He waved a hand. “Oh, the usual. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing.Follywas a fluke, never to happen again.’”
“You don’t believe him, do you?”
He put his hand down, got very still, looked directly into the camera. Directly at me. “I didn’t when I was on the phone with you,” he said softly.
I knew that I needed to say the right thing. Something about him believing in himself, and not listening to the asshole on his shoulder. But instead, I leaned closer and looked at the camera and said very quietly, “Then don’t stop calling me.”
He just stared at me with those grey eyes, and I felt like I was at a major fork in the road of my life. And that I wasn’t the one who got to choose which path to take. As I held my breath, he slowly—sooo slowly—nodded his head once. “I won’t,” he said in nearly a whisper.
“Good,” I mouthed back, not even able to get the word out.
I saw his shoulder move and it seemed like he wanted to reach out to the screen as I had wanted to earlier. He caught himself as he looked at his moving arm. “Oh, right,” he said. “The reason I wanted to FaceTime. I wanted to show you what my mother gave me for Christmas.” He tilted his screen so I could see—finally—all of him and not just his face and the ceiling. (Not that there was anything wrong with that face!)
I burst out laughing when I saw that he wore the ugliest Christmas sweater I’d ever seen. “Like, as a joke, right? She gave that to you as a joke? Because you’re all going to an ugly Christmas sweater party or something?”
He was laughing too, as he watched me crack up. He held out the sweater so I could see all of the crazy, geometric, green and red design. “No. Not a joke. At least not to her. She gave my sister one similar to this, but for a girl. She was mortified to wear it to her boyfriend’s parents’ place tonight, but you could tell my mother loved them and expected us to wear them.”
“I mean…seriously?” I knew the sweater was probably from some fancy designer and most likely cost more than four pairs of combat boots, but cost did not always necessarily equate to good taste. And in this case. Uh…no. Just…no.
He laughed again, then got out of his chair, tilted the laptop more and did a pirouette in front of the camera so I could see the back of it, which wasn’t any better than the front. Though I didn’t really notice it—not with his ass looking so great in his jeans.
“Good luck with the guys wearing that thing,” I said.
“I know. I’m going to take such shit from them,” he said, still smiling as he sat back in his chair. “The things we do for our mothers, right?”
I just nodded, but didn’t say anything. Five years ago I had stopped trying to do anything that would please my mother.
She didn’t deserve it.
Shaking off the thought, I said, “Well, you better go and take your share of shit.”
His grin died a little as he nodded. He reached for the keyboard, probably to disconnect, then pulled his hand back. “Hey, Syd?”
“Yes?”
He took a deep breath, looked down, and then back up at me. “The sweater wasn’t the real reason I wanted to FaceTime instead of call.”
“No?” I said, thinking that maybe he had intended to fire me after all.
“No,” he said. “I really…really…wanted to see you.”
I literally could not speak. I finally just nodded and mouthed, “Me too.” He smiled a small, almost sad, smile and then he was gone.
I stared at the blank screen for a long time.
Chapter9
Doesyour roommate Jane have a boyfriend?He texted me on Saturday.
No FaceTime. No phone call. A text. About Jane being single.
Shit.
And it’d been so great video chatting with him the past couple of days. Yesterday I even picked my laptop up and moved it around the office, showing him the different piles and what they represented, even going through a couple of the piles and showing how everything had been sorted by date and character.
And we’d spent as much time talking about things other than his book. Like…well,otherwriters’ books.
But it had been great. And now he was asking if Jane was single. Via text?
