Crazy Stupid Love (Blame it on New York) Read online

  “Kev, the way you talk it sounds like you’re going to be chugging gallons of alcohol, but we all know that a couple of beers are enough to get you babbling away,” snorted Eric, as he placed his belongings in his backpack. “Dumbass.”

  “Hey, look who’s talking! I’d like to remind you, Four-Eyes, that you’re going to let yourself be used as a doormat by a woman who’s had you by the balls for the last ten years – and without even supplying you with any relief!”

  “Will you remind me why we let him join our gang?” Eric asked Danny, with a bored expression.

  Danny shrugged. “Because his dad was the dean of the university and we couldn’t have him as an enemy? And because he gave me an action figure of a mummified Ronald Reagan?”

  “And don’t forget that when I moved here and we threw that first party, I managed to get you a girl each,” added Kevin. “Something which you’ve never done, Eric, despite all the hot chicks you surround yourself with at work.”

  Eric shook his head in amusement. “I told you: Clover and Liberty are already taken.” And before his friends could reply to his last sentence, he said goodbye and left.

  *

  He went upstairs to his own apartment and began to undress, heading for the bedroom. Ten minutes later he emerged wearing a stylish pair of jeans, a blue shirt and a sweater of the same color. It was the best he could do at such short notice.

  As soon as he had left the building and flagged down a cab, he began to think about what his friends had said, and he sighed deeply. They were right: when Zoe Mathison called, he went running like a lightning bolt.

  But he wasn’t a doormat, the way they all thought – he was just a good friend. If someone he cared about was in need of a helping hand, he was always there for them. After all, dinner with his friends wasn’t such a rare event, especially since Danny and Kevin lived in the same building as he did. They had an evening of pizza, beer and board games at least once a month in any case, without needing a special occasion to celebrate. Zoe, however, would die of boredom if she had to spend New Year’s Eve alone with her large, conventional family.

  She needed him more than those two single nerds who would quite happily spend their New Year’s Eve eating junk food and watching Star Wars for the thousandth time without him. That’s why he was running off to save her.

  “Oh, who the hell are you trying to kid?” he snorted mentally, staring at the bright panorama that flashed by outside the window.

  If he went running off like a madman every time Zoe snapped her fingers it was because he was crazy for real: crazily in love with her.

  Kevin had a point: ten years pining after a woman who held his emotions in her hands, albeit unwittingly. It was his own fault for having gotten her used to it, for spoiling her like a child, initially hoping to prove something to her, and later because he simply couldn’t help himself.

  He didn’t know quite why Zoe had so much power over him. Yes, she was beautiful, charming and sultry and possessed every conceivable physical gift, of course, but what attracted him to her was something else. Under that glowing patina of perfection, Zoe was also sweet, sensitive, sometimes insecure, and had an immeasurable need to feel loved. A need Eric could have fulfilled for a lifetime and beyond, with all the love he had inside him.

  Zoe, however, had no idea of this, even though he felt as if he had a flashing neon sign on his forehead. Perhaps because she looked at him with the same attention as she might some weird bug, or because she deliberately ignored the issue. In any case, the result was the same: apart from as a friend, she was not interested in him, and Eric had by now resigned himself to being exclusively her official confidant.

  All things considered, he accepted the situation with good grace. Or at least, he did until he found himself face to face with her. When he arrived in Soho and rang the doorbell of the Mathison residence, it was Zoe who opened the door. Eric only managed to stop his jaw from falling right to the floor because she had mentioned what she was wearing when they spoke on the phone.

  That red dress was… woah! It wasn’t that it was vulgar or flashy, it was that she managed to turn it into something breath-taking with her shapely figure, cat-like eyes and smile that could have put a demon on the path of righteousness… or made a devil out of an angel.

  “Finally!” she exclaimed, grabbing his hand and dragging him into the house. “I told them that there was someone coming, but I didn’t tell them who, just in case you had a mishap or changed your mind or something.”

  “And how would you have explained the sudden absence of the mysterious guest if I had?”

