“No, your friend.”
“Ji.” I say, too cautious to give him her full name.
“Yeah, she’s hot.”
Okay, Operation Tough-It-Out is a no-go. I repeat, Operation Tough-It-Out is a no-go.
I glance around the diner, hoping that my brain can come up with a plan C. I have no car, but I do have feet, a useful asset when running away from disastrous dates. For a moment, Iconsider running home. The diner is situated on the outskirts of Denver, just thirty minutes from my small town in Pine Lakes, Colorado. So I’m looking at an approximate run of thirty miles, which would get me home at about… never. I would never make it that far. I haven’t run over three miles since PE class in my senior year of high school, and even then, my best friend Jordan practically dragged me the last three laps by my arm as my legs did a little Jell-O dance beneath me.
Jordan.
While his name always stirs the happiest feelings inside me like some kind of euphoric soup, tonight, it is also accompanied by an angelic choir—he’s just become my ticket out of here.
“I guess Ji could totally feed my cat,” I mumble, keeping my eyes on Curtis as my right hand fumbles—inconspicuously, I hope—in my purse. My hand clutches my phone, and I glance down long enough to press Jordan’s number on speed dial. What I’m about to do goes against the invisible barriers Jordan and I have placed around our friendship. We talk about everything with each other except dating. Never dating. But I’m desperate.
I glance down at my phone and see that the call has started. Jordan’s answered the phone. That’s when I say those three little words I’ve never used before. “Got any crawdads?”
Then I end the phone call under the table, feeling like a middle-schooler who’s just prank-called someone at a sleepover.
Curtis looks at me like I’ve had one too many orange sodas tonight, and I can’t blame him. I would think I was crazy too.
“What?” He squints at me.
“Oh, um, that’s right—you ordered fried shrimp, not crawdads.” I bump my palm on my head as if to say,Oh, silly me, and then I drop my phone back in my purse and wait.
The next fifteen minutes are filled with start-and-stop conversation as I eat the rest of my sandwich at a glacial pace, hoping Jordan got my message loud and clear.
Curtis is just asking the waitress for the check when the bell on the diner’s front door dings, and my best friend steps inside.
He’s dressed for work, but the top button of his white collared shirt is undone, and his blue-patterned tie hangs loosely around his neck. These are his nice work clothes. Wait, let me rephrase that—he’s in the clothes that make me want to raid his closet and burn anything thatisn’tthose clothes. Or maybe it’s the opposite. Maybe I should torch the business clothes because they make my heart sound like a conga line when he wears them.
Regardless, these are the clothes he wears specifically for important meetings with clients.
My face heats, and suddenly I feel like the girl who cried wolf, pulling out an SOS for this inconsequential date. Jordan probably came running from whatever meeting he was in. But even though I feel terrible for dragging him here, I can’t help the relief that fills me when I see him. This dingy diner just became a safe haven for me, because that’s what Jordan always does—he takes the worst places and turns them into a shelter from the storm.
His brown eyes meet mine, a hint of mischief lingering there. He runs a hand through his head of dark-blond hair before a full-hearted smile breaks across his lips. My stomach flips, and now my heart is signaling SOS for an entirely different reason.
I am hopelessly, passionately, and unrequitedly in love with my best friend.
JORDAN
I quickly park my silver Kia Sorento on a patch of nearbygrass, one in a line of many crookedly parked cars, and look up at the aging diner. It resembles a vintage refrigerator that’s been knocked on its side and given windows.
Looking down at my Find My app on my phone, I use the dot with Paige’s face to confirm that she is, in fact, in this diner and has not been chopped up in some alleyway. Momentary relief hits, but then panic resurfaces. She’s never used our “only in emergencies” phrase before, and I can’t stomach the idea that Paige could be hurt.
I rush out of my car toward the diner, nearly knocking down a teenage waitress texting outside. My heart is pounding with thoughts of Paige in danger, being harassed by some jerk, but then I see her through the window, smiling her polite smile at someone, and it tells me what I need to know.
She’s safe.
I bend over, resting my hands on my knees like I just finished a marathon, before loosening my tie and unbuttoning the top button of my dress shirt. I can breathe again. I walk a little farther until I get a better view of her date through the window. I’m surprised to see a burly guy with a long beard—he’s not at all Paige’s type. But then again, I guess I don’t really know her type. Paige and I kind of have an unspoken understanding between us. We don’t talk about our dating lives. It’s the one part of Paige I’m happy not knowing about.
Paige gives her date a weak smile that is completely void of the singular dimple that often adorns the left side of her face. She’s wearing a wolf T-shirt we bought as a joke our junior year of high school—clearly the height of fashion. Wow, she really brought out the big guns for this one. I can’t imagine a scenario in my mind where this date makes sense.
I start towards the door, a grin parting my lips as I forge a plan. Since Paige called me out of my meeting, and she seems relatively unscathed, I’m going to have a little fun. I twist mydad’s ring from my index finger and pocket it before entering the diner.
The diner’s about the same temperature inside as outside, which is saying something in the month of June. The place is a dump, but apparently a good one, considering the crowd here tonight. I make eye contact with Paige, and her shoulders slump in relief. I smile at her because it’s Paige, and nothing in this world lights me up like she does—especially when I take her by surprise.
“Paige!” I yell from across the diner. Silverware stops clinking, and the hum of conversation comes to a sudden stop, like that part in movies when a record scratches and everyone pauses what they’re doing. It’s that, except Elvis Presley’s “Jailhouse Rock” keeps playing from the diner’s vintage jukebox.
