She bites her lip.
“Yeah. So.” She shifts uncomfortably from one foot to the other.
“Listen, I get it.” I don’t want to put Sora in a position where she has to choose between her job and me.
“You do?” She’s shocked. “You’reokaywith this… or…not…this?” She gestures wildly between us.
I laugh. “There’s really only two more weeks in February,” I say. “And then, I assume,afterthat, your boss won’t care who you date?”
She thinks about this a moment, tapping her chin with one gloved hand. “Yes, that’s true.”
“Okay, then. I can wait.”
“You can?” She shakes her head in disbelief. “You’re sure?”
“Yes. Absolutely.” I’d wait months. Hell, I’ve already waited years, if you think about it.
“These days, guys won’t wait five minutes on Spark.”
“Well, I’m not most guys.” I think about all the fish-faced cleavage. Nah, I’m good. I’m tired of the flatness, the sameness of all those many profiles on my dating apps.
We stare at each other, and a small smile teases the corner of Sora’s lips.
I don’t want her to go. She doesn’t want to leave. It’s like we’re tethered together by an invisible cord.
“So, do you have any plans? For tonight?”
“Valentine’s Day?” she scoffs, offended. “Well, I can’t go out to eat, because every single restaurant will be mobbed. Can’t GrubDash because, see: all restaurants being packed. And, I just checked—there’s no horror movie marathon like there ought to be on cable tonight. So I’ll probably just go home and rewatchThe Shiningagain.”
“Evil haunted hotel does scream Valentine’s Day.”
“I mean, it’s the next best thing to a masked killer with a chain saw.” She lingers at my counter. “Do… you have plans?” She says it haltingly, as if worried about my answer. Does she think I would just fall into bed with her and then go out with a new woman the next night? I’m not that much of a jerk. But that doesn’t mean I can’t have a little fun. At her expense.
“Well, I do have a date.”
She stiffens. “You do?” She tries desperately to look uninterested.
“With a beautiful brunette.”
“Oh.” Sora glances down at her feet, not meeting my gaze. “I figured a guy like you wouldn’t be staying home.”
Guy like me? Wonder what she means by that?
“I am just giving you a hard time. I’m babysitting my five-year-old niece.” I grab my phone from my pocket and pull up a picture of her in pink heart-shaped sunglasses and ice cream dripping from her nose. A picture taken outside last summer when she’d somehow managed to get her ice cream cone on 90 percent of her face.
Sora blinks. “Oh! Oh,God.” She laughs, brighter suddenly. “She’s adorable. Really.”
I glance up and see I’m at the end of my shift.
“Want to come over to my brother’s house? Help me babysit? I’m watching her while Ian and his wife go out.” I’m already taking off my apron, hope lifting in my chest.
“I don’t know. Is that a date?” She hesitates, biting her red lip, and looking absolutely 100 percent fuckable.
She wants to come with me. I can see it in her eyes. All she needs is a little push.
“Hell, no. It’s ajob. Even your boss won’t see anything wrong withbabysitting,would she?”
“I guess not,” she relents.
