Page 37 of Most Likely to Match
Chloe walks rigidly ahead of me, pausing to allow a busser to collect the dishes, wipe down the table, and replace the menus. The booth is the rounded kind so that no matter how far away we might choose to sit from each other, we’ll still technically be sharing a bench. Chloe slides down the squeaky cushion, leaving enough room for me next to her at the center of the table.
I slide in next to her but leave at least a hand’s width between us.
She stares at the space between us instead of at her menu.
“Coffee?” The server doesn’t even wait for our replies before she starts to pour the steaming liquid into fresh cups. “Do you know what you want to eat?”
Chloe is still staring at the space between us.
“Uh, could we get a bit more time?” I ask, pulling a menu toward me and flipping it open; there are eight pages, front and back, with all-day breakfast and lunch options available. “Maybe a lot more time,” I mutter.
“Can I have the eggs Benedict?” Chloe asks.
I glare at her. “You don’t even know if they have that.”
She scowls back. “It’s a breakfast place. Of course they have it,” she whisper-hisses.
“Of course you can, sweetie.” The server tops up Chloe’s coffee after she takes one sip but turns to me with a scowl. “Are you ready?”
I flip the menu closed. “I guess I’m having the eggs Benedict, too.”
The server collects the menus and barely cracks a smile at me as she leaves.
Chloe hovers her hand over my thigh. “What’s wrong?” She pulls her hand back, resting it on her own lap.
“Nothing,” I say, but hear the lie in my own mouth. The word barely makes it through my clenched teeth. My hands are curled into fists on the tabletop. “Nothing,” I say again, shaking my hands out, settling against the back of the booth. I even spread my legs wider, but I can’t ignore the tension that’s crept up my shoulders.
I turn in the booth to face her. “You didn’t answer my question,” I prompt her. “You never explainedwhyyou needed a boyfriend.” I don’t know why the thought occurred to me now, other than because I want, need, her to share something with me. Something that makes me feel a little less exposed.
I lean in closer to her so I don’t have to yell over the noise.
“When we met in your office, you said you weren’t going to find a boyfriend.”
“Yeah,” she says slowly.
“Well, why not?” The more I think about it, the more angry I am for not asking her about it earlier. I was so goddamn ready to jump back into some fucked-up arrangement with her that I didn’t think once about preserving my own sanity, my own heart.
I pull off my cap, use the bill to scratch my head, and drop it onto the table. With time and exposure, the royal blue fabric has worn to a duller, grayish cobalt. Caro hand embroidered a peach emoji onto it for me a couple years ago to “make it pop again.” I wonder if she was using it as an opportunity to call me an asshat.
“Look at you,” I say flatly. “You could find a boyfriend if you wanted to. Why wouldn’t you date instead of trying to hire me as your boyfriend?”
The answer is obvious. To me, at least. But I need to hear her say it.
Chloe fidgets. The vinyl upholstery is patched with duct tape in some places. In others, jagged tears stick up, stuffing spilling from the wound. She mumbles something as she presses her finger over one of those jagged pieces.
“What?” I lean closer still. To the outside observer, we probably look like a couple trying to share an intimate moment in the most unintimate of places.
She meets my eyes, not backing down from my proximity. This close, her eyes are a deeper blue, shot through with bolts of silver lightning. “I said, I don’t date.”
I roll my eyes and lean back. Take a deep breath, now that it’s easier to do so. Now that I’m not close enough to kiss her.
“I don’t.” She crosses her arms over her chest, indignant. The Raptors t-shirt— my t-shirt— is one I’ve had since the Vince Carter years. Faded purple, a red cartoon velociraptor raptor dribbling a basketball across the front, it looks strange on her in this light. She’s pale, the tired color beneath her eyes matching the t-shirt. I shouldn’t pick on her now, but the need for an explanation is too strong. And something I deserve, I think, at the very least.
I hold my coffee mug with both hands, trying to find the warmth that leaked from the ceramic long ago. “Do you think it’s possible,” I say quietly, not bothering to project my voice. If she can hear me or not doesn’t really matter. I have to get this out. “That you found me back in your life a few weeks ago and you…” I lift my shoulder in a casual shrug. “Fell back into an old pattern?”
“What kind of pattern is that?” she asks stiffly.
I look across the restaurant, at families, kids, young couples holding hands; people we once were or at least could have been.
