job titles.

  The West Coast is the total opposite. It’s a slower pace of life out here, the warm weather and ocean breezes suffuse into the skin and make people more mellow. They have careers, but don’t live and die by them. The food is more organic, fresher and less heavy. If you want to take off in the middle of a workday to surf because the swell is good, that’s just what you do. Clothing is optional out here, and the people are just a little less judgmental.

  “You need to move back out here, man.” Ian Hickens, one of the most successful restauranteurs in California, hands me a bottle of beer after he hikes his surfboard into the sand.

  “Yeah, don’t you miss that view?” Archie Nole, an old friend from my college days, points to a group of blondes with long legs and even perkier asses.

  I sigh, leaning my head back and inhaling that salty air. The Hamptons is nice, but it’s no San Francisco. I miss the vibe out here, my friends, my family. I flew back a couple of days ago and have been making the rounds. It’s really a two week trip to see how my small California branch of Graphite was running, with a few days of personal pleasure in between. Whenever I came out, I stayed with Ian. He was barely home due to his successful three restaurants, and I loved my mom and dad but couldn’t stand the thought of my every movement being catalogued when staying in their house. I really needed to buy a home, or a loft or something, out here but hadn’t gotten around to it.

  “I do, I do miss it out here. But New York is … I hate being there. But I also hate leaving it. It’s so strange, really, the relationship the residents have with their city. There are days I can’t stand it, and days I want to put a ring on it and marry it. The streets, the buildings, even the air is just humming with something else. Like it’s alive.”

  “Listen to him talk about a place like it’s a woman. If I didn’t know better, Anders, I’d say you were fucking the Big Apple.” Archie laughs and throws a handful of Doritos in his mouth.

  Archie was destined to be the eternal teenager. He was a brilliant coder and hacker, but would rather spend his time and money at the beach or in a strip club. He still smoked weed almost daily, and took jobs that paid big bucks about once a month just to pay the bills and keep his alcohol tab stocked. At one point, the NSA had begged him to come work for them, but he’d declined.

  “How is Johanna? I haven’t seen her since I got here.” I turn my attention toward the ocean, the huge waves rising and crashing, as I question Ian.

  I don’t have to look at him to know his eyes are lighting up. “She’s great, man. I think I finally convinced her to move in with me, so maybe she’s a little dumb. What a woman like her is doing with a guy like me, I have no clue.”

  Ian had met Johanna, his girlfriend, a year ago when she came in for a drink one night at his Italian vegan restaurant, Toflorence. She was a first grade teacher, totally opposite of his big-natured, booming personality, and he was completely smitten from night one.

  “Good for you guys. Guess I’ll have to find another place to stay when I start coming out here.”

  “You’re really going to move in with her? The last time I let a chick stay with me, I ended up with a bathroom full of perfume and hair irons, and my kitchen was stocked with 100-calorie snack packs and gluten free pizza.” Archie shakes his head and keeps his eyes glued to the ass of a blonde running down the beach.

  “I don’t mind it, plus Johanna is not the type. She’s considerate and always asks before she does something.”

  I snickered, because he had no idea what was in store. I liked his girlfriend, a lot, but he was deluding himself. “It’s different when you live together. All the time, man, no escaping or going home.”

  “Says the eternal bachelor. Tell me, how’s the rotation of women?” Ian shrugs his arms out of his wetsuit and takes a long chug of his beer.

  I pause, not sure what I want to say. Because to be honest, there hadn’t been a lineup recently. It had only been Gemma.

  “Uh, it’s good.” My voice didn’t betray my inner feelings. Or at least, I didn’t think it did.

  “What’s that mean? You always tell us so matter of factly which girls you’re banging at the moment.” Archie eyes me.

  “You make me sound like an asshole.”

  Ian shakes his head. “Not an asshole. You’re too nerdy for that. The Clark Kent thing makes women see you as an honest bachelor and not a sleazy hookup whore. I don’t know how you manage it, dude, but I’ve always been pretty jealous.”

