“When is it ever not bright and early?”
“When it’s still dark out,” he said.
With a small laugh and a wave, I slipped outside. He was still parked by the curb when I glanced back just before entering my building, and I told myself I was the reason he lingered. Fat chance, but a boy could dream.
I took the stairs rather than entrusting my fate to an elevator that had seemed to sputter a little more than usual this morning. The TV was on when I unlocked the door, blaring about a home run. I found Neil camped out on the couch with some leftover Chinese, grinning up at me through a bite. “Welcome back! Let’s see—twigs in your hair? Grass stains on your knees?”
“Afraid not. It was all very PG-13.” I took my shoes off, then dropped the daypack by the door and my body onto the couch. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“Such is life.” He clicked his chopsticks together. “Really, though—how was your big romantic day in the woods?”
I considered playing it cool. It wasn’t one of my strengths, though, so I let a silly smile take over as I thought about Jesse letting me nap while he drove, the route he’d clearly put some effort into, the lemon bars. Kissing in the shade of a maple tree.
“Magical,” I said.
“Magical?” Neil blinked like a startled owl. “Did you feed a bunch of talking ducks? Did you skip through a meadow holding hands while a golden retriever yipped its approval?”
I kicked him with a socked foot. “Mock all you want.”
“Thanks—I think I will.”
The game switched to an ad break. Red Bull promised me wings. A deodorant claimed it would make me massively successful with very beautiful women. Wrong tree, little dog.
“Hey, Neil?”
“Yup?”
I hesitated. Cleared my throat. “I think I’m in love with him.”
Neil lost the smirk, his brows pulling together as if trying to decide whether I was being dramatic or serious. “Okay. That’s… You know. Complicated. But kinda mutual, right?”
“Maybe?” I stole a spring roll from his plate. “But even if it is, I’m not really clear on what he wants. And upon closer inspection, people have a tendency to fall out of love with me.”
“People?” Neil’s voice sharpened. “Or your douchebag exes?”
Well.
“How do you know they’re douchebags?” I asked.
“You said it yourself—you’ve got a habit of dating guys who drop you the second you stop catering to their whims.”
I probably had told him something like that at one point or another, maybe over a breakfast bowl of cereal or a rare moment like this, catching up with the TV on, neither of us in a rush to get somewhere. And—yeah. It wasn’t exactly a wrong assessment, was it?
Travis, with his muttered “might as well marry your ambitions” when he’d kicked my ass to the curb. Ken, who’d sulked for two days because I skipped some late-night slasher flick in favor of studying for an exam. But maybe part of it was me. I’d always kept my sharper edges under wraps in the beginning, tried to be charming and easy. By the time theyrealized how much I worked, how serious I got, it was too late for them to back away without making it sting.
I must have gone quiet for too long because Neil nudged my knee. “Hey. For the record, Jesse doesn’t seem like a self-involved douche.”
Just a simple statement, but it tripped up my breath because… No. No, he wasn’t. And he’d been where I was, he worked just as hard. Hegotit—what it meant and what it took.
“He’s not,” I said into the commentator’s excited announcement that we were back with the final inning,a time for guts, not grace!
Life advice? Yeah, probably not.
And yet.
Monday rolled in with a thunderstorm, rain lashing the windows when I dragged myself out of bed. I replied to a sweetly rambling text from my mom about a painting in progress that gave her trouble, then pulled up Jesse’s name, hesitating. We’d exchanged a few texts about logistics before the hike—no real reason to keep the conversation going now.
Good thing we didn’t go today
