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“She’s really cute, you’ll love her. You guys have lived together a long time, right?”
“An eternity,” Gemma and I said at the same time.
“Okay. Cool. Well, I’m gonna…go talk to Julia and Jason.”
“Yeah, I’ll join you guys in a minute.” Gemma placed her hand on his shoulder as he turned to walk away.
“What the fuck?” she whispered.
“Nobody else heard.”
“Oh my God!” She slapped her forehead.
“Oh calm down. I want to talk to you about something. Let’s go in my room.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to talk to you. About something.”
She flapped her arms and made an exasperated sound, but followed me to my room anyway.
I shut the door behind her, and she eyed me suspiciously, stepping away from me.
“Something really important I forgot to show you.”
I pulled out my phone and showed her a video that a Facebook user from Hong Kong had posted of a daddy cat laying in a big box, hugging his lady cat and their little newborn kittens. Three seconds in, I knew she had forgotten that she was annoyed with me.
“Oh my God that is the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen!” She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the video, but I had used this tactic so many times, she knew what was coming next. “What? You don’t like Ben.”
“It’s not that I don’t like him,” I said carefully, “I just don’t see whyyoulike him so much.”
“Why is it necessary for you to see that?”
“So youdolike him.”
She rolled her eyeballs at me. I put the phone away.
“Send me that link.”
“I will.”
“Okay. Good talk.”
“Wait.”
“What?”
Yes—what?“His teeth are too small for his mouth—that doesn’t bother you?”Interesting choice.
“What are you talking about? You sound insane.”
“His teeth are objectively too small in proportion to the size of his mouth. It’s creepy.”
“You’recreepy.”
“I’m just saying you should aim higher. You’re a catch. You’ve been out of commission for so much of your life, you should hold out for someone who’s worthy of you.”
“Like who? Bugs Bunny?”