  Was I really an asshole? I mean, yeah … I hooked up with a lot of women. I had sex with plenty of sexy females. I didn’t date, and I didn’t lead them on to think we ever would. But I was just being honest. Right?

  “Well, right now I’m super busy with the new project, and I haven’t had much time. There is this one girl, Gemma, but it’s just a casual thing. We hang out a bit, we have sex. She’s younger, a beauty editor at some fashion magazine. She’s hot.”

  What I don’t want to tell the guys is that Gemma is fun, a better companion than I’ve had in years. Yeah, the sex is great, but she’s funny. And goofy. She isn’t afraid to speak her mind, and when she does, it’s always something intuitive or intelligent. What I don’t want to tell them is that I genuinely like her as a person.

  “Sounds fun.” Archie goes to get another beer in the cooler.

  “You’re thirty, man. When are you going to stop messing around and find a nice girl?” Ian is only saying this because he is in a good relationship and guys in good relationships want their other buddies chained up too.

  “What are you, my Jewish grandmother giving me guilt? I’m perfectly happy just as I am. I don’t need two point five kids and a white picket fence.”

  Something tugs in my chest when I say that. I’ve never thought about marriage or kids in a realistic way. It was always something way off in the future, something I’d do after I was good and ready, and done building my empire. But recently … I don’t know what it was. Seeing friends like Ian have a meaningful connection with someone, or hearing my employees talk about becoming parents and going home to someone every night. It sounded kind of … nice.

  Damn, I must have gotten pummeled harder by the waves out there than I thought.

  “Just saying, brother to brother, you’re going to screw a chick one of these days and before you know it, you’ll have fucked it up with your rules and fuck buddy lines. She’ll be the one, dude, and you won’t even know it until she gets away.” Ian nods solemnly.

  Archie snorts. “The relationship guru over here, ladies and gents. Fuck what he says, Olly, do what you want. I support your dick and it’s sampling.”

  He raises a beer to my dick, and hell, I raise my bottle too. I support his antics as well.

  When you own your own business, sleep becomes a rare commodity.

  I really mean to lay my head on the pillow and drift off into a REM dream
, but it never fucking happens. Instead of sheep, all I see as I stare at the ceiling is spreadsheets, projections, models, graphics, and everything in between. In New York, I can usually lull myself to sleep listening to the sounds of the city outside the window.

  But here, it’s too quiet. Even the calming sound of the ocean doesn’t do it for me. My heart is turned, I’m an East Coaster now. Work hard, play hard. Lying in bed gives me all too much time to start rethinking and reshaping each and every project happening at Graphite right now.

  Sighing and sitting up, I turn on the flat screen mounted to the wall in Ian’s guest room. Some sports network fills the screen, and I zone out watching a basketball game that is entirely too one-sided. I sit with one hand down my boxers, the most comfortable position for me. Women that I’ve had sleep over have asked why men always do that, stick a hand down their boxers while they relax. I honestly don’t know. It’s an inherent thing, it feels natural. Just like it feels natural for women to constantly play with their hair, I constantly need to keep one hand protecting my Johnson.

  He must know I’m thinking about him, because at that exact moment, my cock jumps. There are times when I’m in the mood to beat off, to watch some unrealistic, totally fantastic porn where a woman with fake tits gets rammed by some guy whose cock looks like it was surgically transplanted from a freaking horse. The release is quick and shallow, and I’m always left wanting something else. Porn is great for what it is, but I’ve always been the type to want an actual flesh and blood woman.

  I could call up a number of them here, one in particular who texted me when she saw a photo I posted of the guys and I at Ian’s taco joint. She knows I’m in town, would totally be willing to come over. But then I’d have to play catch up, pretend to want to hear what their mother’s best friend’s cousin’s daughter is up to. I don’t want to have to put on a show, brush my teeth, go through the appropriate amount of foreplay.

  Picking up my phone, I hit her number before I even have a chance to convince myself it’s not a good idea.