“And you’re failing miserably,” Jack snaps back, annoyed.
I laugh in spite of myself, instantly diagnosing theOdd Coupledynamic between the two of them: Jack is the straight man, and Tom his outlandish foil. Jack’s the Felix to Tom’s Oscar; the Spade to his Farley.
“Oh, he’s fine,” I reassure Jack. “If you dish it out, you’ve got to be able to take it, right, Tom?” I toss him a wink.
“A girl after my own heart.” He nods at Jack. “Think you might be punching above your weight with this one, bud.”
I’m feeling pretty smug about how quickly I’ve wonTom over. Didn’t even break a sweat. He also just handed Betty a prime opening:Compliment your man in front of his friends.
“I think it might be the other way around,” I coo sweetly, placing a possessive hand on Jack’s arm and giving it a squeeze. When I glance up at him adoringly, I’m rewarded by his look of surprised pleasure, twin spots of color blooming on his cheekbones. Honestly, the aw-shucks routine from a guy this attractive is both absurd and adorable.Is it possible that this cheesy, blatant flattery actually works?
“Well, he’s...” I trail off as Jack guides us to our seats, trying to come up with an appropriate adjective to describe that encounter.
“Insane?”
“I was going to saya lot, but your way works too.”
“Tom is... an acquired taste.”Yeah, acquired like a bad rash.“Trust me, there’s nothing you could say about him that I haven’t heard before.”
He seems eager to change the subject, so I go with it, peppering him with questions about the match currently underway, the players’ records, what the morning session was like. I play dumb about the rules of the game whenever possible (Why do they call zero “love”? Is “deuce” a tie?), which actually stings quite a bit, considering the couple of years I spent on my high school tennis team.Allow him to shine and feel smart!Le sigh.
I’m also melting. September heat in New York is oppressive, and within a few minutes I’m seriously regretting thumbing my nose at that parasol. I can’t even imagine how Jack is surviving in his blazer. I go to dig my sunglasses out of my purse and catch a glimpse of my phone, noticing I’ve gotten a few texts from my sister. I scroll through themquickly, laughing at a couple of pictures she’s sent of my nieces at some kid’s birthday party, cake smashed all over their faces.Ugh, I’d kill for some of that cake.I wish I could teleport it through the phone, Wonka-style.
Jack leans over to peek at my screen, the fabric of his blazer brushing my bare shoulder. “Friends of yours?”
“My nieces,” I tell him, angling the phone toward him so he can see better. “My sister’s kids, Ella and Adeline.”
He smiles at the screen. “Well, they’re adorable.”
“An adorable handful,” I say wryly. “Honestly, they’re a couple of holy terrors. But I love ’em to pieces.” I give the pics a couple of heart tapbacks and slide the phone back into my purse.
“So you’re the cool aunt, then?”
“Oh, absolutely. And I take my roleveryseriously. Not to brag, but I’m their favorite babysitter,” I boast with exaggerated importance. “And just to annoy my sister, I buy them the most obnoxious toys I can find, like a microphone that only plays songs fromFrozenand dolls that won’t stop crying.”
“So you have an evil streak.”
“I think of it more as payback for a lifetime of big-sister torture.”
He grins and cracks open his water bottle, draining half of it in a single impressive gulp. How do guysdothat? “So you two are close?”
“We are. She lives in Connecticut, so I’m able to see her regularly. On the flip side, it’s nearly impossible to have a phone conversation without being interrupted by the girls forty-seven times, so ninety percent of our interactions these days are via text.” I shrug, accepting the stage of life we’re in. “What about you, do you have any siblings?” I feela pang of guilt asking him a question I already know the answer to, but I suppose that minor fib is the least of my transgressions right now.
“Just one. My older brother John.”
“Two boys,” I observe, sipping my wine.
“Yep. We even get along sometimes, too.”
“Ouch.” I grimace good-naturedly. “That doesn’t sound too good.”
He shrugs, though there’s a resigned air to it. “It’s mostly competitive brother stuff, but I think some people are just destined to butt heads. We worked together for a time, too, and that didn’t help.” He squeezes the water bottle, the plastic protesting his grip with a loudcrackingnoise. “There’s just a lot of water under that bridge.”
“Well, high tide eventually becomes low tide,” I say reflexively.
He tilts his head, brow furrowed in question.
“Sorry, it’s just something my grandma always says about the ebb and flow of relationships. Basically, all relationships have seasons, and sometimes people just need a little time and space. If you’re patient, they usually come back around.”