  “Oh, trust me, I would have found someone… even if it meant going from house to house knocking on every door and begging any available man on my knees.”

  Eric didn’t answer, but he clenched his teeth. He had no doubt that such a plan would succeed: Zoe would have been able to convince any man within a one mile radius to go along with her just by batting her eyelashes.

  “Well then, why did she call you?” asked a voice inside his head.

  Maybe because it was easier. It wasn’t necessary for her to promise him anything in order to convince him to help her.

  His mind split into two, one part imagining enjoying Zoe’s hypothetical thanks and the other rebelling against the idea that she would provide sexual pleasure in exchange for a favor.

  Zoe wasn’t what his mom would have called a tramp. Ok, she did date a lot of guys – but that didn’t necessarily mean she went to bed with all of them. And yet it was difficult not to jump to that conclusion when just a casual look from her seemed to promise paradise.

  “You’re acting just like all those idiots who ask her out!” he scolded himself. Wasn’t that the reason that he watched over her every day, like a mother with her cub? To avoid other men committing the sin of indulging in too much self-esteem and exceeding the bounds of decency? All it took was a smile from Zoe for them to start thinking they were one step from heaven, for God’s sake!

  His confused thoughts were interrupted when Zoe started to undress him… literally. She didn’t merely take off his jacket, she started taking off his sweater too. When she put her hands to the bottom of his shirt, Eric grabbed hold of them, torn between incredulity and excitement.

  “What are you doing?” he stammered. At the uncertain, wavering sound of his voice, he tried to pull himself together and hide his desire behind his usual tone of irony. “I thought you wanted me here as backup for dinner, not because you were so desperate that you were going to jump on me in your parent’s hall.”

  Zoe laughed heartily. “I’m desperate enough to jump on you, believe me, but not right now, with great-grandmother on the warpath in the next room.” She gave him a sly look, dug her fingers into the waistband of his jeans and pulled his shirt out of his pants. “Jesus, you look like the son of a pastor! My relatives know me, they’d never go for it if they saw you looking so prim and proper.”

  “Go for what?” Eric asked in apparent confusion as she ran her fingers through his brown curls to muss them up a bit.

  At that moment, Zoe’s mother joined them. “Eric, how nice to see you!” she smiled, and embraced him.

  “Sorry for being late, Mrs Mathison,” said Eric, handing her the bottle of wine he had bought on the fly just before coming upstairs. “I had… problems?” he said, glancing uncertainly toward Zoe.

  His friend smiled gently and took his hand. “Don’t worry, we were about to serve up dinner, you’ve come just in time”

  As soon as they entered the dining room, Eric found himself the center of attention. Twelve people, including grandparents, uncles and cousins, were sitting around the long table, and all seemed to be waiting only for him to sit down.

  ‘Well, it’s natural, I suppose. I did arrive late,” he thought, as he took a seat next to Zoe. However, the eyes of what he decided must be the dreaded great-grandmother Maude were fixed on him in a way that made him feel very uneasy.

  While the first cour
se of what had every appearance of being a sumptuous meal was put on the table, Eric leaned over toward Zoe. “The dragon keeps staring at me, it’s starting to freak me out.”

  “Don’t worry about it and enjoy the food for the moment,” she murmured, passing him a plate. “The worst is yet to come.”

  “Thanks for making me feel better,” he muttered.

  The ‘worst’ arrived shortly after the starters. Once she had run out of anecdotes regarding the growth of Zoe’s little cousin’s baby teeth, Maude Mathison turned her watery grey eyes on Eric, who snapped to attention almost reflexively. It was absurd that such a frail-looking woman could inspire such fear, but she most certainly did. In her eyes, which must once have been like Zoe’s, there was something harsh and unyielding despite her very advanced age.

  “What’s your name, boy?” the old woman asked, looking at him.

  Eric grabbed his glass of wine, trying to appear confident and at ease. “Eric Morgan, ma’am”

  “And you are planning on being my great-granddaughter’s future husband, are you?”

  Eric’s wine seemed to go down the wrong way. Zoe came to his rescue, giving him none too delicate pats on the back while her parents smiled calmly.

