Until I gave up trying to sound smart and admitted, “I was just... just trying to figure out what our relationship status is. You said no more questions, so I thought maybe this could be a kind of test.”
“A test?” he repeated, his sneer—a Rustanov trademark, according to thatEpoch Quarterlyarticle—deepening. “I tell you no more questions, so now you are testing me with toy made for children tofigure outwhat we are to each other?”
He said “figure out” like it was some nonsense term I’d just made up. My face burned as I began to feel like an entire episode ofCrazy Ex-Girlfriend. Except I wasn’t his ex-girlfriend. Just a half-a-night stand.
“Yes, it was a test,” I admitted, trying to keep my dinner down. “A really stupid test.”
Yom furrowed his brow, as if he was still having trouble comprehending me. “Test…”
And now I had my answer—along with another excruciating memory that I already knew would have me cringing for years. Maybe even forever.
My chest ached with... what, exactly? Relief? Regret? Abject humiliation? It felt like everything at once.
“You know what, I’m sorry. You’re right. This was a terrible, childish idea.” I reached for the bear. “I’ll just take it back.”
“Nyet!” Yom pulled the teddy bear away before I could grab it. He threw me an irritated look, his jaw tightening. “Tomorrow, I have morning practice. Rina will drive you to university. I have something at lunch, so I will not come. You tell me at dinner how Merry’s first appointment with the obstetrician goes.”
I inwardly frowned. He usually didn’t have morning practice the day after a game, and he hadn’t missed a weekday lunch since the start of the Anything List—even the one I’d canceled. But I wasn’t going to argue about having to wait until dinner to face him again.
“Cool, cool, I’ll see you…” I started, but Yom turned and walked away without a word.
Leaving a cold wave of shame to wash over me in his wake. Yep, I’d definitely gotten the answer about our confusing relationship status.
Nothing to see here, folks. Nothing at all.
“Which made sense,” I told myself the next day—and Trish and Merry over lunch.
“I can totally understand why the hottest guy in school has no desire to be official anything with me, the girl who misled him and cost him an international final in Berlin,” I concluded after recounting what happened with the teddy bear.
“Then why does he have you living up in his house with him after you apologized, like, a thousand times for what happened in Germany?” Trish let out a frustrated huff. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
“It will when the other shoe drops,” Merry predicted in the ominous tone of someone who had her first off-campus obstetrician appointment scheduled for later that afternoon.
“Can we change the subject?” I asked, picking up a comfort fry with a weary sigh.
Trish nodded with an enthusiastic, “Amen! I really hate that our first conversation in weeks without Yom here doesn’t remotely pass the Bechdel Test.”
She glowered—right before her angry expression crumpled. “Do you think Rina didn’t show up for lunch today because I kissed her?”
“Yes,” Merry answered flat-out at the same time I offered Trish a sympathetic, “I mean, maybe not?”
I fought the urge to glance over at Stepan, now occupying Rina’s old spot as our silent sentinel.
“But it was amazing!” Trish whined. “I mean roller-coaster, rock-your-world amazing. How is she refusing to see...”
Trish broke into a full rendition of “We Belong Together.”
And I once again wondered how someone with as sensitive an embarrassment switch as mine managed to acquire a best friend willing to belt out Mariah Carey in the middle of the food court.
However, that afternoon, I was grateful for having a bestie who could almost always pull the conversation back to herself. It took my mind off the disastrous fallout from trying to give my hot-but-completely-cold housemate a Valentine’s Day gift.
At least for a little while.
My phone pinged with a text message from my dad during my shift at the animal shelter. Since it was a slow day at the front desk, I took a moment to read it.
DAD:You’re bringing your boyfriend to Paul’s party, right?
Well, that would be a disaster, especially considering how much Yom and Paul despised each other.
