For a second, it sounds so much like he’s asking me out on a date that I freeze up.
“Brian wanted to confirm your blind date.”
Oh right. The blind date. That Seth is setting me up on. I feign nonchalance. “He’s giving up his Saturday night for a blind date? What’s wrong with him?” I bite off a chunk of my cone with a satisfying crunch.
Seth doesn’t answer my inquiry, just continues to tap away on his phone, not paying me any attention.
“Fine. Yes, I’m available Saturday.” I finish eating my cone,wadding up the wrapper and stopping just short of throwing it at him.
He still isn’t looking at me, his eyes now seemingly glued to his screen. “Great. He’ll meet you at Little Dom’s at eight.”
I wrinkle my nose at the restaurant choice. Not that there’s anything wrong with Little Dom’s; the food is great. It’s just a known haunt for lots of celebs and you usually don’t go there unless you have a business meeting or are trying to catch a glimpse of Jon Hamm. Though I certainly can’t fault anyone for wanting to try to scope out Jon Hamm.
“Is that okay?” Seth breaks me out of my daydream involving me in a Christina Hendricks–worthy corset and Jon Hamm undoing the laces.
“What? Yes. Fine. Little Dom’s at eight.” I stand and toss my wrapper in the trash, trusting Seth will follow me. There’s no way he could find his way back to the car on his own.
The ride to his house is mostly silent and uncomfortable. We seem to find ourselves in these brief moments of blast-from-the-past banter, only to minutes later be jolted back to the memory of the last awful time we saw each other, or to our present circumstances, pitting us against each other. It’s a mind fuck, and after almost a full day of it, I feel like I have emotional whiplash. So when I pull up in front of his house twenty minutes later, I don’t bother to park or turn off the car.
“So you’re coming over this weekend to help me put all this shit together, right?”
I scoff. “Dude. I wouldn’t even help my best friend put IKEA furniture together.” Not that May would ever shop at IKEA.
He pauses for a second, one hand on the door, the other on the armrest in the middle of the car, which all of a sudden feels very close. “Sometimes I forget we’re not friends anymore.” His words are quiet, heavy and pained.
My breath catches in my chest, my instincts screaming at me to reach out for that hand sitting so close to mine. I close my eyes and shake the vision out of my head. “We haven’t been friends in a long time, Seth.”
I avoid looking at him, and after another silence, I hear him climb out of the car, shutting the door firmly behind him.
This time I don’t watch him walk away.
8
You couldn’t pay me a million dollars to go on a blind date.
—Lana Parker, in conversation with friends, two years ago
I don’t really know why I show up to the office the Friday after IKEA. I don’t have anything to write about yet, seeing as how I won’t have completed my first task until I go on my blind date tomorrow night. But that doesn’t stop me from strolling in the door, coffee in hand, bright and early at ten a.m. My eyes quickly scan the room, but I don’t spot a head of dark hair and broad shoulders.
Which is totally a good thing.
I drop my stuff at the long white communal worktable in the center of the open space, going through my perfunctory setup, even though I have literally nothing to work on.
Luckily, Corey saunters over, hopping up on the table next to my computer, her tiny ass still nearly managing to knock over my coffee.
“Sooooooo,” she drawls, leaning back on both hands.
I make a grab for my coffee, saving the precious lifeblood before she spills the entire thing. “So what?”
She rolls her eyes. “How was your first date with Seth?”
“It was not a date.”
Tessa exits the office kitchen, dunking a tea bag in a mug proclaiming we should Write Drunk Edit Drunker. “Oooh, are we talking about the IKEA date?” She slides into the chair across from me. The fact that they are here in the office on a Friday speaks more to their want of gossip than to the need to get work done, and they both settle in.
I push my laptop away from me. “Guys. It was not a date. And how did you even know we went to IKEA?”
“TheATFInsta Stories. You posted like five times.” Corey doesn’t even have to say theduhout loud; it’s implied.
