The Vanilla Date

The gym smelled like rubber and chalk and somebody's leftover protein bar. I signed the waiver I'd already signed twice before, because apparently I couldn't just walk into The Climbing Shed without a fuss, and then I stood by the front desk for a full minute doing nothing useful.

His profile said Wes, thirty-four, electrician, climbs on weekends. My profile said Aurora, twenty-eight, graphic designer, climbs four nights a week, which is true, and also said I was adventurous, which at that particular moment was a lie I was trying to grow into. We had matched on Tuesday. By Thursday we'd agreed on Saturday here, neutral ground, something to do with our hands. Smart, on paper.

Here's the part I haven't admitted to anyone yet. I told him in a message that I was bold and knew what I liked and didn't do awkward first dates. I am, in fact, a person who rehearsed her hello in the car for eleven minutes. And the thing I want from tonight, the actual thing, is that I've never been with a man. Twenty-eight years old, plenty of women in my early twenties, one weird half-thing at a party that doesn't count, and nothing with a guy ever. Not once. So I built myself a character. Confident Aurora. She knows what she wants. I was hoping she'd show up.

He was on the slab by the windows when I spotted him. V2, nothing scary, the kind of warm-up problem where you smear your feet and trust friction and pretend your calves aren't screaming. He was lanky in that electrician way, forearms like rope, and he moved slow and deliberate, reading each move before he made it. He topped out, downclimbed the jugs on the left, dropped onto the mats with a thud that made the floorboards complain.

And I felt it, that flutter, low in the stomach, annoying and welcome at the same time. Nerves with a crush stapled to them. Great. I took a breath and reminded myself of the plan. Confident Aurora. She does not stand by the desk fiddling with her chalk bag like it's a stress toy.

He saw me before I got moving. Raised a hand, that half-wave guys do, and called over, "You must be Aurora. You look like someone who actually climbs."

"Small talk already? We haven't even fallen off anything yet." I walked over and we did the handshake thing that turned into a weird half-hug, which is the worst invention humans have made, and both of us laughed at it, which broke some ice at least. Up close he had crow's feet already and a scar through one eyebrow and he was taller than his photos, which never happens.

"Rough day?" he asked, nodding at my face, and I realized I'd been chewing my lip.

"Deadline day. A client wanted the logo bigger and also smaller. I told him yes to both." I shrugged off my hoodie. I'd worn the good sports bra, the burgundy one, which was not an accident. "You climbed already. Warm-ups count, don't let them tell you different."

"Two problems. I'm basically elite." He grinned. He had a good grin, crooked on one side. "Okay. I've been staring at that overhang since I got here. The purple one with the sloper finish. It's ruining my life."

The purple overhang. V4, steep, the kind where you go hollow trying to pull past the lip. I'd done it twice before, both times gracelessly. "That one's a thigh murderer."

"Race you. Loser buys the whatever after. There's a coffee place across the street that's open late."

"You're on." And there it was, the first real thing confident Aurora had said all evening, because I do love a bet, especially one I've got decent odds on. We settled it that whoever topped out first won, falls count, no do-overs, and we shook on it, his hand warm and dry around mine.

He went first and it went badly in a way I respected. He fought through the opening crimps fine, got his heel hook at the third hold, and then stalled out at the bulge, hanging there recalculating while his forearms filled up like water balloons. He shook out, tried the lip twice, peeled off on the second try and landed square on his back with a grunt that turned into a laugh.

"That," he said from the mats, "was not the plan."

I chalked up, deliberately slow, because confidence is mostly theater and I'd read that somewhere. The start went fine. The bulge is where I always blow up, and tonight I didn't, I don't know why, maybe because being watched made me stubborn. I caught the sloper with my whole palm, cut my feet, swung them back on, and mantled over the lip ugly as sin but clean. Topped out. Dropped down and stuck the landing on two feet like a gymnast, which I immediately regretted, knees, but whatever.

