“Really, it’s an overblown answer because even the ones that I thought I loved were, like, silly high school relationships.”
“Not all high school relationships are silly,” I objected, remembering how gutted I’d been when Lisa Lopez dumped me in eleventh grade. “They’re kind of what build you, right?”
“Yeah,” she agreed, her eyes down as she dragged a fry through a puddle of ketchup. She looked like there was more she wanted to say, like she was holding out on me. Finally, she said, “I’ve just never been good at the next level.”
“Next level?”
“I don’t know. I’ve always done fine at the buildup, at the getting there and going out with the person a few times, but it seems like my special gift is once I start dating somebody, we both realize we’re better off as friends.”
She said it like it was a flaw, like a mistake she continually made, but how could she miss the exclamation point of what that said about her? She was so fucking amazing that she drew people in and made them want to be her best friend.
I said, “I mean, isn’t everyone you ever meet—before you find The One—technically fitting that bill?”
“I don’t know,” she said, raising her eyes. “When you say that, it makes perfect sense, but society makes me feel like it’s a flaw that I don’t have a stable full of exes who fell for me in an epic way.”
She cleared her throat and asked, “What about you, though? Being a superstar athlete, you had to have fallen in love a hundred times by now, right?”
“Not really,” I said, trying to remember any person who’d mattered before her. Other than Lisa Lopez, of course. “But I suppose sports actually limit the amount of time you have for—”
“Oh, bullshit,” she interrupted with a laugh, rolling her eyes in that way I fucking loved. “How much time does it really take? I love when people say they don’t have time for relationships because, like, it doesn’t addthatmuch time, does it?”
“I mean, dating is a whole thing, though,” I said. “You’ve got to find time to hunt zombies and go to concerts—”
“Yeah, but you can also have a relationship that’s just easy and natural, can’t you?” she asked, pushing back the wispy hairs that the wind kept blowing across her face. “Conversation, texting, hanging out…?”
“True,” I agreed, as she made dating sound effortless and fucking perfect.Does she realize that sounds exactly like ourrelationship?“So, big picture: What do you want? What’s important? Husband and a house and two-point-five kids?”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “When I look at what my parents had, the kids and the house and the suburban life were cool, but they just liked each other. They were each other’s favorites to hang out with.”
“So that’s what you’re looking for?” I asked. “Because I don’t want to brag, but finding somebody who shows up at your work with scooters and takes you to White Castle and your favorite park seems kind of like someone who could potentially become your favorite, right?”
That made her grin and shake her head. “You’re really proud of this lunch, aren’t you?”
“Fuck yes, I am,” I said with a grin. “This was a goddamn brilliant idea.”
“It was—you’re right,” she agreed with a nod as she licked ketchup off her pinkie. “That’s two in a row.”
We sat there at that table for another hour, talking about nothing and everything. It was strange how with Duffy the tone didn’t change, regardless of the topic. We could talk about my grandpa and her mom, my mother’s issues, falling in love, and these big heavy things that should’ve been tricky to discuss when we were so new, but it all felt the same with her.
Like nothing was off-limits.
Like we could talk—honestly—about fuckinganything.
It felt like I’d opened up to her more about the chaotic spiral I was in half the time, which was strange in that I wasn’t even really working through that. They were just random thoughtsthat kept me awake at night, so it was bizarre that I’d mentioned them to her at all.
But she was easy.
So damn easy it was magic.
Saying I was comfortable with her was too much of an understatement. It was more like she gave me comfort just by existing.
I felt better when I was in her presence. More grounded, like I was at home.
God, what the hell am I even thinking?
I had it bad, because as I watched her shove five fries in her mouth before balling up her wrapper and tossing it toward the trash can and sinking it (nothing but net), I realized that I was—without a doubt—head over heels in love with her.
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