“Yeah, I do. I’m intrigued. I care about her. I hate that she left so upset. I can’t stop worrying about her going home believing Ithought the worst about her when that couldn’t be further from the truth.”
The truth is that the look in her eyes when she left had haunted me every minute since. I’d knocked on her window, wanting to clear the air before she drove away. It took her a minute to look me in the eye, but when she did, fuck, the sadness after the pool cue incident was nothing compared to that dejected look on her face.
The tears swimming in her beautiful eyes were like a knife in my chest. I knew it was crazy to feel so strongly about a girl I’d only known for a few hours, but that’s how I felt. But what could I do? So I’d just told her to lock her doors, assuaging the tiniest bit of my need to protect her, then I had no choice but to watch her drive away.
“Are you going to call her?”
I popped a cracker topped with pepperoni, cheese, and fig jam in my mouth before shaking my head. “She wouldn’t give me her number.”
“You haven't been interested in anything more than a few hours of fun since Kayla. You keep saying you don’t want to make someone compromise their life to fit yours, or compromise yours for someone else. But now you’re all torn up over a girl who cried on your first date? She seemed great at Nolan’s, but that’s weird. And needy. Crazy even. Maybe it's good you didn’t exchange numbers.”
“Don’t be a dick,” Liam said to Ryan, wadding up his napkin and throwing it at him. “If he likes her, he likes her.”
Liam turned to me. “Whatareyou going to do?”
6
Juliette
Nicky: Meet me at the library after work. It’s urgent.
Me: You ok?
Nicky: I’m good. It’s not about me
Jenna: What’s it about?
Nicky: Juliette
Me: What???
Me: Nicky! What is it??
Nicky: *winky face emoji*
“Hi,”I whispered when I spotted Jenna cleaning up giant foam blocks in the construction section of the children’s library.
“Hey!” She tossed a haul of blocks into a big bin and came over, immediately opening her arms for me.
That was just what I needed. I squeezed her back as tightly as she held me.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m good. I just… I don’t know. Is Nicky here yet?” I pulled back, grabbing the triangular block behind me and tossing it to her.
“No, and I have no idea what her text was about.”
I sighed.
“You really like him, don’t you?”
“I only saw him once.”
“So? I saw how you guys were at Nolan’s. You were having a blast. You hit it off immediately.”
I don’t know if that made me feel better or worse. “We did, didn’t we?”
“You were talking and laughing with him like you do with Nicky and me.”