Page 4 of The Romantic Agenda
“Let’s just say we don’t see eye to eye.”
Joy stares at him. “What did you do?
“Nothing.” He’s lying. Malcolm’s tell is always looking quickly to the left and then making direct eye contact. “But that’s not the most important part. Summer wants to meet you. She asked me to ask you to come along.”
Joy presses her lips together so her jaw doesn’t fall open and slam into her keyboard. Her mouth barely moves as she asks, “You told her about me?”
He nods. “Of course. She can’t wait to meet you.”
“So. You’re not inviting me? Summer is?” She unclenches her left hand and transfers the stress ball to her right, immediately putting it back into a death grip.
“No, no, it’s not like that. Of course I want you there.”
Joy’s heart drops as she watches Malcolm look to the left and to her again. He continues, “It’s just... I don’t know if you’d have a good time. That’s all. But. If you do come, I was hoping you could do me a favor? Fox is... a lot. Maybe you could keep him company.”
“Oh, I’ve always wanted to try being an escort.” She hates how breathless, almost winded from shock, she sounds. “Will I be getting paid?”
“Joy, that’s not funny.”
“What? I think I’d be good at it. I happen to be an excellent companion.”
“I’m aware.” And there it is—the smile that never fails to light up her whole world. Even when she’s been plunged into suffocating darkness, he’s there to lift her back up with hardly any effort. “I’d like to spend as much time with Summer as possible, but I know her. She’s going to spend all her time making sure Fox doesn’t feel like a third wheel because she knows we don’t really get along.”
“And if I’m there, it’ll be four-wheel drive.”
Malcolm gives her a rare laugh. Puns and wordplay aren’t exactly his favorite thing about her. “We could just sort of naturally pair up for some of the activities I have planned.”
“Natural. Organic. Not at all from concentrate or staged.”
“Joy.”
“What?”
“Will you please come and spend time with Fox?”
Malcolm waits for her to say something. She doesn’t. Her voice feels shaky, so it’ll probably sound worse. How could she have been so wrong about everything? The secret trip isn’t for her, he isn’t planning to ask her to be with him because there’s a Summer, and he wants to pawn Joy off on a Fox.
This is hell. Hell truly is other people.
Joy trains her gaze on the ceiling, exhaling into a horrible-sounding sigh. She closes her eyes and focuses on her breathing before turning back to him. He looks concerned but patient. “Why haven’t you told me about Summer before now?”
“I don’t know.” Malcolm shrugs like it’s nothing. “We met on this forum called Jilted Hearts. It’s full of people with failed engagement stories. She planned a local meetup for a bunch of us, but we were the only two who showed up.”
Malcolm doesn’t even glance at Joy while he tells the rest of his story. His eyes are unfocused and lost in a memory. She takes in his wistful, effortless smile. His relaxed posture. The awestruck cadence of his words as he talks about Summer and the past two months he’s spent getting to know her.
Joy has never heard him talk aboutherlike that. Never seen him go soft when people ask how they met, how they managed to stay friends for so long. Joy always faithfully by his side becausethat’sherspot, pathetically hoping that someday he’ll see she’sright there.
And then, it’s like Malcolm suddenly remembers sheisthere, locking her in his sights again. “I just wanted to find someone to talk to who would understand what I’ve been through, and there she was. I’m convinced we could be more. I think that’s why I’ve been waiting for the perfect moment to introduce you. This weekend is it.”
Two
Joy storms through her front door and throws her purse on the counter, but carefully hangs up her keys on their hook because misplacing them would truly break her. With no choice left but to die alone, she flings herself facedown onto her sofa—and screams into the couch cushions as long and as loud as she can.
A heavy loaf with four paws lands in the middle of her back and immediately begins to make biscuits. Rolling over carefully, Joy scoops up her cat, Pepper, into her arms. “Not on Mommy’s suit jacket. It was expensive.” She hasn’t quite lost the will to live, and to care about fashion, just yet.
While Pepper heads to purr-town, happy to have her human home, Joy stares at the ceiling. At times, falling, and then staying, in love with Malcolm felt like the biggest mistake of her life. Awareness is supposed to be the key to healing and getting over him. But no, her feelings stalk her like some unspeakable deep-sea horror. Every time she thinks she’s free, its lovesick tentacles wraparound her, dragging her back into the depths of the Struggling Sea. Every time she thinks that maybe, just maybe, Malcolm has fallen in love with her too, he chooses someone else.
A cheery chorus of bells sounds from her phone. Right on time. Her sister Grace video calls every night to check in.