  “Grandma, you could be a little more tactful. Coming out with things like that can scare a guy,” Zoe’s father protested mildly.

  “They tell me that you’re thirty-one, is that right? I can barely hear in one ear, but the other still works fine,” said Maude, turning her gaze back to Eric, who was still struggling to get air into his lungs. “Samuel, your daughter told me that he was a bright, serious young man. Why would he be scared at hearing himself called the future husband of the woman he has chosen to love? At his age, my poor husband already had three sons.”

  An awkward silence fell over the room, only to be broken by Zoe’s grandfather. “I met Eric at Christmas. I can assure you that he’s a very nice guy, mother.”

  ‘Well I do not know him and I intend to make my own mind up about him,” said Maude, raising her white eyebrows and turning to Eric. “Do you love my great-granddaughter? Or have you simply been entranced by the physical charms she seems to be so fond of putting on display?”

  “I would die for Zoe,” said Eric, between one cough and the next. “And I think I’m already halfway there,” he added, hoarsely. Zoe let out a chuckle and continued to thump him on the back.

  “I don’t want her ending up with some spineless wimp who only wants to marry her because she knows how to charm men’s feet out from under them. From what I understand, you were friends until a few days ago. What has changed, so suddenly?”

  Once he had recovered himself a little, Eric stared at his friend’s great-grandmother.

  “As far as I’m concerned, nothing – I fell in love with her right from the very first moment. But to differentiate myself from the other guys who were always chasing after her I decided to wait and to court her slowly.”

  Yeah, so slowly that she didn’t even notice! he said to himself. But he went on. “I assure you that your great-granddaughter’s appearance is simply the icing on the cake for me. When I first met her she was wearing a dowdy waitress’s uniform, but I fell in love with her just the same. Zoe’s charm lies inside her, not outside.”

  He didn’t trust himself to cast a glance in the direction of Zoe. Everything that came out of his mouth was the absolute truth, but there was no need for her to actually read it in his eyes.

  “If you like her so much and not simply for her physical appearance, then why don’t you stop her from dressing so provocatively? Women who are always putting themselves on display often lack self-esteem, or don’t feel sufficiently appreciated. Perhaps you are not fulfilling your duties as a boyfriend properly, despite all these fine words?”

  Zoe made to cut short the embarrassing scene but Eric put his hand on hers, still staring at her great-grandmother. “Your great-granddaughter would look the same even if she wore a garbage bag, believe me. At first I tried to convince her to cover herself up as much as possible but, when I realized that other men would look anyway, I stopped being jealous. Let them look all they like at what I have and what they never will.”

  If only that were true…

  “Now do you understand why I love him so much?” cried Zoe, a broad smile on her face. Then she bent over to kiss him on the cheek. “You’re my hero!” she whispered in his ear, sending a shiver racing down his spine.

  Eric didn’t answer, so focused was he on challenging Maude the dragon to contradict him. After a silent staring match that lasted a few long moments, she bowed her head with a regal nod in acceptance of the situation, and Eric sat back to enjoy his victory.

  Though there wasn’t much to be happy about, to tell the truth: with just one look, a ninety year old lady had understood his feelings, while her twenty-nine year old great-granddaughter hadn’t noticed in ten years.

  The situation was extremely disheartening.

  Chapter 2

  “I want to go,” Zoe whispered in Eric’s ear as she leant against his back. She thought she could feel him tensing up, but she was so confused that she couldn’t really be sure. God, she had drunk so much! Drinking was the only way she had managed to make it to the end of that dinner – plus, her cousin Sarah’s meatloaf was so awful that you needed to get plenty of wine down you just to be able to swallow the damn thing. If Eric hadn’t been there to distract her, she would have probably collapsed on a sofa long before midnight and wouldn’t have been capable of raising a glass to toast the arrival of the New Year.

