Page 4 of Not in My Book

“I’ve never said he was hot,” I said indignantly, sliding the drink across the wooden bar.

She easily caught the glass in her hand, lifting it to her lips. “Yes, you have. You say it every time you blush when you talk about him and whenever you make a point to mention his green eyes.”

“They’re green like snot.”

Alexa tilted her head back and laughed, her dark eyes filled with delight. “One day you’ll see I’m right. Thin line between love and hate, Rosie. Thin line.”

“Not that thin,” I muttered.

The truth was, though, that I’d had a bit of a crush on Aiden Huntington last fall. Jess had dragged me to some student reading that Tyler was reading in, and Aiden stood up to read. It was the first time I saw him, and he was undeniably handsome with broad shoulders and dark hair. It was hard to see him in the dim lighting, but I could make out his square jaw and green eyes. The way his nose narrowed and turned up slightly when I caught a glimpse of his profile. I couldn’t stop myself from placing him as a romance hero in my head.

“Good evening. I’m Aiden, and I’m in one of the fiction sections. This is from a short story titled ‘Home.’ ”

Instantly, I was captivated by his words. The low hum of his voice filled the house and sent an electric shock down my spine. His story was about a young boy who’d never had a home, who’d searched for it in other people for so long, but eventually stopped.

Maybe it was because I was homesick, but tears sprung to my eyes and streamed down my face. I was leaning forward, hanging onto his every word. The five minutes he spoke felt like two seconds, and I craved more. I wanted to be envious of how naturally he strung words and sentences together, but I was in awe.

Then, on the first day of spring semester last year, he strolled in from the winter cold wearing a peacoat. Men nowadays didn’t wearpeacoats.They wore North Face jackets with the logos facing out or hoodies with a ketchup stain on the front.

And it only got worse—he took off his coat to reveal a navy sweater that he subsequently rolled up to his elbows. It was almostappallinghow attractive he was.

He sat directly across from me that day and returned my smile with a tentative one. I convinced myself that when class ended, I was going to ask him out for coffee. I envisioned it all in those few moments: We’d chat over coffee, I’d tell him that I’d thought he was cute at the reading, he’d confess his undying love for me, and I would get my Happily Ever After. The romance novel basically wrote itself.

My dad used to say I didn’t have a rose-tinted view, but a Rosie-tinted view. I saw what I wanted to see. I saw Aiden and fell head over heels. But you know what they say about la vie en rose—the red flags look just like all the other ones.

We all went around the table, introducing ourselves and what we liked to write, ranging from horror to comedy. But the minute “romance” left my mouth, Aiden’s demeanor shifted. Any warmth from him disappeared and was replaced with his signature scowl. His nose crinkled in distaste as if to say, “Really?”

Sitting high and mighty on his horse, Aiden said he wrote “literary fiction.” He literally turned his nose up when he said it. And, hey, lit fic wasn’t my thing, but I wouldn’t ever shit on it the way Aiden shit on romance.

Things spiraled quickly from there. Aiden and I disagreed on nearly everything we could. He condemned romance every time I submitted a piece and would make snarky remarks like, “Oh, how coincidental there was only one bed,” or “No, it makes total sense for him to secretly be a prince.Sure.” I only wished I could hurl the same insults as he did and let it leave a mark. I tried, but I had to dig deep to find any critique for him, really.

I’d made the worst mistake of telling Alexa about the tiny crush I’d had on Aiden before I got to know him. Now she wasn’t convinced that I was over him, even though Iwas.

“How was class today?” Alexa pushed up on the wooden bar, trying to get a glimpse behind it. “Do you have any cherries?”

I pulled the small cup of them out from the fridge under the bar and plopped them into her drink.

My relationship with Alexa was trifold: friend, coworker, and roommate. The Peruvian network of worried moms encompassed thewhole globe. When I decided to move to New York, my mom went into panic mode and called all my tías to see if they knew anyone I could live with. Turned out my tía’s friend who sent her ajíamarillo paste from Peru had a niece who was moving to the city around the same time as I was. Alexa had already secured an apartment in the East Village, and we quickly bonded over our lack of knowledge of city life. Our roommateship morphed into a strange, unlikely friendship. When the year ended, we hadn’t even thought twice about renewing our lease.

There was a learning curve in living together, though. Although we got along great, we were total opposites. She loved partying and night clubs and spontaneity whereas I preferred a weighted blanket on Friday nights and detailed to-do lists.

It had been hard to stay in touch with the Peruvian side of myself in Tennessee when the only store that sold Inca Kola was two hours outside of town. But Alexa kept a steady supply of Morochas in the apartment and taught me how to make a few traditional dishes, like lomo saltado or pollo a la brasa.

We rarely got to see each other outside of the apartment and the restaurant. She was studying fashion at The New School full time and was working here part time. Alexa had lucked out with financial aid from The New School, but NYU wasn’t as generous with me. I couldn’t even afford toconsiderbeing a full-time student. I spent my weekdays after class as a bartender here and spent the weekends writing and studying.

“Aiden was particularly vicious today. We got into it a little bit in class.”

Alexa took a seat as I rested my forearms on the dark bar. “How so?”

“He tore up my piece—and I was really proud of that one, too. I thought it could be a good start to my manuscript, but apparently not. We fought in front of everyone.”

“Ooh, foreplay.” She smiled, fishing a cherry out of her drink before popping it into her mouth. “Dime más.”

Heat crept up my neck. “I’m telling you, it’s not like that. He’s so horrible. And only to me, just because I like romance.” I sighed. “It’s Simon all over again.”

“Simon was a self-righteous prick.”

My neck prickled at the thought of my narcissist ex. I had spent the past year moving on. “I don’t see much of a difference between Simon and Aiden then.”

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