the moderately snazzy mezzanine where the alumni presided, secure in their life choices and their employment decisions.
On the first day of the New Year, Ian was no longer secure in his employment decisions, but the Rutgers team was sucking like a vacuum and the arena was empty, so hey, he kept his head high.
After grabbing a soda and springing for an order of nachos, Ian jogged up the concrete steps to his spot. There was the standard ritual of unspoken greeting. Phoebe waved a red cup, slightly rumpled in jeans and a Knights sweatshirt. Beckett merely grunted.
All social obligations aside, Ian checked the score. Down by ten already. Okay, not a good night at the RAC, but the Knights could come back, never say die.
However, by the second period, the Knights were still losing, and no one was talking. Worse, Beckett was pale, unshaven and crabby. Now, crabby wasn’t that unusual—Beckett put the mud in curmudgeon—but Beckett always shaved. Precise grooming was one of those boarding school rules that Beckett conformed to without even realizing it. Since boarding school was a sensitive topic, Ian chose to keep his mouth shut. “Bad hangover?” he asked instead.
“Yeah.”
“Sorry about last night. I couldn’t go to your place and smile and be all friendly.”
Phoebe leaned in, peering around Beckett. “Don’t worry about it, Ian. How was Times Square? Nightmare on Forty-Second Street, sardined in until you are intimately acquainted with people of questionable hygiene whom you never want to see again?”
“More or less. But I’m glad I went. You have to do it in order to say you’ve done it, unless you lie, and what’s the satisfaction in that? Think about it. On December 31, it’s the most perfect place in the world to be—and we live here. Why not take advantage? You ever stop to wonder about how many things we don’t do?”
Beckett didn’t look convinced; of course, Beckett never looked convinced. “There’s a reason why we don’t go to Times Square, Ian. You can watch it on TV.”
TV. As if all life’s problems could be solved on a twenty-seven-inch screen. “But you miss all the excitement,” Ian pointed out, knowing it would do no good, but needing to try anyway. Life involved spontaneous kisses and meeting the woman of your dreams, having her visit you in your dreams. Of course, it would be nice if the evening ended a little better—not that he was going to think it was a sign.
“I’ll live without the excitement, thank you,” Beckett answered, completely unenthused.
Choosing to abandon the impossible, Ian turned his attention to Phoebe. “Sorry about Dexter.” Dexter had been Phoebe’s latest.
“Eh,” she answered with a shrug.
“Don’t worry. You’ll meet somebody new.”
“Yes, I could meet someone new. Possibly. Or the world could end first, destroying all male civilization as we know it, leaving me the sole survivor, and alone I must discover the path to mono-sexual reproduction without any knowledge of biology at all. I’m thinking that’s the more likely scenario.”
Beckett snorted. “You could do it.”
Phoebe quirked a brow over her lenses. “Meet someone new?”
“The asexual reproduction thing. You’re really smart.”
“Bite me,” she replied with very little heart, and then frowned in Ian’s direction. “Why are you so happy? It sounded like last night was a bust.”
For a second he considered keeping his secret, but too few charmed things had happened to him. Right now, he needed to share the miraculousness of the kiss, cement it in his head and probably ride it out for the rest of the year.
“I kissed this woman. In Times Square. It was absolute magic, the best time of my life, topping graduation, my first bonus check, the day I bought my first place.”
Phoebe looked worried. “You kissed a stranger?” she asked. “Really?”
“Like you’ve never done it,” Beckett argued, both of them completely missing the profound significance of the moment.
“Not in Times Square. I think that’s creepy.”
Ian laughed, because he didn’t expect the rest of the world to understand. “It wasn’t creepy. It was like an old movie. She was there and then poof, she was gone. It’s a sign. A bubbling glass of Dom Pérignon, a rainbow after the storm, a golden unicorn.”
“I’m concerned about you, Ian. You shouldn’t be talking about unicorns with a serious face.”
“It’s only an expression, Beckett. You know, when you feel as if all around you the world is full and bursting, and you need to soak it in.”
Okay, that was laying it on too thick, but if a man couldn’t have big dreams on January 1, then there was no hope for him at all.
“Missing the firm, aren’t you?” Beckett asked, not fooled by Ian’s never-say-die smile.
Ian met his eyes, man to man. “Hell, yeah.”
Phoebe looked at them, confused. Honest to God, females had no idea the pressure that society put on men. It wasn’t smart, and eventually, some poor sap could break under the strain.
Right then, a roar went up as the Scarlet Knights took the ball on a streaking run, layup, net, followed almost immediately by a steal and a three-pointer. Phoebe shot up from her seat, fist-bumped Beckett, and then sat down, adjusting her glasses. “What was her name?”
Details, details. Ian coughed. “I don’t know her name. We didn’t have a lot of time, and then she had to go find her date.” Even to his own ears, it sounded weak.
“She kissed you, and she had a date? Ballsy,” murmured Phoebe.
“She didn’t like the guy,” explained Ian, because he knew it wasn’t ballsiness on her part, more the inescapable truth that for one perfect night, two souls were brought together, merging into one incandescent flame that was bigger than either of them…He sighed. Maybe she’d been drinking too much. No. He wasn’t going to be put off. If the Scarlet Knights could win—
The visiting team got a steal, three-points, followed by a foul.
Ian buried his head in his hands.
“Why don’t you try and find her?” asked Beckett. “Put an ad on missed connections. What if she’s The One? You can’t miss out on that.”
Ian glanced over at Phoebe, noticed the way her face softened.
“You should,” she told him. “Women would eat it up. Trust me, as a woman, I’m almost seduced.”
“It doesn’t take much, does it?” drawled Beckett, who usually didn’t take this many shots at Phoebe.
“Don’t be an ass,” Phoebe fired back.
“I’m not. You’re the one who’s talking about the destruction of the entire male species.”
“It was a joke, Beckett.”
“I’m sorry, when it comes to you and men, sometimes it’s hard to tell.”
“What does that mean?”
Beckett swore and fixed his eyes on the court, and the three of them watched the game, or at least Ian pretended to watch the game. He was still dwelling on the mystery woman of last night, trying to figure out if the ideal of a dream was better than charging in, throwing the dice, only to watch the Big Bad Wolf blow down the house he’d made out of happy straw.
The doubt, the insecurity, the mixed metaphors, they were all postlayoff, because prelayoff, he would have gambled all night and not panicked about losing his house at all.
At the half, when the Scarlet Knights were down by twenty-six and all hope had left the building, Phoebe turned to him, scarfing his last nacho. “Seriously.