“But I will quit writing before I let you set me up on a date again. Ever.”
“What?” her wail of disbelief filled my ear. I pulled the phone away and grinned at a guy walking by with raised eyebrows.
I put the phone back to my ear. “Never again, Frannie.”
“But Cara’s lovely!”
“Fun fact, Cara is zero amounts of fun. She eats salad with no dressing, thinks fiction is a waste of time, and travels to beachy locations not to get tan lines, but to be one with the earth. Do you know me at all?”
“I mean, I knew about the salads, but I always thought she was just joking with me about not reading because of what I do.”
“She was not. In fact, I don’t even think Cara understands joking, so she couldn’t have been joking with you.”
“Damn. I owe you one. We do have this other friend?—”
“Never again, Fran!”
“Fine. Next time I see you, I’ll buy you a salad with extra dressing.”
“Next time you see me, you’d better run in the opposite direction.”
It was a relief to get home. I kicked off my shoes and found Brontë waiting for me on the uncomfortable couch she wasn’t supposed to be on instead of one of her half dozen beds.
“Hey girl,” I said, sitting beside the world’s best dog. “I just had a date with someone who definitely could’ve used a little of your poo on her shoe…”
I stopped myself immediately, my mind going to where I’d been trying to keep it from going all morning.
Lior Flynn.
While the date with Cara had been awful on its own, it hadn’t helped that I’d woken to Lior’s face plastered all over social media due to her having her own date the night before. With Alex Clarke.
“Alex freaking Clarke?” I’d said to Brontë earlier, practically slamming my cup of coffee down on the table.
I’d closed the tab on my laptop in disgust and opened the document for my book. There was no reason for me to feel any sort of way about who Lior Flynn went out with. But Alex Clarke was a pompous prick. We’d met three years ago at a conference when his first book had come out. Being the friendly sort of guy I was, and knowing how daunting it could be to go from writing in seclusion to being put on a stage of sorts and expected to be charming, I’d introduced myself - and regretted it immediately. I’d never had a man look me up-and-down before, but Alex Clarke had done just that before smirking, giving me a limp handshake, and then turning and walking away.
Later, while on a panel, when he was asked what he thought about his books being compared to mine, he’d said, “Who? I don’t know his work.”
We were not friends, and seeing him with his hand on Lior’s arm made me angry for reasons I couldn’t comprehend. Why should I care who she went out with? Maybe I didn’t. Maybe it was just seeing two people together who’d been rude to me. It was infuriating. They deserved each other.
In an effort to clean the slate of the day, I boiled water for a cup of tea, ate a cookie while the tea steeped, and then sat down to work. I was so near the end of the first draft of this book I could practically taste the victory. Victory being a celebratory drink with Fran, as was our tradition. And apparently now a salad with extra dressing.
After an hour my alarm went off, signaling I either set it again and keep going, or take a break. Knowing there was little in the fridge and if I didn’t shop now I never would – thus either eating cookies for dinner or getting takeout… again – I decided a break was in order.
I made a quick list, grabbed my reusable grocery bags, gave Brontë a kiss on her head, and hurried out the door, walking the few blocks to the local grocery store.
A few minutes later I was walking through the produce section when I saw her.
At first I wasn’t sure it was her – with her hair pulled back into a low ponytail, and a baseball cap pulled low over her face. It was the pale-yellow overalls that gave her away. I’d seen her wearing them in a couple of her photos on her social media page. They’d stood out to me because it wasn’t something I would expect a famous fashion model to wear.
And she’d looked adorable in them.
“What are the fucking odds,” I murmured, wondering if I should duck and cover, turn and run, or act like an adult. I was still deciding when she saw me.
She stood staring at me for a moment, as if she too were determining her next move, and then grabbed a small bunch of bananas, put them in her cart, and walked the other way, disappearing around the corner.
A few minutes later I was perusing the pasta options when she turned her cart down the same aisle. She turned her head, her chest rising and falling in a sigh. I had that effect on women it seemed. Grabbing what she’d come down the aisle for, she tossed it in her cart and turned back the way she’d come and disappeared again.
I was suddenly angry. First my horrible blind date today and now this. I hadn’t done anything to warrant the kind of treatment I was getting. I was a nice guy! I was thoughtful and empathetic and some people even found me charming. I’d done nothing wrong and had no reason to cower and hide in a damn grocery store. She should be hiding.
