It was my turn to frown. Hard to find someone he has stuff in common with? This was Jonah Mason. He was so easygoing and chill. He liked almost everything. Food and alcohol were obviously on the top of his list. But he also ran every day, went hiking, played golf, liked competitive poker and card games, regularly beat me in Scrabble or checkers or whatever other board game I could coerce him into playing, read actual books, watched the news way more than was healthy, and had recently started teaching himself how to infuse his own alcohol. It had been hit-or-miss so far. But his hits had been really great. It was only that time he tried coriander and anise that was really terrible and should never be repeated as a flavor profile as long as mankind walked the earth.
“What do you mean? What kind of girls don’t have anything in common with you?”
He looked down at me, startled and maybe a little offended. “What does that mean?”
“I’m just saying, you like normal stuff. How hard is it to find a girl who likes trying new restaurants and watching twelve hours of old episodes ofSurvivor Manin a row?” I shrugged.
He chuckled, his mood settling. “I don’t watch twelve hours ofSurvivor Manat a time.”
I chose not to respond. He definitely did. Well, he’d put it on and then do other stuff around his apartment. But it was literally always on. He loved Les Stroud with an unnatural obsession.
“Be that as it may,” I said, “you’re easy to talk to, easy to look at, and from what I hear, easy to sleep with. You think you’d be the perfect guy on a dating app.”
“Hey, I’m not—”
“Can I help you?” a perky brunette with aqua tips on her bobbed haircut asked from the window. I knew Vera enough to know this wasn’t her. Had she hired staff to run her food truck? I knew she and her husband, Killian, were either planning to open a second restaurant or they just had. I was impressed that they had hired staff for the food truck too. Business was either really great or really desperate. Only time, and my chicken potpie, would tell.
“I’ll take a chicken potpie,” I told her decisively. She started to ring in my order. “And the shepherd’s pie,” I added quickly. Jonah made a snorting noise, so I looked up and glared at him. “What? I like leftovers.”
“I know,” was all he said in response to me. The cashier looked up expectantly. “I’ll have the same,” he told her. He was already pulling out his credit card before I could talk him out of paying for both of us.
The cashier looked down the line and stepped back to talk to the chef before she finished our order. “We only have enough for one of the shepherd’s pies. I’m sorry, we were busier than we thought.”
I felt Jonah sulk behind me at the same time I made a pouty face. “You can have it,” I told him. “Since you’re buying.”
“You want to share it? We might not have leftovers, but I can’t eat it all myself.”
“Sure.”
He smiled at me, secretly laughing at how easily I was swayed by food. He handed over his card to the cashier, and we moved down the line to wait by the pickup window. My body had started to shiver all over, and my hands were officially numb.
“We’ll have to eat in your car,” I told him through chattering teeth. “I can’t stay out here for much longer.”
“I told you to wait in the car,” he tsked.
“I mean, I’m totally fine.” My frozen body jerked in protest, but I didn’t acknowledge it. “I’m just saying, our food will get cold.”
“Right,” he said with an eye roll. “How about we just take it back to your place? We can watchSurvivor Manand analyze my online dating profiles.”
I couldn’t help the big smile that stretched my ice-cold cheeks. I briefly thought about Will’s words that Jonah washis friendbut didn’t let it dilute my joy. Because even after being close to Jonah for years, something was so sweetly satisfying every time he chose to spend time with me.Sometimes, he chose only me.
It probably had something to do with a latent inferiority complex after being the tagalong little sister my entire childhood. But I couldn’t help feeling like I won something every time he picked me.
Before I could answer, he pulled me against his solid chest and wrapped me up in his warm arms. He furiously rubbed my back, using the friction to help me survive until our food was ready. I inhaled deeply, letting him fill my senses. He smelled like the same Old Spice deodorant he’d always worn. And the new cologne he’d picked out around Christmas—the one I’d helped him decide on. And the crisp chill of winter. He smelled like a thousand childhood memories, a hundred adolescent fantasies, and home.
Once upon a time, I thought I loved Jonah Mason. I still flushed with shame and embarrassment over how that debacle ended. But even though those days were long behind me, and we’d settled into this mature, grown-up friendship, I still had to fight latent butterflies when he pulled moves like this. When he stepped too close, and I only could see and smell him, all I wanted was to wrap my arms around his waist and hold on for the rest of eternity.
His name was called out from the pickup window, and he stepped away from me to grab our food. The little warmth I’d found in him blasted away with a new rush of cold winter air. It was the slap in my face I needed. The frigid wake-up call that brought me back to my senses.
I didn’t love Jonah Mason. Not anymore. He was a good friend. And a good person. But that was it.
He held up the brown grocery bag filled with our orders triumphantly. “I started my car. It should be nice and toasty for you.”
One last butterfly soared through my belly, dipping and tumbling and making it hard to breathe.
Those unrequited days of pining over him were over. Way, way, way over. If only my lonely, neglected heart was better at remembering.
five
