I’m not sure I love it, but I don’t hate it. It could be cute, attractive, even… I could get used to it.Maybe.
“Fran from the café?” Yes, he’s just figured out that our blind date isn’t all that blind.
I hold out my arms like the gift that I am—because I am delightful, people. Utterly,freakingdelightful. “Surprise!”
The curl in his lip persists. And it’s official—I am not a fan. “You’re hopelessly devoted?” He says, calling me by my email address.
“Surprise,” I lamely say for the second time. It’s the curl in his lip. It’s throwing me off. If Lance would just smile again, I’m certain I could think of something else to say.
“Wait,” he says, and I’m happy to say that the curl falters with his words. His lips flatten out into a straight line. He’s still holding back on the smile. “You knew it was going to be me?”
I wrinkle my nose and grin. “You caught me.” I hold my hands together, mentally scanning how I feel about revealing this secret to Lance.
Huh. The jury is out.
Until—
“So, you knew this whole time?” he says again, only this time that curl is on steroids, and he sounds a little…hmm… what’s the word?Pissed?
“Actually, yes.” My fingers grapple at my skirt. The very one I wore just to please him.
“We’ve been emailing for two weeks?—”
“And talking at the café for a month and a half!” I add, because it feels important. He’s fond of Fran the server who always keeps his coffee topped off.
“Exactly,” he says as if the fact condemns memore than it helps me. “And this whole time, you knew you were emailing me?”
I clear my throat. Because anger is not how I expected this romcom remake to go.
“How did you get my email address? I thought it was an accident. You said you added one too many R’s in bucktrackerr. Is that true?”
I clamp my teeth down on my bottom lip. Every time I do a remake, there’s a bit of fabrication involved. I’m not a liar. I’m a strategist. “Remember a couple weeks ago when you filled out that newsletter form for the café?”
His eyes search the ground, and I see it the minute he recalls. His eyes flick up to me. “The free pancake form?”
“Yeah,” I say, my tone brightening because I’m certain I can save this date after all.
But Lance scoffs. He shouldn’t, it’s so not attractive on him. There is nothing Tom Hanks about that scoff. “So, you stole my email from the free pancake form?”
“Not stole.” I shake my head. “You handed it right over to me, remember?”
Lance throws back his head, those dirty brown eyes (without a speck of hazel) darting up to the clear blue sky. He laughs sardonically. “You stole my email and pretended not to know who I was while sending me message after message after message.”
“Well, when you say it like that—” I start, but quickly rush to defend myself. “You sent me just as many messages. I just replied!”
He runs a hand through his hair, only he’s gelled it expertly and it doesn’t give. It’s like running his hand into a man-made rock wall on top of his head. “You tricked me into meeting you?—”
“Youare the one who suggested we meet!” I spout.
But he isn’t listening. “Yet all this time, you knew that we’d already met.” Lance shakes his head, and while I’m not a mind reader, I would venture that he isn’t thrilled at the moment. “Are you like some kind of catfishing stalker?”
“Cat—” I cough—at 1:36 p.m. I choke on the word ‘catfish’ and skip to the second insult in that title. “Stalker? I’mnota stalker. I thought we had a connection.Yousaid we had a connection!”
“I thought I was emailing a stranger. I thought you were a student, not a waitress.”
“I am a student. I go to the university?—”
“And,” he says, eyes piercing me, “I thought you wereblonde.”
