Page 25 of One More Weekend

But I’d emailed all of my references and past employers and asked them to keep me in mind. Most of them had responded that as soon as they heard about something, they’d submit my resume.

They also admitted that hiring was slow these days and there were fewer jobs than people.

All of it meant I’d have to either find something lower paying or I’d have to move home and take a job with my parents.

A few minutes later, we were descending down the stairs and into the subway station. We swiped past the turnstiles and made our way to the platform just as a train was pulling in.

“Let’s move.” Sy winked as she took off down the final set of stairs toward the train.

Doing my best to keep up, I kept a hand on my purse as I ran.

The doors were just about to close when Sy crossed over the threshold and slammed her arm into the rubber gasket at the edge of the metal doors, holding it open for me.

I sprinted past her and onto the train. Releasing the doors behind me, the familiarding, dongsounded overhead. “Stand clear of the closing doors.”

I gripped the metal bar and caught my breath. Between breaths, I looked up at Sy. “Thanks.”

The ride was quick, our bodies swaying as the car rocked back and forth along the tracks. Even days later, it was clear to me that Sy was trying to keep some distance between us. She was putting in quite a bit of effort to stop herself from brushing my shoulders as we lurched.

But as the train ground to a halt at our stop, I couldn’t stop my body from hurtling toward Sy.

Stretching out her long arms, she quickly caught my weight and leaned into me as a counterbalance.

“Sorry.” I tucked a hair behind my ear as I looked up into her green eyes, my throat tightening as her smell drifted into my nose.

Fuck.

Part of me thought it was the tequila, that I didn’t actually want to feel her on me like that. But at that moment, I knew it couldn’t be that simple.

As soon as the train stopped, I pulled away and straightened my shirt. “Thank you.” I offered her an overly cutesy smile to lighten the mood.

Sy smirked and wiggled her eyebrows. “Any time, darlin’.”

The doors swung open, forcing us out of the train back onto a platform and up some more stairs. But when we reached the top of the steps, we rose to a busy street at the corners of Park Slope, Prospect Heights, and Crown Heights in Brooklyn.

Knowing the route by heart, Sy tilted her head in the direction we were headed. I followed her blindly, trying to orient myself to the new location.

Before I could even get a grip on where we were, Sy was waltzing up to a ticket booth at the top of a small set of steps. A window in an all-glass building, the booth housed a few cashiers and a glass barrier.

“Hey, I just have two tickets.” Sy smiled as she pulled out her phone.

The woman behind the glass scanned the barcode on Sy’s phone and gestured for us to head inside.

Grabbing a paper map as she walked away, Sy waved me through the gated entrance where another usher scanned their phone again.

“Can I pay you for those tickets?” I feared a whole summer of trips like this would bankrupt my already broke friend. Sy busted her ass for every cent and I didn’t want to freeload off of her while she spent the next three months entertaining me.

Looking over her shoulder, Sy shook her head. “Free on Wednesdays.” Before I could answer, Sy took in a deep breath and let her shoulders drop as she looked at the bright green foliage ahead.

It was like seeing her in her natural habitat. Despite being a born and raised New Yorker, Sy was meant to be in nature and found every little pocket of it in the city.

As we walked down a slight slope on a path, Sy looked over at me. “See, another benefit of working weird hours. A lot more places are free than you’d expect.”

“True.” The whole place was a feast for my eyes and nose, elegant florals filling every inch of my nostrils as my eyes took in the perfectly pruned trees hanging overhead. It provided a pleasant relief from the relentless heat of early summer in the concrete jungle.

Sy guided me toward a small gravel path with low-hanging trees. Just past the branches was a Japanese-style boat house on a small pond.

The cherry blossoms that surrounded the water had turned green after their bloom just a few months before. Now, petals were scattered across the edge of the water. At its center, lily pads sat on the surface.

---