My head jerks in his direction. It takes a solid three seconds before I lift the ice cream. “It’s my favorite.”
He says nothing.
I clear my throat. “It was a long week, so I DoorDash’d Marco’s from down the street.”
My left hand is getting burned from the heat of the Italian food, and my right hand is going to freeze off from the ice cream. My hair keeps getting dangerously close to my eyes.
“I’ve been meaning to try that place,” he says almost absentmindedly.
“Yeah, we should!” I blurt. Then I realize what I just said. I open my mouth to correct myself when the elevator doors open to my floor.
“Um, sure,” he says slowly, like he’s trying to figure me out.
Before I can think, I blurt again, “Tomorrow night? Seven?”
He looks even more confused now. “I… uh…um, okay.”
“So, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow,” he repeats, and his eyes flicker like he’s surprising himself as well as me.
The doors close behind me.
My heart is still trying to escape my ribcage by the time I make it into the apartment and set the food on the counter.
Dr. Doom is on Ashton’s lap. She’s watching something involving a very serious narrator and a dead person.
Without looking away, she says, “Did you go downstairs to get the food, or did you join a witness protection program?”
“Ashton,” I say, breathless.
She finally looks over.
Something in my face must give me away, because she straightens. “What happened?”
“I—” I stop. Then I laugh, because I don’t know how else to say it. “I ran into Nathan. In the elevator.”
Her eyes narrow. “And?”
“And now I think I have a date tomorrow.”
She blinks. “Youthink.”
“I mean—” I gesture vaguely at myself. “We talked about Marcos. And then I said we should go. And then I said tomorrow. And then he said okay. But he also looked like he was trying to solve a math problem in his head.”
Ashton stares at me. Then she grins. “So, you asked him out.”
“I guess...”
“That’s what it sounds like.”
“Do you think he was just being polite?” I ask, scrunching my nose.
She smiles. “I think he could’ve said no. And he didn’t.”
I sit there for a second, letting that sink in.
I still don’t entirely understand how that just happened, but apparently, I have a date.
