“First you get a boyfriend and then you start using lavender toilet bowl cleaner? My Elle-belle is growing up.”
“Had to happen sometime.” But Ellen picked up the soap dispenser from the bathroom counter and gave it a squeeze in Rae’s direction until bubbles frothed out. They giggled like little girls, at everything and nothing all at once.
“So Ellen tells me you’re quite the writer,” Aaron said to Rae that evening as they streamed a movie from a laptop—an action film rather than their typical rom-coms. Ellen seemed to be pandering to her new target audience.
The three of them had managed to fit on the couch, but only because Ellen was curled up in Aaron’s lap, and Rae was wedged against the armrest.
Aaron didn’t seem to have been briefed on theirNo talking during movies—and don’t you dare sneeze eitherpolicy. Ellen was too lovestruck, and Rae too polite (it was probably shyness, but she liked to think it was manners) to tell him.
“I don’t write much now,” Rae said. “But one day.” There it was, the elusiveone dayplaguing her with potential.
“I know a couple people in publishing, if you want any intros,” Aaron said. He had warm, pleasant features, though he wouldn’t have cleared Ellen’s height filter on the app.
“Thanks,” Rae said, trying not to think about how out of reach her writing dreams felt these days. “Maybe when I’m a little further along in my projects.”
“Rae leaves sticky note poems on my pillow sometimes,” Ellen bragged. “For me to find when I get home from my business trips.”
“They’re facetious,” Rae clarified to Aaron. “Nothing good.”
“They’re brilliant,” Ellen said. “She’s the Post-it Poet, and she’s going to be a best seller.”
Aaron smiled broadly. “Can I reserve an autographed copy of your first book?”
“Sure,” Rae mumbled, filled with a crippling sense of failure at how impossibly far a published book was from her smattering of crinkled sticky notes.
She reached into a bag of popcorn while Ellen and Aaron shared another one, finding herself missing how Ellen would snitch more than her fair half.
Ellen began feeding Aaron popcorn, which he nibbled off her fingers. The nibbling turned into kissing, which escalated into full-blown making out.
Rae cleared her throat quietly, and then not so quietly, to remind them she was still there, but to no effect. She was tempted to go into her bedroom, but it felt like she’d be forfeiting more than a couch seat to Aaron, and so she stayed, scooching farther over until she was practically hanging off the edge.
Her phone buzzed. Instinctively her chest tightened in anticipation of an ASAP work request.
But it was Dustin.
Hi, Rae. I had a great time with you on Wednesday. Would you like to come to my friends’ Christmas party tomorrow night?
Rae read the text three times. She’d been certain Dustin had been as indifferent about her as she’d been about him—even more indifferent, as he’d been the one to flee before the hour mark. Yet here he was, asking her to a Christmas party with his friends?
Had his conference call excuse been legitimate? Did he actually like her? Had the five other girls he liked better bailed, so she was the backup?
She wasn’t sure how he felt, or even how she felt, but she had a desire for somethingelse, something other than being a third wheel on a couch that fit only two people.
Sure, that sounds fun.
“Who’re you texting?” Ellen asked, having emerged for air from under Aaron’s tongue.
“My mom.” She couldn’t talk about this in front of Aaron. Besides, there was no point in overanalyzing something that wasn’t going anywhere.
Great,Dustin replied right away.Text me your address and I’ll have my Uber pick you up.
She’d never had a guy offer to pick her up in his Uber before. It wasn’t quite a white horse and carriage, but she caught herself smiling as she crunched popcorn, trying to drown out the suction sounds beside her. For the first time in many years, she was going on a second date with someone.
Perhaps Ellen wasn’t the only one whose romantic outlook was trending upward.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE DATE THAT BEAT EXPECTATIONS
