Brian’s car is not a car at all. It’s a bright-orange contraption that looks like a golf cart and a military Jeep had a baby. The top is striped navy and white.
I pause. “What is this thing?”
“You’ve never seen a Moke? No, I guess you wouldn’t in the city. Fully electric. Charges in just eight hours.” He raps his knuckles against the orange roll bar.
“Only eight?” I quip.
Brian chuckles. I slide into one of the white racing seats before fumbling with the seat belt. I bet Jack’s retort would’ve been epic.
Coffee is at Beach Brain, a few blocks away, but it takes an age for us to get there since the Moke only gets up to twenty-five miles per hour. Brian waves to other locals, relishing the attention. When we get to the shop, Brian takes my order, and I slide into a booth decorated to look like a beach ball.
Brian slips into the seat across from me, one with a closed beach umbrella poking out the top. “Can I confess something?” he says, leaning forward and glancing around for curious ears. “I had the biggest crush on you in high school. Thebiggest. I can’t believe I’m here with Penelope Huff. I owe your mom a bottle of pinot grigio.”
“Ha. Thanks.” I owe my mom something, but it isn’t wine. Though it does feel nice to be wanted—to be liked—even though it’s not by the one I like. For a second I imagine letting go. It’s so exhausting fighting Mom and her potent forever-pressure. Especially when I owe her everything. I could forget about my apartment angst, move back, let this guy across from me, eager as a puppy, take me out. Buy Cathy Santini’s house and do marketing for a local hotel. Let the petals slam shut each year. I’d be trapped inside, sure, but at the moment that doesn’t sound like the most terrible fate.
Brian’s not unattractive, though I feel nothing when I look at him. He doesn’t have slate-gray eyes that warm with humor when they look at me. He doesn’t have a smirk that makes me want to claw his clothes off. He isn’t Jack. And nothing about the life waiting for me in Stone Harbor is what I want.
“I’m so sorry, Brian, but can you bring me back to my mom’s, actually? I only had enough time to slip out and grab a cup of joe before I run for the bus back home.”
“Your mom said you were going to take the rest of the day off…” His disappointment is palpable, and while I’m not the one who set him up with false expectations, I still feel guilty about letting him down. When he drops me off, I run inside, grab my small bag of belongings, leave a note for Mom, and hustle to catch my bus back to civilization.
And Jack.
17
Despite the lack of sea air, I breathe easier in New York. My life is here. In this building. In apartment 5A. Which means it’s time to face my problems head-on.I heave in a breath, pull the strap of my tote bag up my shoulder, and confirm with my phone’s camera function that my hickey is still concealed beneath a thick layer of cover-up. And then I knock on Jack’s door.
It’s a few agonizing seconds before he answers. My heart pogos around my chest at the sight of him. When he sees me, his eyes narrow, and he crosses his arms.
“Can I help you?” His voice, even at the worst of our exchanges, always had a warmth to it. Humor. Care. I realize that now because it’s gone—and what’s left is glacial. I feel a little bereft.
“Hi. Listen. I wanted to talk about the elephant in the room.”
“Not nice to call people names.”
My eyebrows pinch together, and I hesitate a beat. This isn’t going well. “Ah… What I mean is, let’s try… I want to try this again—”
He snorts.
“I— I didn’t mean it when I said I don’t like you. I shouldn’t have said that.” Especially shouldn’t have said that right after I had his hands all over my ass. I wince. “And I left the other night because I— I mean, I’ll get to that. But I’d like to—”
“Hey, Jack.” There’s a purr behind him. Yelena, the appraiser, her bounty of cleavage spilling from the sweetheart neckline of her blue top, pouts prettily. “Can I ask you about—”
Her eyes flare with recognition when she notices me, and she hesitates. “Oh, the neighbor from the hole.”
She makes me sound like a hobbit. I clench my fists.
“Yelena, meet 5A. Formally meet, I mean. 5A, this is Yelena,” he says.
I take a halting step backward, unsure if I want to flee or take a swing at him. Everything I planned on telling him dies on my tongue. He’s watching me with a shuttered look I can’t read. I give them both a tight smile, and he turns to Yelena.
“Give me a second while I deal with this. Almost done.” He says “this” like he’s about to salt a slug on his porch.
I squeeze the strap of my bag until my palm aches. “Anyway, I’ll make it quick since you have company. The main reason I’m here is that—”
“You want to try this again.” He sneers. “You said.”
The speech I prepared on the bus fails me, along with my courage. “This, being neighbors. Normal neighbors.” I am reversing course faster than Sergeant Al Powell’s squad car from Nakatomi Plaza inDie Hard. It makes me dizzy. My unspoken words are razor-sharp. They claw at my chest. I want my sofa, my blanket, my apartment, and I don’t want to leave it for a month. “If we’re going to buy our places, and maybe be neighbors for a while, we’re going to need to be cordial. We got off on the wrong foot.”
