“I go by Jenny,” she assured me.
When was I ever going to get this chance again? “I’m not fooled by the rocks that you got because you’re still, you’re still Jenny from the block.”
She rolled her eyes. “Like I’ve never heard that one before.”
“It’s not every day you meet someone named Jennifer Lopez,” I tell Sandy.
“I wo
uld be more impressed if her name was Gwyneth Paltrow,” he replied.
“Because she’s an ice queen?” I glanced at Jenny. “That’s not a very nice thing to say right in front of her, even if her kids are probably dead inside because she won’t let their Optimus Prime ever know love outside of his species.”
“Can I please sell you a bike?” Jenny begged me.
“I don’t know what kind of bike Vince had,” I admitted.
“Vince? Vince Taylor?”
I was startled. “Yeah. How’d you know?”
She laughed. “I don’t know why I didn’t make the connection to begin with. You’re Paul Auster!”
“It’s like you’re famous,” Sandy whispered. “See if she’ll let you sign her boobies with a Sharpie.”
I ignored him. “Do I want to know how you know my last name?” I asked Jenny.
She grinned. “Vince told me all about you. And I have to say, he was right on the money.”
I groaned. “I really didn’t want to know.”
She patted my arm. “You know he adores you, right?”
“I’ve known him for a week. Well, almost a week. I’m still unclear as to what day counts as the first one.”
“What’s that have to do with anything?”
“He doesn’t know me well enough to adore anything about me.”
She shook her head. “Since when does that matter? What he does know is enough for him. That should be enough for you.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t see that this was a bike shop and relationship counseling all in one. Unless I missed the sign out front that listed your credentials.”
“Do you need a therapist already?” she asked, concerned.
“Yes, but not for what you think,” Sandy said.
“That’s not funny.”
Jenny clapped her hands together. “But this makes my job so much easier. He called on Thursday to let us know he needed to order a new bike. I thought it was going to take a couple of weeks, but I called our other store and they already had his bike there, so I had it delivered over here. I was going to call him today to have him come pick it up.”
I was relieved. “So I can just pay for it and take it with us? I brought some bungee cables so I can put it in the back of my car.”
“You can.” She called out to the other chick working in the shop, who went to the back and brought up an almost exact replica of what I remembered Vince’s bike looking like. I was absolutely convinced that I was probably the best boyfriend of the history of boyfriends who had struck their own boyfriends with their car door and sent them to the hospital. Then I got hung up on the fact that I was using the word boyfriend three times in a single thought, and I got this goofy smile on my face that I couldn’t seem to get rid of. I grinned at Sandy and Jenny and let them see just how happy I was.
Jenny laughed as she went to the front desk. “I can see why he likes you. There’s something about you, Paul. In all the years I’ve known him, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this happy before. It looks like you two have got a good thing going.”
I flushed as she typed something into the computer. “He’s pretty okay,” I allowed.