“Hey, future CEO,” she answered excitedly.
I laughed softly. “Not yet, I’m not.”
“You’ll get it. Are you on your way there?”
“Yeah,” I said breathlessly as I picked up the pace. My feet were starting to ache. Maybe these shoes were a bad idea.
“You okay?” asked Juliet skeptically.
“Yeah.” I sighed. “My morning isn’t going as well as I planned…”
“Uh-oh. What happened?”
I went on to tell her about spotting the man in the coffee shop and the spillage fiasco and what a jerk he had turned out to be.
“He just left you there? On the sidewalk? Covered in coffee?” she asked in awe.
“Yep.”
“What a dick!” she practically yelled.
I pulled the phone away from my ear. “Tell me about it.”
“Sounds like your typical New York playboy. They are all the same,” she said in disgust, and I could practically see her rolling her eyes on the other end of the phone.
“I wouldn’t know…” I said.
Juliet had dated around more than me in the city. In life, in general. I was always too busy working to entertain the idea of settling down. No one I had been with liked the fact that I put work first. I just chalked it up to them being turned off by a hard-working, independent woman. But I was okay with that. I didn’t mind being alone. Most of the time.
“Well, at least he didn’t get away unscathed,” said Juliet.
I smirked. Juliet was snarky and I liked it. She was still the same girl from high school where we had met. It was the first day of my freshman year and I had found myself sitting alonein homeroom watching on as my friends from middle school all huddled around talking about their summer camp experiences with boys. Since I had no experiences of my own yet and wasn’t really interested in adolescent jerks in my city, my so-called friends iced me out.
I pretended to be jotting notes in my binder that was covered in pictures of me and those same girls, trying to be unbothered by suddenly being left out. That was when Juliet walked in, her long blonde hair tied into two braids that hung over her oversized band tee. She slid into the desk next to mine and pulled out a book, somehow managing to focus on reading in the loud, frenzy of summer catch up before the bell rang.
I watched her read for a moment, trying to determine if she was a new student. I had never seen her before. She seemed effortlessly cool, in a way she didn’t have to try. She justwascool. Confident in herself. In her style. In her quiet demeanor.
“Yes. I’m new,” she said, her eyes still on her book.
“Uh…oh, yes,” I stammered, clearly caught looking at her. “I was just trying to figure out if I’ve seen you before.”
“You haven’t.”
“Right.” I nodded, twisting my mouth to the side nervously.
“I’m Juliet,” she said, finally looking up from her book.
Her deep blue eyes searched mine, as if trying to assess if I was worth getting to know.
“Gabriella,” I said.
She closed her book and leaned forward on her desk, still looking at me.
“Those your friends?” she asked, nodding to the girls who used to be.
“Were…” I shrugged. “Apparently, I’m not in the ‘boy crazy’ club.”
Juliet made a face and stuck her tongue out. “Me either. I’ve only been here like five minutes and I’ve already decided that it’s Josh Hartnett or bust.”
