Tavey groans. “That is not what I meant and you know it.”
“No. I don’t know it. Because I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“That woman was into you.”
Tavey’s words make my heart stutter. And then beat faster.
“No, she wasn’t.” I correct myself. “Isn’t.”
“Um? Hello? Yes, she is. Why else would she be at your house on a Saturday?”
“She was here for work.”
Tavey gives an indignant snort that would make Aunt Jules gasp in horror. “She was not there for work.”
“Yes. She was.”
“Unless you’ve taken on a side job of producing porn at home, that woman was not there to work with you. She was a hundred percent into you. Two hundred percent.”
“Tavey,” I say, a note of warning in my voice. I know she used the phrase “two hundred percent” just to piss me off because I hate it when people ignore the impossibility of a percentage greater than one hundred. And I’m already about as pissed off as I can take.
She should fucking know better than to fuck with me about something like this.
Tavey doesn’t know the details—I may be a jerk, but not the kind of jerk who talks about women he’s slept with—but she does know that I’ve had exactly one relationship in my life. Beth was a fellow grad student. A few years older than me—because they all were. She’d been more ambitious than smart. All these year later and I still hadn’t figured out if she’d been with me out of pity or because I’d always been so pathetically grateful that I’d done her work for her. It sure as hell hadn’t been because she’d actually wanted me or even liked me. She’d made that abundantly clear when she’d dropped out of the program. We’d been together for nearly six months, but even fucking me hadn’t been enough to keep her grades up.
Given my history with women, the idea that someone like Holly might be “into” me is a little hard to believe.
“What?” Tavey asks now. “You think I’m wrong?”
“I know you’re wrong. Holly Dolinsky is not into me. The idea is preposterous.”
“Why is it preposterous?”
I nearly laugh at the confusion in her voice.
“Have you seen her?” I ask, knowing full well that Tavey has seen her. Even if it was a grainy hacked video of Holly via my Ring camera.
“Yes, I saw her,” she replies. “I sat here and watched the two of you on your doorstep. You guys just stood there looking at one another for a really long time. And her eyes practically popped out of their sockets at the sight of your muscles.”
“No. They didn’t.”
“You know there are women who are smarter than that bitch Beth,” Tavey says, her tone softer.
“Yeah. I know all women aren’t Beth. I’m around smart women all the time. If I was the kind of man women were attracted to, I think I would have noticed before now.”
“Oh, you think you would have noticed? Because you’re so good at picking up on that kind of thing? And because you’re awesome at putting yourself out there?”
“Trust me. Holly Dolinsky is not into me.”
“And why was she at your house on a Saturday anyway?”
I quickly explain about the McPherson Fellowship and Holly’s insistence that I need a social media presence.
Naturally, the explanation takes longer than it should. Tavey asks a lot of questions. Yells at me for not telling her sooner. Pauses so she can text Aunt Jules the news. Yells at me again, this time on Aunt Jules’s behalf, even though I’m pretty sure Aunt Jules never heard of the McPherson Fellowship until today.
In the end, the conversation circles back to Holly.
“I’m telling you, bro, she likes you.”
