“Mhmm. I’d pick these any day of the week, no question.” His lips find my cheek.
Eitan’s sunflower smile is in full bloom and it’s a relief to bask in it. Being watched by him feels like bathing in sunlight, and I’m not sure how I can turn away from it again.
#
Three weeks sit between Camp Goldberg and the wedding, but it feels like it could be half a year. Eitan maintains that he has his own apartment, but I’m suspicious, considering he’s found an excuse to spend every single night at my place. Sometimes it’s,my roommate has a date tonight, other times it’s,your place is closer to Mike’s,but the result is always the same. We end up snuggled together like two puzzle pieces, whispering and laughing under the covers like we’re at a twelve-year-old’s sleepover. Eitan seems to be the human equivalent of a wood-burning stove, or maybe just the sun, and it appears that hisraison d’etrehas become thawing every cynical corner of my being.
Eitan even succeeded in getting me to eat a vegan donut. He brought me to a small shop run out of an alleyway. The donut was lavender and blueberry with a thick vanilla glaze, and I might have come in my pants when I took a bite. Not sure whatis so sexual about fried dough and sugar, but we made our way back to my place for a solid twenty-minute makeout session.
I found an old CD player so that I can listen to the mixtape, and a couple old albums he lent me, in my apartment. I try not to read too much into the song lyrics, but it’s hard not to when he puts songs like “Clumsy” by Fergie and “Two Weeks in Hawaii” by Hellogoodbye on a mixtape made especially for me.
It’s embarrassing, really, how much I like him.
Pen, on the other hand, has not been having a good time. Luckily I wasn’t on the hook for that joint-bach weekend, but I’m still left trying to quell her ire. The texts come in, twenty a day, but I’ve stopped responding to anything that isn’t a direct question I can help with. My latest project has been bedazzling an ankle brace she has to wear down the aisle. I glaze over the long rants that should be directed to Pen’s internal monologue or a licensed therapist, and the world hasn’t burned down.
It’s hard, when receiving Eitan’s unconditional affection, not to question why Penelope has been treating me as disposable.Ruby will plan my wedding. Ruby has time. Ruby will do anything I ask of her.
TheAGENTED WRITERmarquee lights pulse in response to these doubts. It’s the final string connecting us. The reason I can’t throw my phone in Lake Michigan and never look at a tablecloth-napkin pairing ever again. The truth of how transactional Pen’s and my friendship has become is a dull ache in my gut. I glom onto the hope that even if everything doesn’t go perfectly as planned—which, spoiler alert, is impossible for a two hundred fifty person wedding—she will see reason. She believes in my book, in me, and she will still share my query with Alice. This wedding is just a bout of temporary insanity. It’s not permanent. There’s a future on the other side of it where Pen and I are actually friends again.
“Hey.” Eitan runs his hand through my hair as we sit at my counter, eating quinoa salad with grilled salmon. I didn’t even need to go to Sweetgreen. He made it from scratch. “Are you thinking about the wedding?”
Spending all this time together has given Eitan a front row to Penelope and the entire wedding planning fiasco. Saying that he disapproves would be an understatement. I think he would march up to Penelope and Josh’s condo and rip her a new one if I gave him the okay.
As it is, the only reason he holds his tongue is because he knows it’s important to me, even if he doesn’t fully understand why.
“Yes.” I swallow. “But it’s nothing important.” I smile.
His jaw clenches, his eyes narrow in frustration. I want him to let it go and just focus on us. I twist my fingers inside his, and this calms him.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” Eitan asks.
“Few meetings, a doctor’s appointment, then nothing.”
“Treatment?” Eitan raises an eyebrow.
I shake my head. “Just a shot. I have to get it every four weeks. And I think I have an exam tomorrow.”
He grimaces. “I’m awful with needles.”
“Oh you sweet, sweet, innocent child.” I pat his head. Being awful with needles isn’t an option for a cancer patient. “I just close my eyes and think about Chris Hemsworth. When you realize they’re shooting a spring-loaded needle into your belly, you get real good at not asking questions.”
Eitan pales.
“Why do you ask?” I poke him, snapping him out of whatever needle nightmare he’s imagining.
“I was wondering if you want to go see this new French film with me at the Music Box Theatre?”
“Are you asking me on a date?”
Eitan clears his throat. “Just as friends.”
I pull my hands away in mock outrage.
“Kidding!” He doesn’t let my hands get far, grabbing them again. “Yes, in case it wasn’t obvious based on the twelve consecutive nights I’ve spent here, and the twenty or so times we’ve had sex, I am asking you on a date.”
“And you think I’m open to dating?”
“I’m pretty confident,” he says as he stands up from the stool and crowds me against my own countertop.