"Okay, wow," he said. "Your hip flexibility is absurd. That swing back onto the wall, your foot went where? I'd need a chiropractor and a priest."

I felt the blush hit before I could stop it. This is the problem with playing confident, the body keeps filing counter-evidence. Heat in the face, ears going warm. I turned to grab my water bottle, buying a second.

"And there it is," he said, and I turned back and he was grinning again, that crooked grin, arms crossed. "You go red the second someone compliments you. You're shy. Underneath all the trash talk, you're shy."

"I am not shy." Which came out faster and more defensive than any confident person would ever deliver it, which proved his point better than anything.

"See, that was shy. That was the shyest thing I've heard all week."

"I'm not." I zipped the water bottle, put it down, picked it up again. My hands needed a job. "I promise you, Wes, I am the least shy person you will ever meet. Ask anyone."

"Anyone? Because your face is still doing the thing."

"My face does what it wants. It's an independent contractor." He laughed at that, a real one, head back, and something in me decided, right there on the mats, that I was done letting the character and the actual person be different people. If I was going to fake being bold I might as well be bold for real and see what happened.

"Fine," I said. "You want proof? I'll give you proof. But not standing here in a gym where a route-setter could wander past."

"There's a lounge upstairs," he said, too fast, and then caught himself and slowed down. "Couch, quiet, nobody really goes up there on Saturdays. I'm not saying anything by that. I'm saying it has a couch."

"I know what a couch is." My heart was doing its job, which is pumping blood, aggressively. We gathered our stuff, and he held the stairwell door for me, and upstairs the lounge was exactly what he said, dim, empty, a sagging gray couch, a dead plant, a window looking out on the parking lot going orange with sunset. We sat down with a respectable gap between us, and then he turned sideways to face me, one arm along the couch back, and looked at me like he was actually waiting, actually listening, and that was worse for my nerves than anything. Nice. It was nice. My hands found my chalk bag again and I made them stop.

"So," he said. "Proof."

"Proof that I'm not shy." I took a breath. "Here's my proof. I picked this gym tonight on purpose, and I picked the outfit, and I've been running a whole performance since I walked in, and I'm tired of it halfway through, so, the truth. You want the truth instead?"

"That depends. Is the truth worse?"

"The truth is I talk a big game online and then I show up and turn into a person who chews her lip." I looked at him straight, which took actual effort. "But I'm working on it. In real time. Watch."

He was quiet a second. "For what it's worth, the trash talk version is also fun. You don't have to pick one."

"See, that's a kind thing to say, and I'm going to ignore it, because I've got momentum." And then, before the nerves could file another objection, I said the thing I'd been circling all week. "I like you. You seem decent and you're easy to look at and I'd like to kiss you, if you're into that. That's my proof. Confident people just say it, right? They just say it."

The grin went crooked again, slower this time. "Yeah," he said. "They do. And yeah, I'm into that. Very into it. But one condition."

"Name it."

"Nobody's kissed anybody yet and I already feel like I'm being graded. Ease off the performance a little. I'll trade you. I'll admit I rehearsed my hello in the truck for ten minutes."

"Eleven," I said. "Amateur."

The kiss, when it finally happened, was good. That was the surprise. I'd built it up so large in my head all week that I'd assumed the real thing would arrive slightly deflated, like a delivery that doesn't match the photo. Instead he leaned in slow, gave me every chance to bail, and then his mouth found mine and my brain went quiet for the first time since Tuesday.

He tasted like the lemon sports drink he'd been pretending was water. His hand came up to my jaw and his thumb sat just under my ear, and I remember thinking, distantly, that an electrician's hands should be rougher, and then thinking, that is a weird thing to think right now, and then thinking nothing at all for a while.

When we broke apart I was breathing like I'd just flashed a V6.

"Okay," I said. "That was. Yeah."

"Very articulate."

"Shut up. I'm rebooting."