  But he was there, luckily! And he was so sweet and so great at dealing with her noisy family that for a moment – but only for a very brief one, of course – Zoe had found herself wondering why she had never tried to hit on him. He had loved her for ten years now, although only as a friend… Could he have loved her as a boyfriend too? And, most importantly, could she fall in love with Eric Morgan?

  “God, your brain must be really drowning in wine if you’re even thinking about something like that,” she said to herself. She had been single for too long, obviously. In other circumstances – that is, if she’d had a boyfriend, hadn’t been half-wasted and if Eric hadn’t spent the whole evening talking passionately about her to her family’s great amusement – she wouldn’t be wondering what it would be like to date her best friend, especially not while she was resting her boobs on his shoulder…

  “Good God!”

  She straightened up rapidly, and the sudden movement made her feel dizzy. Eric stopped playing Risk – at which he was actually, strangely, losing – and peered at her through his spectacles.

  “You want to go? Aren’t we supposed to be having a toast with your family at midnight?”

  Zoe snorted and frowned. “I want to go and see the countdown in Times Square! There are gonna be a ton of people, and music, and fireworks! Toasting the New Year in the middle of all that chaos would be cool… And staying in the house without being able to shout because you’re not allowed to scare the old folks is definitely not.”

  “In that case, tell your parents that we’re going and we’ll get off,” agreed Eric, shrugging his shoulders.

  Zoe leaned towards him again. “You should be the one to tell them – they adore you already. You managed to stand up to the old dragon so they see you as some kind of hero now. They’ll go along with anything you ask.” Eric gave her a skeptical look and she smiled back at him. “You touched my grandmother’s feelings, my aunt is already organizing my bottom drawer and my cousin asked if she can help me to look for my wedding dress. Even my parents started treating you like my real boyfriend at some point. I was almost about to start believing it myself!”

  Eric didn’t reply, and for a moment they stared into each other’s eyes. Zoe felt dizzy again and blinked a few times. She wasn’t sure that the wine was the only thing responsible for her feelings. But it had to be, right? Because the guy in front of her was just Eric!

  He stood up and went
to converse in a low voice with her parents, who nodded in approval. A moment later, Eric took her hands to help her to her feet and said: “Let’s go, honey, we’re going to go to see in the New Year in Times Square.”

  Zoe was as happy as a little kid; she grabbed his arm and let him lead her to the door, where Eric helped her on with her heavy jacket.

  “Cover yourself up, it’s going to be freezing in Times Square… and what you’re wearing doesn’t look particularly warm.”

  “You’re not going to start getting ‘possessive’ now, right?” she joked, remembering what Eric had told her great-grandmother about the way she dressed.

  “Your great-granddaughter would look just as great even if she wore a trash bag… When I realized that other men would look at her in any case, I stopped being jealous. They can look all they want – I don’t care, because I know they will never have her.”

  Even though they weren’t true, those words had touched her. Eric could be even fussier than Grandma Maude when it came to her clothes, but for a moment she had pretended to believe that he was the type of man who was proud to show off how beautiful his woman was, and she had enjoyed it.

  “You’re right, let’s go then. I can’t wait to show everybody the hottie I’ll be seeing midnight in with this year,” he said, with a strained smile on his lips.

  *

  They walked to the metro station chatting casually about the funniest moments of the evening. A few times he had to take her by the elbow because she was about to stumble in her high heels. Zoe was finally feeling free, although as tipsy as hell.

  She loved her family, obviously, but she wasn’t comfortable around them. Apart from her parents, who knew her and had always supported her, she often felt left out and different. Maybe they expected too much from her. They had always been very close to each other, linked by deep and long lasting affection. All the women in her family had married very young, none excluded. They had all started families and remained forever loyal to their men, with no regrets, ever. And their partners loved them too, unconditionally. Zoe hoped that one day she would enjoy the same happy destiny. Because, on the contrary, she was almost thirty and had never had a long-lasting, idyllic relationship. Her longest relationship had lasted for two years, with some highs and plenty of lows, and had ended so disastrously that ever since she had been steering clear of strong emotional ties. But that had been a long time ago, and she missed having real feelings, confusing emotions and a partner to shower her with attention and love.