Page 86 of An Introvert's Guide to Life and Love
“Yikes.” Our order’s up, and I look sadly at my paper-wrapped pretzel dog, wishing I’d gone for the veggie one, too. But after one bite of the salty, juicy goodness, I forget about it. The lemonade is incredible, too, super fresh and not too sweet.
We lock our bikes together against a tree and wander, munching our pretzel dogs and sipping our iced lemonades.
“I can’t get over how good this is,” I say.
“What did I tell you?” Daniel balls up his paper bag and tosses it in a garbage can.
We pass a flower vendor, someone selling ocean glass jewelry, and a tent full of beach-themed knickknacks.
“Clearly, they have everything here,” I say, pointing to a pair of oven mitts shaped like mackerel.
Daniel nods. “All your sea creature paraphernalia. If you can imagine it, they sell it.”
I gently brush my finger along a sand dollar wind chime.
“Now, I would feel remiss if I didn’t buy you a going-away present.”
I whirl around to look at Daniel, and then burst out laughing. He’s holding up a toilet brush that has apparently been superglued to a gulf-themed snow globe. I can only assume you’re supposed to hold the snow globe as you clean the toilet and the swirl of glitter inside will make you feel a sense of peace with the unpleasant task at hand.
“That would make cleaning day more interesting, for sure.”
“Are you a cleaning-day-type person?” Daniel asks as we move on to the next vendor.
“What do you mean?”
“Just trying to gauge what type of personality I’m dealing with here. Are you a ‘clean the house top to bottom every Saturday morning with music blasting’ type of person? Or a ‘it’s been so long I can’t put it off another day’ type of person?”
“When I’m home, I clean my apartment every other Sunday. Sometimes more frequently if I have people coming over. Often with music blasting.”
“Ah. So not quite an every-weekend gal, but close.” He pauses, slurping down the last of his lemonade. “I won’t tell you which kind I am.”
“Gross,” I laugh. “Is that why you didn’t invite me upstairs?” I ask before I can stop myself.
“Hmm?” He’s distracted by a sudden squeal from a group of teenage girls nearby all looking down at one phone.
“Earlier, you didn’t invite me up to see your place.” I’m half wishing I could shut up now, but my curiosity won’t let me.
He doesn’t answer right away. Looking at me out of the corner of his eye, he doesn’t apologize or act embarrassed about it. Finally he asks, “Did you want me to?”
“I won’t lie, I am dying to see how you’ve decorated your bachelor pad.”
“What makes you think I’ve decorated it at all?”
“You have opinions about floors and paint. And you told me you renovated it yourself. Are you telling me you haven’t put up a single picture? Curtains? A plant?”
His mouth quirks. “You may never know.”
“Hey!”
We’re being lighthearted and playful, but there’s some seriousness behind my complaint. Because at this point, there is a good chance I’ll never see inside his place. I don’t even know if I’ll see Daniel again at all after I leave. We’ll probably just communicate via email about house things, and I won’t need to visit again anytime in the near future, and that will be that.
I try not to dwell. I’m hanging out with him now, so might as well enjoy the moment. For his part, I can tell Daniel’s not about to fold. As much as I wish he would say,Actually, I was going to ask if you wanted to come to my place for dinner, I know he won’t. He has too much damn self-control.
But then something catches my eye that fully distracts me. It’s a mirror. It’s gilded around the edges and has a sort of baroque shape. If I saw the same mirror on the Anthropologie website, it would be five hundred dollars, minimum. But there’s a little tag fluttering on it that clearly says seventy-five dollars.
Daniel stops to look at me. “What’s wrong?”
“Wrong?”
