“Nora doesn’t appreciate you.” She tugs one of her pigtails. “The other day, she straight-up told me she only started seeing you for your money. Who even does that?”
I frown at her, my mind sluggishly trying to decode what she’s playing at.
“Why would she tell you something like that? She doesn’t even like you.”
My response clearly caught her off guard, but I’ll give Pansy this, she doesn’t know when to give up.
“I called her on it, and she couldn’t deny it. I just hate to see a man like you go unappreciated. You’re so sweet and supportive. You deserve to be with someone who notices.”
She reaches for me again, and I step back.
“There’s something else I need to warn you about,” she says.
I wait, watching her.
When she realizes that’s the only response she’ll get, she says, “José and Nora are in love. I tried to get in the middle, but I can tell he’s never going to get over her. I…I found this gift she gave him a couple of years ago. It’s a key to the brewery on a chain?—”
“Uh, why wouldn’t he have a key to the brewery he runs?”
For a split second, her expression is honest—her gaze narrowed in contempt—but then it clears, and the syrupy sweet smile returns. “They changed the locks. But he’s kept the original in his underwear drawer all this time. Plus this old Valentine she gave him in college.” She gives her pigtail another tug. “The only reason I came tonight is to talk to you. And to tell you that you’re the nicest, sweetest man I’ve ever met. If things were different…”
She bites her lip and reaches for me again. With dawning horror, I realize thatIam the plan she mentioned in our text exchange. She thinks she’s going to leave him and move on to me.
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “Pansy. I’m in love with Nora.”
“But she’snotin love with you. Sorry. She’s only dating you to make him jealous.”
I know she’s only trying to drive a wedge between Nora and me, but her words land. Haven’t I worried about exactly that?
Still, I’m not going to show her that.
“That’s okay. I’ll take her however I can get her.”
She stares at me aghast, her mouth dropping open. “You’d honestly choose her over me?”
“Sounds like I’m not the only one,” I mutter, my mind on José, outside with Nora. José, who might have kept that Valentine for the same reason I’d kept the note she’d been forced to write to me—because I figured it was the closest thing to a love note I was likely to get from the girl of my dreams.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he felt that way about her. I’d probably question his sanity if he didn’t.
The real question is: how doesshefeel?
Pansy says something to me, then pokes my chest when I don’t respond.
“Huh?”
She seems genuinely annoyed with me now, but she rolls it back and says, “If things don’t work out between you and Nora?—”
“Oh, they probably won’t, but you wouldn’t be interested in me anyway. I’ve poured the majority of my money into anonprofit foundation I’m running with my friend Kenji, and I don’t believe in useless frivolity. So there wouldn’t be any fancy twelve-course dinners or gold-sprayed chocolates or whatever people do to waste their money.”
It occurs to me that I haven’t fully explained the foundation to Nora. I guess I’ve kept it quiet because I know what she’d say.
Go run your business with your friend. You’ve been protecting my dream, and you deserve to have yours.
She’d cast me off to California and convince herself she was doing us both a favor.
As proud as I am of the work we’re doing, I don’t want that. Not even a little. And I hope to God she won’t actually want it either. So I’ve been waiting, hoping to find the right moment and the right words.
All of the human expression leaks from Pansy’s face. “You’re a strange guy. Are you autistic or something?”
