“I forget.”
Rose looked up at me. “What! You don’t remember what time?”
“Yeah, it was evening-ish.”
“Oh my God.” She sat up and pushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. “Check right now what time.”
“It’s fine! It’s only like noon.”
“First, that is alarming because it’s two p.m. Second, what if you’re wrong and he’s picking you up in like thirty minutes?”
The doorbell rang, and I scrambled off the sofa. “Pizza time.”
“Or it’s Hamlet because your date is actually now.”
I laughed. “You’re nuts.” It was the pizza, of course.
We settled around the coffee table with paper towels insteadof plates. I folded a slice in half and took a huge, cheesy bite, watching Rose nibble hers, eating the pepperoni off her slice first.
“Are you nervous?” Rose asked as she held out a bit of pepperoni toward Flo. Flo bolted over and sniffed it, taking a little lick. Rose looked ecstatic when Flo took it from her, but then frowned when she just dropped it on the rug and walked off.
I laughed. “Don’t take it personally. She only likes her own boring cat food, kibble from Costco. The finest palate.” I took a large gulp of soda. “So, yeah, I am alittlenervous about this date.”
“I’m always super nervous before first dates,” she said, picking up the abandoned pepperoni and wrapping it in a paper towel. “Sometimes normal, perfectly nice guys turn into total jerks on dates.”
Wouldn’t have taken Rose for a dating expert. “Do you go on a lot of dates?”
She shrugged, her shoulders lifting slightly. “Kind of.”
“For someone with an Awkward Friendship YouTube channel, that’s surprising.”
Her eyebrows arched. “I might be awkward with girls, but I’ve got the whole boy thingdown.”
“I guess it helps when you look likeyou.”
Rose took a sip of Coke. “Thank you.” That was so very Rose Carver of her, but there was something refreshing about her just accepting a compliment. I had a hard time doing it—my girl-instinct was to deflect it, something that I was always working against.
“Are you dating anyone now?” I asked.
She sighed—the long-suffering sigh of a woman in hot demand. “Not dating, but seeing like three guys. I dunno, they’re kind of… whatever.”
“Three?Damn.”
“Like I said, they’re all whatever. But I like to keep my options open. I refuse to date anyone seriously right now.”
“Distractions you don’t need?”
She nodded. “Exactly.” Eschewing the bottle of sriracha, Rose reached for the Tabasco instead and doused her slice of pizza with it. Legit. Before taking a bite, she looked over at me, suddenly shy again. “Have you had a boyfriend before?”
“Yep.”
“Like, a lot of them?”
“Yep.”
“How many?” Rose was so riveted that she didn’t notice Flo slowly making her way toward her.
I thought about it for a second. “Um, I don’t know, five?”
