“Wait. Where’s Waldo?” she asks.
No shit. She said it. Holy crap. Yes. Yes. Yes. “Thank you, Scarlett. Thank you,” I say with all the seriousness in the world.
“What? Why are you thanking me?”
“I named that dog Waldo because I thought everyone would be asking where he was all the time. Now he’s eight years old, and not one person has ever asked me where he is until now.”
She closes her eyes and nods her head, looking like she’s trying not to laugh. “I guess this is a Cinderella story in the making then, huh?” she asks.
“Well, that would make me the poor guy,” I tell her.
“Until you found the girl who asked you where your dog was … ” she continues.
“What are you saying?” I ask.
“You’re crazy,” she says, finally letting the laughter out.
Scarlett takes my hand and leads me down the stairs. We walk quickly across the sidewalk and over three blocks until we reach a park. “Again, you’re running in heels, Scarlett? Do you ever learn?”
“I can run in heels here. It’s your silly streets I can’t run on.” She brings me up to a small cluster of trees and pushes me against one. “Kiss me,” she says.
The thought of her lipstick covering my face turns me on and we’re in the middle of a goddamn park, dressed in office clothes, but I think she likes it when my head is spinning out of control. I lean down and kiss her, inhaling her sweet perfume and minty breath. I wrap my arms around her back, feeling her warm skin radiate through her thin blouse. “Are you trying to kill me?” I ask, pulling away for a second.
“Why would I do that?” She asks.
“You still haven’t told me if you got the job.”
“You didn’t ask. Plus, does it matter right this second?” she asks. I want to say yes, but it doesn’t. I’ve decided I want to be with her, and I think by the way things are going at the moment, she’s on the same page. “You know how you said love can’t be described in words?”
“Yeah, it can’t,” I agree.
“Neither can commitment.” This woman is a mind-fuck. That’s what she is. The hottest mind-fuck I’ve ever met.
“I don’t know what that means,” I tell her.
“It means, I don’t want to plan out tomorrow. I just want to live today.”
Her words knock the wind out of me, and I don’t know why. It’s not anything prolific, but it makes so much sense. I’m not sure why I’ve never thought like that before. I’ve been so consumed with what I should do or shouldn’t do, or who to ignore, who to avoid, and who not to be that I stopped thinking about what I’m doing in the moment.
“You want to live without commitment,” I confirm.
“No, dummy. I want to live without an expectation for tomorrow.”
“How will you plan things?”
“The way I always have,” she barely explains.
“Basically, what you’re saying is, you don’t want a happy ending.”
“Actually, I’m saying the exact opposite. If I focus on being happy in the moment, I know no matter what, I’ll have a happy ending.”
“There’s a song about you, Scarlett.”
“What’s that?” She says, fidgeting with buttons on my shirt.
“Freebird.” I laugh.
“That’s me,” she says, quietly, with a small smile.
