Page 23 of Any Girl But You
“Blasphemy!” I throw my hands on my chest like I’m warding off a heart attack. “I’ll take them home for Frankie.”
“Perfect.” She digs out keys from her purse and jingles them into the lock. “My foot is throbbing. I might have overdone it.”
“Oh shit, I totally forgot about your foot.” I grit my teeth and scan her ankle. She’s in tennis shoes, thankfully, but it’s hard to see if there’s swelling. “Do you think you should elevate it?”
She nods and opens the door. A waft of doughy and sticky air meets us, and I follow her inside. This is a time where I could leave. Call Frankie to come get me since she and Morgan should be back from Duluth now, or see if there’s an Uber available. But being around someone like Zoey feels pretty damn good, and even with the full, chaotic day, energy fills me. It’s almost dinner time, and I’m not ready to call it quits, yet. And with the way Zoey is not hesitating at the entry with me and instead saunters through her place with me at her heels, I have a sneaking suspicion she feels the same.
“God, I hope my home isn’t muggy,” Zoey says, and we cross the waiting area room to the swinging kitchen doors. “Just my luck we have a heat wave in October.”
“Where do you live?” I ask.
She points up to the ceiling. “Right above here is my bedroom.”
I’m not sure why a tiny zip springs through me with the wordbedroomand knowing where Zoey sleeps. It’s like a little insight into her that I’m not sure she shares with other customers. Which I think means we are, officially, in a solid friend-zone. I’m part of an inner circle and helpless to stop my goofy smile. I made a friend. Arealfriend. “No way. You live in the loft?”
“Yep.” Zoey escorts me into the kitchen. We pass by the station where we wrapped items this morning, and she tosses her bag on the counter. “Hey, do you want me to bring you home?”
My stomach drops. No, I don’t want her to bring me home. I want to stay here and ask her everything about her life. Cats or dogs? Beer or wine? Water or pop? Fruit or veggies? I want toknow about past relationships and embarrassing stories and her celebrity crushes.
Today was everything I needed. I’m more imbedded into the community than before, I made a friend, and the last thing I want to do is go back to my place, alone. “Do you want me to leave?”
A long silence stretches, and I wonder if she’s thinking the same as me. Maybe, in a strange sort of way, even as awful as things were, she also needed today. She nibbles the side of her lip. She has such a pretty mouth, and I can’t help but let my gaze fall. Soft pink with a cupid-bow shape, and maybe I shouldn’t notice it, but I do.
“No, I don’t,” she says.
And…a flutter bounces inside me.
But I’m sure this tingling physiological reaction is just a friends thing. The spark of having someone I connect with, outside the bedroom. Just because it’s been a while since I got laid, I cannot confuse what’s happening on my insides with what’s happening outside.I. Cannot. Confuse. This.
Zoey opens the door to a small office off the kitchen and I step inside. As far as having an office about the size of a broom closet, it’s rather cozy. A couple of plants, a pink-and-white lamp on a dark wood desk, some scattered water bottles, a framed picture of her and a few folks outside of the bakery, and two chairs. She rolls a chair my way and slumps into the one at her desk with a very heavy sigh. “What a day.” She plucks off her glasses and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Now that the fun part is over, there’s so much to do. I’m not even sure where to start.”
I ease into the chair and am keenly aware of how small the space is. If I scooted just a foot closer, we’d be touching. “Didn’t I tell you I specialize in this? I’m on it. And I kind of love it.”
“Seriously, what job did you have in New York?” She puts her glasses back on and rolls back at least a foot.
Message received. I push myself back to give her more space.
“I’m so curious what your life looked like there,” she says.
I can’t imagine shereallywants to hear about my time in New York. She probably wants to hear about the New Year’s Eve ball drop in Times Square, or Central Park, or about random run-ins I may have had with celebrities, which only happened once. Scarlett Johansson.Swoon.But she was so totally normal, had no paparazzi following her or band of fans, that I only realized who she was a block later.
No chance Zoey wants to hear about the terrible coffee in the breakroom, me crying in the bathroom after my boss yelled at me, sitting on the subway next to men who take up too much space, or listening to our neighbors banging it out after a fight. “You don’t really want to know about my time there.”
She looks at me with so much sincerity I can tell she really does want to know. She props her elbow on the table, rests her chin in her palm, and something inside me clicks. Yes, Frankie and Morgan are interested in what I do. They always check in to talk about the details of my day, convinced me to finally leave my terrible job after one too many sobbing phone calls, ask me on the regular about updates on the farm.
But outside of them, I haven’t had this—someone who wants to know anything about me outside of the bedroom. Sure, I choose women who are as equally allergic to commitment as I am, but still, this fills me with a warmth that I wasn’t sure that I needed. But now that I have it, it feels really fucking nice.
“Yes, I absolutely want to know,” Zoey says, readjusting her foot to elevate it on a box. “Like what does day-to-day look like there? Do people eat breakfast and go to the store, and stop for Sunday visits with family like we do? At the office, do you sprintfrom one room to the next like they show in the movies? I want to know it all.”
A grin fills my face. A much goofier one than I intend, but here it is, ransacking my cheeks with no regard to reason. “I have an idea. I know I’ve eaten like ten cupcakes today, but how about we order pizza, go through the stuff we need to do for your shop, and I’ll tell you all about New York.”
“Perfect,” Zoey says, lifting her head from resting on her palm. “Pepperoni good?”
“Yep, and anchovies.”
She scrunches her face so hard that her glasses almost fall off. “No. You? Really? That’s fish. Fish on pizza? Sounds truly terrible.”
“Itisfish, but really it’s more like a salt bomb.” I lick my lips with a dramatic flair. “It just splits that tongue right open and deposits the goodness. Heavenly, I tell ya. You cannot knock it until you try it.”
