Page 25 of Never Say Yes To Your Best Friend (I said Yes)

“I guess so.”

“Okay.” She fiddles with her phone and puts it back into her purse. Then, she makes good eye contact, and it sucks me in…straight down into the vortex of her lovely green stare. “Maybe I’ll go first. I’d like to travel. To Ireland and Scotland, and definitely just for the pleasure of it. Not for work. I’m not sure if I want to have kids. Maybe one day. Also, I love animals, pretty much all kinds. I act tough on the outside, but inside, I’m pretty much a big softie for just about any cause. I wish the world were a better place. I truly do. It really hurts to think about the amount of suffering in it. And a lot of the time, I feel truly helpless.

“I love antiques and thrifting. I did it when I was younger because I liked cool things and didn’t have the cash for newstuff. Even now, I don’t have a lot of extra money, but even if I did, I would still want the one-of-a-kind old stuff. I’m a great lover of history, no matter how it’s told. Antiques, fiction, non-fiction, I’m here for it. I like cooking, but I’m terrible at it. I love baking, too, but I’m even worse at that. The same goes for sewing. I adore fashion of all kinds, especially dresses, and I’ve tried making my own creations a few times, but it’s always a wretched disaster. I live alone by choice. I love my friends, but I like my alone time, too. I believe in doing something you love. Something that has meaning. I know that’s a pipe dream for a lot of people, and I know how lucky I am.”

She trails off with that, and I don’t know what makes me feel worse. The fact that she almost quit her job because of me or the fact that we’re still doing this charade, also because of me.

“Other than that, there’s really not much else you need to know. I had a great childhood. I have one older sister, and she’s older by two years. I have aunts, uncles, and cousins. I also have one living grandma, and I miss the other three like freaking crazy. I went to college here. I love living here. I’d leave, but I’d probably always find my way back. It’s good to know where you’re from, even if your path takes you in other directions. We had pets growing up, mostly a family dog and a cat. We do things like family reunions, and we grow a garden every summer. My mom is good at baking and canning and pretty much everything I’m not. I love to read, and I inherited that love from both my parents. My dad works in an office, and my mom went back to work as a receptionist in a doctor’s office after I turned ten. Neither of my parents went to college, but they did do on-the-job training, and they still do that sometimes if their employers send them. My sister is a dietician, and she’s freaking amazing. Their names are Phillip and Joy, and my sister’s is Atella. Yes, she also got an inventive name.

“None of us can draw or sing, but we all wish we could. We’re pretty unathletic as a whole. And I’d say that if we were pressed, which I know we likely will be, we should say we met and bonded over crabanana splits. You were here having one, and I was here having one, and we noticed at the same time that we both liked them, and we’d never seen another person order one. Ever. It was one of those right moment, right time events—kismet shit. I told you about what I did for a living, and I made pudding sound so good that you couldn’t resist giving it a go. If you’re not already past that point.”

“I haven’t specifically told my parents anything about you personally or why I bought the pudding company. They know your name, they know I’m supposedly crazy about you, and they know you work at the company I just bought. But I’ve been purposely vague about the how and why and the super fine details.”

I don’t know if she’s settled into this as her fate or if she’s decided that I’m not such a villain, but she nods, satisfied.

“You sounded scornful when it comes to legacy.” I have to ask because it’s going to be like a thorn that constantly bothers me otherwise. “There are some people that say enduring is the most important thing there is.”

“I guess most people think that way. Is that why you do what you do? Because you want your name to live on?”

“I do what I do because I was born into it, sort of, but I never wanted anyone to say I didn’t work for what I have.”

“But you just said you were born into it.”

I can’t explain the aversion I have to being labeled a silver spoon child or a trust fund baby, or whatever people call it now. Nepo baby. I guess that’s the new term. “I was, but I wanted to earn my way as well. I wanted to expand on what was already there.”

She looks like she wants to yawn, but her gaze slowly comes back around to me after doing a slow perusal of the place. It’s getting busier after the dinner rush, not the other way around. “Running an empire is probably hard work.”

“I guess so.”

“It doesn’t leave a lot of time for anything else,” she adds.

“Not really.”

“Or do you think it could if you wanted it to? Isn’t the point of life supposed to be working smarter? Or don’t work if you don’t have to? Find something you love and do it?”

“I love what I do.” I sound defensive, and I know it.

“Okay.” She wants to change the subject. But unlike me, she’s good at it. It gives me a glimpse of what she would be like if she was taken out on an actual date and she was actually trying. She wouldn’t try to botch it like the first one we went on. “What else?”

I made a perfectly good list of facts about me, which she dismissed without so much as a glance. Now, I’m lost, and I don’t have anything else. I’m terrified that in two seconds, it’s going to become apparent there is nothing about us that could have ever connected. I’m afraid she’s going to think I’m only surface-level deep, that my whole life is work and money, driving to the top, and climbing rungs. There’s always a top on top of a top. I don’t think anyone is ever satisfied with having everything. My family doesn’t live like that. We might have lots of money, but it’s poured into investments, businesses, savings, property, and donations.

“My parents are kind of minimalists. You wouldn’t know they had money if you didn’t know,” I say.

“So they live like doctor or lawyer-level rich?”

I think about their house in a neighborhood where most people are actually doctors and lawyers. “Their house blends in with everyone else’s. Their vehicles, too.”

“So, not overly showy. Got it. And you? You like to live the same way, or you have some high-level penthouse that overlooks the city?”

I do own one, but it happens to be in the building I also own, and I don’t live there, so I don’t think it counts. “I have a decent place,” I say vaguely.

“That’s probably code for something super awesome, but you’re trying to downplay it because you think I’m not going to like hearing the truth?”

“I…no. It’s a warehouse condo.” I own that building, too. I have to live somewhere, so I thought the top floor was a good choice. I probably should have made it into two condos instead of one giant beast, but I couldn’t choose, and then the architect I hired seemed convinced that breaking it up would have been a crime.

“That’s pretty cool.” She perks up. Does she like architecture? Who doesn’t like warehouse condos, though? “Is it old and full of brick and wooden beams?”

“Yes, and the windows are to die for. They’re those curl up in the seat and overlook the whole city kind.”

---