Page 73 of Until Tomorrow
LOREN: #1–everyone needs 24-hour cookies.
LOREN: #2–The Sandlot is far superior to Goonies.
LOREN: #3–there’s no such thing as too many cookies. I’m going to prove to you that I’m right about #1 and #3 tonight. We’ll raincheck a movie night later.
Deal. I’ll see you in thirty.
I barely had the text sent before I was shooting another one off to Eva to let her know I was leaving. I didn’t have a clue when I’d be home, but all I could focus on was what the hell I was going to wear to a twenty-four-hour cookie café?
Loren sat there laughing, his head tipped back and the pleasant sound loud on the small café patio. That, coupled with my embarrassment, had me laughing alongside him.
“You went on a date with Chad,” he repeated, practically wheezing. “Oh, boy.Well, now you’re officially queer.”
“What?” I replied.
“I’m fairly certain Chad has gone out with every man on that app,” he said.Oh, good God.“I’ve been out with him. Jack only lasted fifteen minutes with him before he just walked the fuck out. Any of the guys I know on that app have gone out with him. The running joke is that going out with Chad is a rite of passage. Did he show up in a jersey?”
“And bitched about how his boss acts like he owns the place—”
“But it’s the best goddamn job in the world!” Loren finished, breaking down laughing once more. He tipped back on two legs of the chair as he worked to regain his composure. “So, welcome to the queer man club.”
“Do we have stickers?” I reached for another cookie. Yeah, he really did buy half a dozen cookies. While I wasn’t a cookie person, these monstrous cookies went down all too easily with our conversation.
“Of course,” he grinned, “they have dicks on them.”
“Dick stickers are exactly what my suits are missing,” I said dryly. I could imagine the riot if I walked into work wearing a dick sticker on my lapel. Elliot would fucking love it. “Nothing says deal negotiations better than dick stickers.”
“I don’t know, if my lawyer walked in wearing a dick sticker, I’d just do whatever he said.”
“That’s a terrible policy. I never did ask how you ended up in construction.” I grabbed another cookie.Shit. Had I eaten six cookies by myself?Loren had already eaten six and drank more coffee than any reasonable person should have at midnight, so at least I didn’t feel bad.
“We broke things growing up,” he replied. “A lot of things. It wasn’t so much that we tried to, but I have three brothers.”
“And then you had to fix it.” I chuckled as he nodded. “I have two brothers, so I know how that goes.”
“Exactly. Dad used to make us fix everything we broke. I learned a lot about house repair, and honestly, I liked it,” he told me. “And so I kept doing it. My first job was with a friend of the family. He had a construction business. I spent my summers following him around. I like what I do. What about you?”
“I don’t work construction,” I said with a grin. As if to punish me, he swiped my cookie away. “I’m good at what I do.”
“But are you happy with what you do?”
“I thought I was,” I admitted quietly. “Lately, I question it.”
“Questioning a lot of things lately.”
“Feels like a midlife crisis.”
“I always felt that midlife crises were underrated,” Loren said. I frowned, trying to wrap my head around his words. “Well, think about it. It’s nothing more than realizing you’re unhappy doing what you’re doing in life. Do some people go fucking stupid during a mid-life crisis? Abso-fucking-lutely. My father was one of those people. But I think the essence of it is kind of pure. It’s realizing you aren’t happy with your life and that you want to spend the second half of your life happy. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be happy.”
There wasn’t, but I’d never looked at it that way. Who honestly sat around assessing their happiness level in life?
“Might not be a bad time to figure out what makes you happy in life, Logan,” he continued, and I nodded. Maybe it was or maybe it wasn’t, but I didn’t want to spend my time with him reassessing my life choices that led up to this moment.
“I don’t think dates are supposed to turn into therapy sessions,” I told him.
“I can’t help it if I’m fucking wise. I learned a lot fromThe Sandlot—”
“It’s just a kids’ baseball movie!” I exclaimed.
