“It was—as I said. Or, as I spelled, I suppose.”
“You want to ta—”
“No,” he says quickly. “That word about covers it.”
Reid says so little about his work that it almost makes me wish I understood that Wikipedia page better. But maybe I should be grateful, given how tied Reid’s work is to the things that made our last meeting so awkward: Avery, and Avery’s father.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“It isn’t your fault.”
I wonder if he’s standing still where he is, too. People and cars and buses rushing by, but a tiny, cozy pocket of quiet in the lines between our phones. MaybeI’m sorryandIt isn’t your faultare things Reid and I should’ve already said to each other, in other contexts, but it doesn’t matter.
It matters that we’re saying them now.
“So,” I say, after the quiet stretches a beat too long. “South Street Seaport, huh?”
“Yes, it’s not that far from my office.”
“That’s not gray. Or dirty, really.” I like it down there, in fact. Sibby and I went to a fall stall market down there a couple of years ago and bought a bunch of misshapen but colorful root vegetables that, as happens to most casual farmers’ market visitors with no talent for cooking, we only ended up using half of. In the shadow of the Financial District, South Street feels . . .low. Pleasantly so. Low to the ground, and at the edge of the water. The buildings are older—washed-out brick, charming stretches of storefronts. A respite from the sometimes dizzying heights of what stands at its back. I open my mouth to tell Reid about the Big Gay Ice Cream parlor that’s opened down there, but then I remember he doesn’t eat sweets.
“No, I guess it’s not.” I think I hear him start to take a deep inhale, as if he can finally breathe, but the honk of a horn intrudes at almost the same time.
I feel . . . disappointed. I wanted to hear the full range of that deep breath.
“Unfortunately,” Reid says, “I have to head to another meeting. A work thing.”
Alas, I think.
But I also feel a bold stroke of pleasure swoop across my middle, thinking of Reid leaving work for a few minutes, only to play. Maybe he’ll go back in there, some of what was tense about his day slightly less so. Maybe I gave some of the surprise of my day to him.
“Sure. Thanks for the company.” Then I add something, something honest, something Reid once said to me. It feels right to add it, like I’m helping us build some kind of routine.
Like we’re more than just company. Like we’refriends.
“I had fun.”
There’s a pause on the other end of the phone, and I hope I haven’t somehow made it weird. Something I’ve learned over the last couple of weeks is that I am extremely talented at making it weird with Reid.
“Are you free on Saturday?” he asks. Bluntly. Directly. Reid-ly.
I smile.
This time I don’t hesitate to answer.
Chapter 9
When I hung up the phone with Reid on Tuesday evening, I felt a lot of things.
Eager, for one: about going back to my apartment, and getting back to Make It Happyn, armed with newly formed ideas and newly loosened leg muscles.
Confident, for two: I hadn’tneededReid to tell me I’m an artist, but it’d been nice to have the reminder anyway, especially building off the work I’d been doing as a result of our first game.
Hopeful, for three: about the progress I’d made with Lark, about some of the pain and anger I seemed to be sloughing off about Sibby, about how I’d taken a risk, playing another game with Reid.
Excited, for four: We’d madeplans. We were going to play again, and in some ways, we’vebeenplaying since. We send photos back and forth to each other, mine mostly of local business signs and Reid’s mostly of faded advertisements from the sides of buildings, the kind of relics we’d looked for on our first walk together. We don’t even say much in the messages—sometimes we add an address, or a note about which letter is our favorite—yet they feel full of the promise of our next meeting.
But by the time Saturday comes, I feel exactly one thing.
