He clears his throat and I think he might be hiding another laugh.
“It’s not funny,” I insist. “I can’t believe you’re laughing.”
“Right.” He clears his throat again. “Must have been terrible for you.”
“It was!”
“How do you accidentally end up on a date?”
“I thought my drawing teacher was going to be there too. He was supposed to come. But he bailed. Everybody bailed. And then it was just me and Lauro and there was, like, velvet and eye contact and the bartender made me a drink based on my laugh and Lauro took a sip and said it was delicious and did I mention the eye contact?”
Zip!The other boot slides off and my sock comes halfway off along with it. I start to bend to fix it, but he’s already there, fingers firmly straightening it back up my calf, fixing the front seam so that it neatly aligns along my toes.
He stands, slowly, steadying me at the elbows even though he’s the one moving. “So was the eye contact with Lauro or the bartender?”
I go to answer but then pull up short. Because now that he mentions it…“Both? Oh, God. Why did it all have to be so sexy?”
Now that I’m boot-free, I’m fancy-free, so I tumble past him and to the couch. It’s warm. He must have been lying here when I fell through the front door. I grab a blanket off the back of the couch and promptly suffocate myself in it.
“It was sexy to you?” he asks low, from a distance, and I realize he’s still standing at the door.
I’m continuing to fight for my life under the blanket, so it takes me a moment to register both the question and his placement in the room. When I blink it into focus, it’s a gut punch.
“I can’t look at you on that doormat without thinking of the time you left me the lease. And then you walked out the door without a word,” I say.
His face doesn’t even move a centimeter. “Which part was sexy to you?” he presses. “The situation? Or him?”
My heart is still racing, thinking I’m going to watch him walk out the door again.
“I like a dimly lit room as much as the next gal in heeled boots and lipstick!” I say with a scowl. “Ilikegetting called ‘baby.’ I like being told I’m delicious. I—” I realize my feet are exposed at the bottom of the blanket and immediately pull them closer, inside, where it’s safe. “I just didn’t want to be on a date with him.”
Vin’s hand reaches up toward the doorknob, and metallic chemicals start pumping through my bloodstream. I feel instantly sober. Everything is bright and outlined in black pen. I’ve just told him I’m (accidentally) dating, so now, of course, I’m about to watch him turn that doorknob and leave again.
His hand lands on the brass knob. I watch for the twist, preemptively feel it in my gut. But then his fingers move two inches north.Clunk.The lock turns and he steps off the doormat, into the house, locking us in.
(Hey, Vinny! Somebody’s happy tonight!)
(What’s the smile all about, Vin?)
Nothing, nothing. It was just a good night. Is all.
(Come on, Vin! You better spill!)
All right. All right. Well. You know how that story I told before was called the Cat Doesn’t Come Back? Well. Uh. I’m smiling because…for the first time in my life…I think I waited long enough. I think the cat might have come back on her own.
Thirteen
I wake upfeeling shockingly fine. Probably because Vin force-fed me Gatorade and ibuprofen last night. But I’ve never been more nervous to talk to him in my entire life.
I’m doing a killer impression of making pancakes while he’s in the shower. Every time I hear the water splash off his head onto the shower floor I nearly scream.
At some point this shower is going to be over. Vin will smell pancakes and emerge.
We’ll have to discuss—sober—that I accidentally went on a date last night. (Lauro leaned in and ate the cherry out of my drink! And I almost took his eye out with my elbow.) And then I came home and snotted all over Vin and he literally had to button my pajamas and tuck me into bed.
If I were him, I’d be checking into the Holiday Inn.
Vin emerges from the bathroom in a puff of steam. He’s in athletic shorts and a T-shirt and his toothbrush is hanging out of his mouth. I think he says “Smells good.”
