Absolutely. I type, emboldened by our easy back-and-forth. Here’s a preview—I’ll be wearing back-to-back sweat suits as I ignore you completely and work on my book all day. Good luck resisting that sultry dance.
Wow. How about some warning before things get X-rated?
You’re an idiot. I’ll talk to you later.
The blinking dots pop up one more time.
See you at home.
Dear God, what have I done?
I place my phone down onto the table in front of me, feeling nervous and excited. I’m reminding myself that this is purely work-related when I notice my mom and sister staring right at me.
“Hi,” I say innocently.
“Who was that?” Mom asks. “And don’t bother saying it was Cristina.”
How to play this...
“That was a guy I met last night.”
Mom looks at Jen before turning back to me. “Well, that’s good. Are you interested in him?”
I pause before answering. “I am possibly interested in him.” I don’t mention that I’m referring to Ryan. My mom met him plenty of times in college and always liked him, but after being privy to all the details of our breakup, I don’t know how she’d react to him now.
“And what does he do? What does he look like?”
“He’s an engineer and looks-wise...he’s tall. He has sandy-blond hair and a strong jawline. His eyes are green with little specks of brown along the edge.”
“Ooh la la,” Jen says. “That’s a lot of detail for a first encounter.”
I inch my chair closer to the table. “Yeah, well, he’s Jason’s friend so we talked for a while.”
“Are you going to see him again?” My mom is trying to sound disinterested while verbally circling me like a shark.
“As a matter of fact, we’re meeting up tonight.”
“Wonderful! I want to hear all about it tomorrow. Now, you girls head into the dining room and I’ll grab the dinner.” Mom gets up and Jen and I leave the table, walking into the dining room side by side.
“You know, horrible as it is being pregnant, it really is an incredible experience. You need to get moving if you’re going to have babies someday.”
“I have time,” I say, stretching my shoulders. “I was a late bloomer so my egg quality is way younger than it should be.”
“You can’t actually know that that’s true.”
“I absolutely can. I didn’t get my period until I was sixteen so when I’m thirty-four, my eggs are still going to be in their late twenties.”
“Did you really get it that late?”
“Yeah, I did. So even if you think I’m a spinster, my eggs are still sparkling young debutantes.”
“Fine,” Jen chuckles, “but even with your younger-than-average eggs, you still have to keep it rolling in the love department. At least you met a new guy.”
I fail to mention just how not new Ryan is as we sit down at the dining room table.
“I sure did,” I say instead. “Wish me luck.”
8
Things to do before Ryan gets here:
Tidy everything.
Dust everything.
Vacuum everything.
Buy healthy food to strategically place in the front of the refrigerator.
Move romance novels with mega-dirty titles out of the living room bookcase and into the bedroom bookcase.
Turn around romance novels on bookcases that have groping illustrations on the spine.
Put my published books on display.
Do laundry.
Hide granny panties (aka hide ninety-eight percent of all my panties).
Having managed to check off every item on the list I wrote out after the mad dash back to my apartment, I toss the piece of paper into the waste bin beside my desk. Ryan is officially in the building, on his way up at this very moment. All that’s left to do is get this freak show of an experience on the road.
As if on cue, there’s a loud knock on my door.
Here goes nothing.
I take a deep breath as I cross the room. Another echoing knock sounds out before I clutch the doorknob and swing the door open.
Ryan is standing there in jeans and a gray T-shirt, a travel bag on one shoulder and holding Duke’s leash in his right hand. Duke looks up at me like he’s moving in permanently. All that’s missing is a vintage, dog-sized luggage set.
“No backing out now, Sullivan.” Ryan readjusts the travel bag on his arm as my eyes are drawn from Duke to him.
“Wouldn’t dream of it. Come on in.”
“I think Duke needs some time to get acclimated first.” He squats down to give the dog a thorough petting. “All right, buddy, we may have been kidnapped and forced here against our will, but I’m sure we can survive for a few days.”
“Nice. And here I was thinking I did a good deed for everyone involved.”
“I told you she was self-righteous, didn’t I?” he says to Duke. “Don’t worry. We’ll persevere.”
“You know what? How about the dog stays and you go become a subway dweller? You’d probably thrive in one of those underground communities.”
“You think so?” Ryan asks, standing up with a smile.
“I’m fairly positive. You seem normal on the outside, but below the surface I bet there’s a charismatic cult leader just waiting to burst free.”
“I appreciate your train of thought but I think I’ll tough it out in here for now. We wouldn’t want to disappoint you.”
I imagine punching Ryan right in the face. “Okay, well, you have five seconds. Come in or don’t. I’ll survive either way.”
“This is going to be a long few days, Duke.” Ryan walks into the apartment with his portly but adorable dog trotting along in his wake and I shut the door behind them. He’s passing my bike that’s dangling low from a bamboo rack, which also doubles as my entryway table, when he suddenly stops short.
“No way,” he says. “You still bike?”
“Of course,” I answer. He dings the bike bell and I feel a certain level of motherly pride. Not to be creepy, but I couldn’t love my bike any more than if she had actually come from my
