As if he can hear my thoughts, Joshua goes still in my arms, his lips no longer moving over mine. Just still pressed there like a statue, like he’s completely forgotten what he’s doing.
Well, crap.
He pulls his lips away, his head moving back as he looks at me, his brow pinching together just above his nose.
“Claire?” he asks, looking at me as if he’s not sure what just happened.
“Yes?” I say, giving him what I’m hoping is an encouraging smile. One that saysWe were kissing, remember?Pleaseremember.
He shakes his head, as if he’s coming out of a fog, and takes a step back, releasing me from his hold. I let go too because what will come next is inevitable and, honestly, expected. Despite all my wishing and manifesting.
“I . . . I think I need to go,” he says, pointing toward his car. A very expensive Mercedes that he told me all about on the way here. As if I know anything about cars.
“Sure,” I say, my lips pulled flat.
I could call after him, ask him why he’s leaving so quickly. Maybe he has a sudden case of diarrhea? Maybe he realized he left something cooking on the stove? But there’s no point. I know how this goes. I’ve done it forty-eight times before.
Joshua, it seems, has completely forgotten why we were kissing in the first place. All attraction—poof—gone.
After going through this forty-eight times, you’d think it wouldn’t sting anymore. But it does. Less, for sure, but it’s still there. Like a pesky mosquito buzzing in your ear. Buzzzzzzzzzzz.
But this is how things go for me, and for the women in my family, or so I’ve been told my entire life.
Now that we’ve had the kiss that wasn’t, I can stop deluding myself into thinking Joshua was the right one for me and that he could break this stupid kiss curse. The signs were there. Also, his bragging and garlic breath were all a little too much. Even if there had been a second kiss, it probably wouldn’t have lasted much beyond that.
I grab my purse from my shoulder and fumble around inside it until I find my keys. Air-conditioning escapes through the door as I open it and wraps around me like a frigid hug.
“Sam?” I call out, hoping she isn’t home so I can wallow by myself, while simultaneously wishing she’d be here so I can vent to her. Sam is always a good sounding board.
“In here,” she calls from the living room.
I walk down the small hallway, toward her voice, my black heels making clicking sounds on the tile floor.
“How did it go?” my roommate of the past four years asks as I enter our smallish apartment. It’s cozy, and we’ve made it work since Sam’s acting career hasn’t exactly taken off yet, and I could never afford this place myself with my good-but-not-LA-good salary working in public relations.
It’s in a renovated older building in NoHo with great bones but thin walls. Which isn’t a problem until you’re playing music late at night and your neighbors get annoyed and bang on the wall. Ask me how I know. The kitchen and rooms are small, but the exposed brick wall in the living room is my favorite feature, along with the green velvet couch we found secondhand. It’s a little big for the space, but we’ve made it work.
That’s where I find Sam, sprawled out, her dark hair pulled up in a top knot, without a stitch of makeup on her flawless, gold-toned skin, a throw over her legs, a Costco-size container of licorice at her feet, and a mutedFriendsrerun playing on the TV.
“How was date number three?” she asks, a hopeful smile on her face, which quickly drops when she sees my expression.
“Well, I can safely say there won’t be a date number four.”
“Oh no,” she says, her shoulders dropping.
“Oh yes,” I say, giving her my best grimace.
She reaches up and pats the top of the couch, telling me without words to have a seat and spill my guts to my best friend in the world.
I sigh and then squeeze between the wall and the couch, making my way into the living room the way I usually have to—sideways, because the day we found the sofa, we were so in love that neither of us thought to measure whether it would fit. And it does, but only barely—the velvet arms nearly flush with both walls, leaving just enough room on one side to squeeze through. I sometimes jump over the back because it’s faster and easier, but this dress wouldn’t allow for that.
I’ve known Samira “Sam” Alavi since our freshman year of college, where I was studying PR and she was planning to be a therapist. We lost touch after our second semester when I moved off campus and then were reunited at a Hollywood after-party where I was babysitting a client and she was a plus-one.
It took approximately four minutes to remember why we’d been friends in the first place. I’m practical and efficient, and Sam is chaos in human form—but the good kind. The kind that shows up with Persian cookies and an opinion you didn’t ask for and is somehow always right about everything, which is annoying.
She’d dropped out of school and was trying to break into acting (much to the disappointment of her very Persian, verytraditional parents) and it just so happened that we were both looking for a roommate.
“So, what happened?” Sam asks once I’ve moved the bucket of licorice to the floor (not before grabbing a piece) and plopped myself down on the opposite side of the couch from her, kicking off my heels onto the LVP flooring and tucking my feet under me.
