“Uh-oh. Mia’s wheels are turning, I can see it from here,” Grandma Helen says, and the whirring thoughts and churning in my gut speed faster. “Quick. Flag down a waiter and get her another drink.”
“How about a Long Island Iced Tea?” Bette suggests. “That’s my drink of choice.”
“Depends on if you want me coherent enough to make it onstage when they announce my name,” I say, my brain flashing worst-case scenarios until I’m dizzy with them.
“I might have an edible in my bag.” Gertie shoves aside the cardboard pop-up with the drink specials and hefts her giant patchwork purse onto the tabletop, and my inner germaphobe isshudderingat the germs transferring from floor to eating surface.
Gum and mint containers, reading glasses, and medication bottles spill out as she digs through the bag.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I say, and it feels like I’m using that word a lot more as of late. “I don’t want to betoorelaxed.”
“Too relaxed? Pffft.” Grandma Helen sighs and shakes her head. “That’s how I know you’ve never done a proper job of it before.”
She didn’t have to tell me, the person with a brain that never shuts up.
“Wow, you have a whole pharmacy, Gert.” Wanda sweeps her arms over the tabletop, corralling as much of the random odds and ends as she can. “I guess I should’ve come to you in the first place.”
“Nah, I buy from Gladys P., too.”
I prop my elbows on the table and press my fingertips to my forehead. “Oh my God, you guys.”
They appear baffled, as to whatever could I mean, and to my left, Nonna Sophia swipes a hand through the air and says, “Relax, Mia.”
“She’s losing her vibe, and that’ss loosiiing mine.” Vonetta’s sloppy snicker causes her to miss her skinny drink straw twice, and Gertie beams in adoration.
“It’s ‘harshing my vibe,’ my love.” She pecks her wife on the cheek, leaving a hint of lip balm behind. “We’ve finally stumbled on something I’m better at: partying.”
Even Noah laughs, the sound resonating through my ears until I’m dizzy with it. He’s to my right, absorbing all the oxygen in the room with his big presence, his knee dangerously close to mine.
Grandma Helen raises a finger, signaling our waitress as she says to me, “We don’t mind dragging you onstage if we have to.”
“That’s pretty extreme, and I’m not sure how realistic,” Arlene says, and I’m nodding at her great point, encouraged by having someone on my team. “Noah can carry her.”
Ah, there’s the volatile nervous system I know and loathe, misfiring and short-circuiting and rendering me incapable of speech. I bore a hole in the table with my eyeballs so I won’t look at him, but our thighs are mere inches apart, and I suddenly can’t stop envisioning him sweeping me into his arms.
Unlike the other intrusive thoughts swirling through my head, I don’t mind lingering on the idea of going full damsel in his arms for a while. And as I envision us heading off toward the sunset rather than the spotlight of a comedy club stage, my soaring heart rate and blood calms, steady for possibly the first time in my life.
Noah shifts forward in his seat and my gaze automatically follows—so much for my iron willpower. It completely crumbles when he gives my thigh a gentle bump with the back of his hand. “Yeah, Mia. Relax.”
I give him the sort of glare deserving of such a comment, but I must be losing my touch, because it causes an uptick at the corners of his mouth.
Our eyes lock, the vivid blue of his irises striking me like a bolt, and the hustle and bustle of the comedy club goes hazy, static overtaking my blood and my brain.
Everything but the crooked lift of his mouth.
He sways toward me, leaning closer and closer, and is he going to kiss me?
More, am I going to let him?
Callused fingers graze the shell of my ear, goose bumps sweeping across my skin as he tucks a stray section of hair there. “I fought it for as long as I could,” he says, his voice deliciously rumbly and low, “but it’s easier to just give in and get it over with.”
I’m about to give in to him, all right, and I don’t even know what he wants.
Then I realize he means the grandmas.That’s what we’re talking about, not the possibility of him and me. “Yeah, you make a good point, because I’m getting severely outplayed by a bunch of eighty-year-olds.”
And if our “alleged” Viagra dealer didn’t stop giving quotes about how he and the men who erected this country had a right toStay Hard,I was going to lose my mind.
“Here it is!” Gertie shouts, loudly enough we garner the attention of everyone around us.
