I turned and walked away before I could do something stupid, like burst back in there and kiss him anyway, Greg and the magic and the entire universe be damned.
Greg followed me, chattering about cosmic alignment and groovy vibrations and whether I’d ever considered the healing power of disco. I let his words wash over me without listening, my phone buzzing against my hip, my chest tight with something that felt dangerously close to loss.
I’d been so close.
And now I didn’t know if I’d get another chance.
6
THE MATCHES MULTIPLY
WHERE THE UNIVERSE THROWS EVERYTHING AT ME AND I FINALLY UNDERSTAND WHY.
Iwoke up to the sound of arguing.
Not the muffled, distant arguing of neighbors through thin walls. The loud, immediate arguing of people in my actual living room, having what sounded like a passionate debate about… boy bands?
“See, it’s not just about the harmonies,” a male voice was saying. “It’s about the emotional authenticity. When Nick sings ‘I Want It That Way,’ you can FEEL his longing.”
“The song doesn’t make any sense,” another male voice countered. “The lyrics are literally meaningless. ‘Tell me why, ain’t nothing but a heartache’? What does that MEAN?”
“It means EVERYTHING.”
“It means the songwriter was on a deadline.”
I sat up in bed. Tequila was staring at me from the pillow next to mine, his expression somewhere between alarm and resignation.
There are men in the living room,he informed me.Multiple men. They let themselves in.
“How did they let themselves in? The door was locked.”
They say the universe told them you needed them. The one with the frosted tips is particularly insistent about this.
I grabbed my phone. 5,847 matches. When I’d fallen asleep—after hours of staring at Marcus’s unanswered message thread—it had been at 4,900-something. The magic had been busy overnight.
I pulled on a robe and walked into my living room.
Three men were making themselves at home in my apartment.
Ryan—Ryan from 1999, the guy I’d gone on exactly one date with before deciding his Backstreet Boys obsession was a dealbreaker—was standing in my kitchen making coffee like he owned the place. He still had the frosted tips. He was still wearing the same cargo pants and tribal necklace he’d worn on our disastrous date to TGI Friday’s.
Derek—not Cassie’s Derek, MY Derek, from a brief fling in 2003 that ended when I discovered he had strong opinions about the Oxford comma and absolutely nothing else—was sitting on my couch, examining my bookshelf with visible disapproval. He had a red pen in his hand. I didn’t want to know why.
And Greg. Of course Greg. Still in his leisure suit, still radiating disco energy, currently sitting in my armchair eating cereal he’d apparently found in my cabinet.
“WHAT IS HAPPENING.”
They all turned to look at me.
“DIANE!” Ryan’s face lit up like I was a long-lost friend instead of a woman who’d blocked his number in 1999. “The universe brought me to you! We have unfinished business!”
“Our business was VERY finished. I finished it when you tried to serenade me with ‘Quit Playing Games With My Heart’ in a TGI Friday’s.”
“That was ROMANTIC.”
“The waitstaff applauded sarcastically, Ryan.”
“They were moved!”
