Men & Martinis (Ebook)

"When small-town dreams clash with big city hearts, Natalie's in for one wild New York minute."

I moved to the bustling maze of NYC to escape the label everyone back home stamped on me: the reckless little sister. You’d think the towering skyscrapers, neon lights, and endless sea of yellow cabs would be intimidating. But for this country girl? It’s a challenge I’m all too ready to embrace.

Amidst crazy parties, whirlwind friendships, and New York bagels, I finally found my place – a killer job in the heart of Manhattan. I also found him. CJ, with his sharp suits, sharper wit, and a smile that could stop New York traffic. One teeny, tiny issue? He’s not just some city boy I can flirt with over coffee breaks – he's my off-limits coworker. Yep, cue dramatic music.

My heart says, “Go for it!” but my brain reminds me of the iron-clad rule at work: No Dating. Period. Not even if he looks like he stepped out of my wildest dreams.

But the city lights shimmer, the subways rattle, and between secret glances and accidental touches, the lines of professionalism blur. I'm trying my best to stay in the friend-zone, but the heart wants what it wants. Especially in a city as unpredictable as New York.

Do I risk it all for love? Or do I put my dream job and new life first? Decisions, decisions...

Jump into this whirlwind romance that’s Bridget Jones meets Sex and the City, but with that sweet 90's nostalgia. Let's face it: in the city that never sleeps, Natalie might be up all night making choices!

Natalie

My Celica drove away from me and for a second I thought I saw myself waving from the back window. There I was, hanging over the seat back, my long blond hair draped over one shoulder, a lopsided smile on my face. My dark blue eyes were wide as I waved at the poor wretch who’d just left everything she’d ever known, handed her car keys to a stranger and allowed herself to be left standing alone, her life in boxes at her feet, at a busy curb on Amsterdam Avenue. I squinted and shook my head. And the girl in the window was gone.

And it was just Frank, driving away from me. The balding fat man from the parking lot near Newark had agreed to buy my car sight unseen over the phone and had driven me into the city on the tail end of my madcap cross-country dash. He left me there watching as he dodged my little car through the swarm of yellow cabs and disappeared amid the honking thrum of New York City traffic.

I turned to look at the steel door set back under an awning in the hulking stone building that was my new home, and a wave of nausea hit me. Hard. I turned and retched into the gutter, vomit streaking the passenger side of the car in front of me.

“Watch it,” a thin man with a beak nose said as he slid into the driver’s side of the car I’d just puked on. He started the engine as I was wiping my mouth on my sleeve, still doubled over. He rolled down the passenger side window, and I wondered if he might ask if I was okay. I felt like I needed someone to care just a little bit at that moment. “I oughta get your insurance. You know vomit is corrosive?” With that educational rebuke, he pulled abruptly away from the curb, leaving me feeling sick and more alone than I’d ever been.

Welcome to New York City, I thought. Welcome to your new life. 

* * *

When another copywriter at the publishing company I worked for in San Diego had mentioned that her college roommate lived on the Upper West Side and needed a new roomie, it was like she had dangled a golden key in front of me.

I’d snatched the opportunity, called her friend that night, and nodded violently as we talked, trying to convince her across the blind expanse of miles between us that I’d be the perfect addition to her Upper West Side apartment.

“So the room you’d be in has no closet,” she said.

“That’s fine.” My brain was already trying to understand how that was even possible. “I can figure something out.”

“The apartment is seriously not big.” 

“I own almost nothing.” It was true. Most of what I owned fit into the back seat and trunk of my Celica, and what didn’t fit wasn’t worth trying to cram.

“First month and a deposit will be twelve hundred dollars.”

“Perfect,” I lied. “Do you want me to send a check now?”

“No, just bring it with you. When do you think you’ll arrive?”

“Two weeks?” I asked, committing to moving across the country without consulting anyone else in the world about it. I felt giddy and terrified, winding a strand of hair around my finger until it became painful.

“Sounds good,” my new roommate Tory said. “Can you let me know when you have an exact day and time and I’ll be sure to be here?”

“Absolutely.” I circled her number in red pen on the pad in front of me. It was, after all, my new phone number. And it began with the numbers 212. I felt more worldly in that moment than I had in the preceding twenty-two years of my life. 

The scramble that followed had been easier than I’d expected it to be—with the exception of the conversation with my dad. I’d severed ties and packed what little I owned, trying not to reflect on what a small dent I’d made in San Diego in the one year since graduating from college. The truth was I didn’t have much to leave.

As the miles slipped behind me, my father’s ominous voice played an endless loop in my head.

“This is just another impulsive choice, Natalie. You’re famous for them and you know it. You switched colleges twice, you switched majors three times. You’ve been out of school a year and already had two different jobs. Now you’re ready to quit again and move to the toughest city in the world? New York will eat you alive.”

My dad might’ve had a point, but I wasn’t going to let him be right. The New York he knew was the scary-subway, pre-Giuliani mess that we visited on a family trip in the eighties when Mom was still alive. He and my sister were put off by the peepshow awnings and punk rock kids with purple hair and studded collars in Times Square. It didn’t affect me the same way. To me, the whole place was electric, energizing. The city I was driving towards in 1998 was nothing that my father could understand. It was safer, cleaner, and shinier, and I was sure it was full of opportunities if I could just figure out where to look for them. I pushed aside my doubts and hurtled toward it to define myself in new terms and to prove to my father that I wasn’t just a lost and confused little girl. New York was my chance.

* * *

Tory greeted me at the front door of my new apartment once I had hauled myself and my belongings up all six flights, and I handed her most of the cash I’d gotten for the car.

“Thanks,” she said. Our rooms were separated by a bathroom, kitchen, and living room, all branching off the same narrow hallway. “It’s called a railroad apartment because it’s set up like a railroad track,” she explained. “Was the drive awful?”

“No, actually.” I stood awkwardly in the middle of my new living room feeling like an intruder. “It was surreal. It feels strange to be so far away, so … permanently.”

“I’m sure,” she said. She sat down on the couch and waved a hand absently at the other chair in the room.

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