“It was very pleasant.” I start marching toward the door. “He has a great chairside manner.”
“This guy’s hands have been in your mouth?” She winces.
“Well, when you put it likethat,” I say.
“Claire, you can’t be serious.”
I unlock the door and walk in, hauling the bags up onto the brushed metal counter at the center of the space. “I am serious. I’ve given this a lot of thought.”
Because I am trying really hardnotto think about Miles, which I think but don’t say.
I slide my arms out of the bags and look at her. “He’s successful and smart and quirky and kind. And he likes me. A lot. He told me so. Several times.”
She looks unconvinced.
Same, actually.
I press on. “There are no games, no big mysteries. He wants to be in a relationship. With me. Do you know how refreshing that is?”
“Okay, but...” She puts her hands on my arms and waits for me to look at her. “Doyouwant to be in a relationship withhim?” Her eyes are wide. “Does he make you feel tingly inside? Do you think about him when you’re not together? When he holds your hand, do you feel like someone flipped a switch and everything is just a little brighter?”
I stare at her.
“Yeah. I thought so.” She shakes her head slowly. “That’s what you deserve, Claire.”
The words hang there, true as steel.
“You deserve all the things,” she says, dropping her hands from my arms. “Passion, and nervousness, and excitement, and butterflies, and all of it.” She pauses. “That’s not this guy.”
I close my eyes and draw in a slow breath. “I can’t hold out for all of that, Lennon. I’ll end up alone.”
She crosses her arms and frowns. “What about Miles?”
I start pulling ingredients out of the grocery bags. “What about Miles?”
“There’s a lot of tension between you two—”
“You’ve been around us once.”
“And there was tension.” She walks around to the opposite side of the counter and opens one of the bags. “The good kind.” She shoots me a look. “I just kind of thought, you know, you guys needed some time to figure it out.”
Oh, I figured it out all right.
I shake my head. “Miles isn’t on the market.”
“Oh.” She frowns. “Is he with someone?”
I stop moving and look at her. “He’s off-limits. He’s made that clear, and it’s totally fine. And understandable. Something happened to him, something in his marriage, and he doesn’t want to be in a relationship ever again.”
She eyes me for a long moment, tilting her head slowly like she’s reading my mind. “Something happened between you two.”
I freeze. There is no way I’m going to be able to open my mouth to say a single word where it won’t be obvious to Lennon that I’m lying. “It was nothing.”
“Oh my gosh, it was totally not nothing,” she says, a slow smile creeping across her face. “He flipped your switch.” She wags her eyebrows at me.
I bark out a laugh. “What? No, he didn’t.” I pull two boxes of baking soda from the bags and walk them over to a shelf that I’ve only just now decided will be where they will live.
She follows me.
