After a late-afternoon budget session during which Lark admitted she would have to start waitressing and driving Lyft again if she didn’t accept the Hunter-Cash offer, Callie had proposed they stay in, watch Netflix, and cook their own dinner to save money. Listlessly, Lark agreed, meanwhile composing two different messages in her head. The first was a short text to Trip: Did you mean what you said about investing in me, or was that just bullshit? The second was an email to Zachary at Hunter-Cash that included the words, I am pleased to accept your offer. She couldn’t bring herself to send the former, so she figured she’d probably send the latter in the morning.
Callie was chopping veggies for a stir-fry in the kitchen, and Lark was trying to will herself off the couch to help when her phone pinged.
It was Trip. You free?
She picked up and thumbed back. To talk?
For a date. I’m in LA.
What, now???
Picking up a rental. Meet me at Soyokaze?
Instead of replying, Lark jumped up, ran to the kitchen, and held her screen in front of Callie’s face.
“Oh my god!” said Callie, seeming genuinely excited for her.
“Right?” said Lark, getting ready to answer YES.
“But you’re not meeting him there,” said Callie, putting a hand on Lark’s arm.
“I’m not?”
Callie, left-handed, was still holding a knife, somehow managing to look protective of Lark and threatening toward Trip. “No. He’s picking you up here. So I can meet him.”
Lark felt a slow smile spread across her face as she bent over to give Callie a hug, wary of the blade. It didn’t hurt anything to satisfy her roommate’s curiosity and, truth be told, made Lark feel a tiny bit safer.
“Great idea,” she murmured, breaking away and texting her reply.
Can you pick me up?
His answer didn’t come right away. In fact, it took long enough that she had circled the apartment three times, staring at the phone and waiting for the little bubble that indicated he was typing a reply.
Sorry, dealing with the clerk. Of course! Give me your address and I’m on my way.
Lark and Callie looked at each other, grinned, and then started jumping up and down. Then Lark stopped, looked down at her sweatpants and her POWERED BY PLANTS T-shirt. She touched her hair and felt the snarls.
“I’ve got to shower,” she said, heading for the bathroom. “Sorry about dinner!”
Her hair was clean and dry, and she was wearing jeans and a cute silk top showing just a hint of cleavage. Underneath: matching bra and panties from Victoria’s Secret, just in case. A wisp of the perfume she’d splurged on and never gotten to wear because Dylan had scent-sensitivity issues. Lark loved it because it made her think of lying in a king-size bed in Hawaii with the balcony doors flung open and the smell of fruit, flowers, and surf drifting in from outside. Even though she’d been born there and her mom was Hawaiian, she’d been back only a handful of times after they moved to the mainland when she was eleven. Her biracial father, born and raised in Compton before he shipped out in the navy, felt more comfortable in California. Amazingly, her parents were still together and living happily in the Valley, something few of her friends could say about theirs.
Callie sat on the couch, eating stir-fry with a fork, watching Lark pace.
“You know, this is better than TV,” she said.
“Stop it.”
“Do you mind if I record you? This would make a killer GIF or Boomerang.”
“He’s here,” said Lark, peeking out the window and then throwing herself into a chair.
Callie grinned mischievously.
“Don’t interrogate him,” warned Lark.
“Who, me?” asked Callie, a Midwestern model of innocence.
It was a quiet evening and the windows were open, so they could hear the engine shut off, then his footsteps as he came up the walk of their 1930s courtyard apartment complex. He paused on the step, probably double-checking the unit number, then knocked softly.
Lark locked eyes with Callie, then went to the door and threw it open. Truthfully, she was worried she’d be disappointed, that her one-night stand in gray Buffalo would look out of place in sunny California. She was afraid he’d look older than she remembered, and that the silvering fox she’d described to Callie would be embarrassingly threadbare on second viewing.
And at first she couldn’t tell. All she saw was a huge spray of tropical flowers. Then Trip’s head peeking over.
“Can I come in?” he asked, grinning.
“Hi! Yeah,” she said awkwardly, stepping aside, stunned at how the flowers seemed to have materialized from thoughts she’d been having only minutes ago.
He kissed her cheek as he came in. “For you.”
“This is my roommate, Callie,” Lark said, moving aside so he could see her.
Callie waved from the couch. “Hiya.”
“I hope I haven’t interrupted your plans,” said Trip, taking in the situation and looking, charmingly, a tiny bit awkward.
“Well, we were going to watch season three of some true-crime show, but somehow I’ll manage without her,” said Callie, none too subtly looking Trip up and down.
Trip glanced at Lark, a look she couldn’t interpret as meaning anything but Your roommate seems awesome. Weirdly, it made her feel a sense of pride in Callie, her freckled face and upturned nose, her boyish-cut sandy hair, her ordinary, sensible goodness. The fact that Trip took one look and
