Chapter 9
May
“I CANNOT BELIEVEyou’ve been keeping this from me.” Toya drags her eyes off my phone to scowl at me, and I shift on the chair I’m sitting on as her eyes narrow. “For the last week, we’ve talked about what we’ve eaten for dinner, the books we’re reading, and Tony’s obsession with that new video game he got. And not once did you ever mention a hot soccer player.”
“It never came up.” I take my phone back from her and look at the photo of Aiden that I’d saved to my phone when I thought his name was Mike and just never deleted.
“It never came up?” she repeats, sounding disbelieving. “I don’t know whether I should be angry or laugh at you right now.”
“You can’t be mad at me about this.”
“I think I can,” she disagrees. “And I would be if I hadn’t noticed the way your eyes were twinkling when you were looking at his picture.”
“My eyes were not twinkling.” I place my cell phone facedown on the table next to my open lunch container.
“They were.” She picks up her iced coffee and takes a sip as I glower at her. “So you have a date with him tonight?”
“I don’t know if it’s a date, but he said he was picking me up at six to take me to dinner.”
“Honey, I know you’re a little out of practice, but that is a date.”
“Whatever,” I mumble, and she smiles while she looks me over.
“So what are you going to wear?”
I look down at my red turtleneck that is tucked into my wide-leg black pants and the pointy-toed heeled booties on my feet. “This.”
“You are not wearing that out on a date with a man who looks like him.”
“Why not?” It’s my turn to scowl at her. I thought I looked cute this morning when I looked at myself in the mirror before I walked out of my closet.
“You look like you work at a high school around boys who are far too young for you but who you know still imagine you naked, so you do what you can to not give them any ideas.”
“Oh my God,” I gasp. “Don’t say that.”
“They’re teenage boys.” She shrugs one elegant shoulder.
“Still.” My nose scrunches in disgust, because I know she’s right. “I don’t want to think about what they’re thinking about,” I grumble, pulling my turtleneck up higher on my neck, and she laughs.
“Don’t think about them. Think about him and what you want him to think and feel when he sees you.” She leans across the round table and rests her hand over mine. “Dress up, put on some lipstick, and wow him.”
“Wow him,” I repeat, laughing, and she smiles.
“You’re smart, beautiful, and worthy of a good man, so you need to show him what he’ll be missing out on if he messes up.”
“Is that what you did with Tony?”
“Absolutely.” She smirks. “On our first date, I suggested that we meet at a bar I went to often with my girlfriends, and while I was there with him, two men approached the table we were sitting at to talk to me.” She flutters her hand out between us. “Tony, as I hoped he would, went into caveman mode, making it clear we were there on a date. Then, later that night when he was walking me home, he made it clear that things between us were going to be serious and he didn’t want to share me with anyone else.”
“That all sounds great, except I’m not you. Aiden isn’t Tony, and I don’t get hit on everywhere I go.”
“You get hit on all the time. You just don’t get hit on by men you’d be interested in dating. And since you are the kind of girl who’s looking for a man and not a one-night stand you always brush them off.”
“Whatever.” I press my lips together, because she is not wrong. I mean, not that there is anything wrong with finding a guy attractive and hooking up; it’s just that it’s not something that appeals to me. Or at least the morning-after awkwardness doesn’t sound like a lot of fun.
“Is that him?” she asks when my cell that is on the table beeps. Picking it up, instant disappointment and annoyance settles in the pit of my stomach. The number isn’t the one programed into my phone for Mike and set to Blocked, but it must be him, because no one else would plead with me to talk to them.
“It’s not.” I quickly block the number, then groan when the bell goes off, signaling that our lunch is over. Shoving my containers into the bag, I carry my lunch in, Toya does the same with her stuff, then we get up and push in our chairs before leaving the lunchroom.