She grinned wickedly. “Did he smell good?”
“Did he—what? I don’t know! I was too busy trying to avoid getting close to him.”
Nat side-eyed me knowingly. “I bet he smelled like money. Rich guys always smell good.”
“Stop it.”
I intentionally left out the details of my car-ride epiphany, which I’d already begun recasting in my memory as a momentary lapse in judgment. Whatever fleeting attraction I may have felt toward Jack was likely just a result of proximity and pheromones, or chemistry, or whatever you want to call the inability of attractive, unattached adults to maintain a platonic relationship in the face of potential future nudity. I can hardly be held responsible for the thousands of years of natural human instincts baked into my DNA. Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal settled this debate thirty years ago.
“You want to know something that surprised me?” I offered instead. “How nice it felt to be out of the driver’s seat for once. Letting him make all the decisions and just following his lead was... pretty freeing, if I’m being honest.”
She stuffed a pillow under her arm, getting comfortable. “Explain.”
“I haven’t fully processed it yet, but I guess it just made me realize how often I’m the one doing all the work. Like with Brett, I made all the plans, I coordinated our schedules, it was always my job to pick a dinner place. And maybe that’s my fault or it was a red flag I missed, but... it’s like, you know that feeling when you’re talking to a guy and you’re stressing out trying to keep the conversation going? And you’re already queuing up your next question so there are no awkward silences?”
Nat groaned. “Ugh, the worst.”
“Right? So today was like theexactopposite of that. Instead of being forced into planning mode or having to leadhim by the nose, I just sat back and let him do all the heavy lifting. And I’m not saying I never want to make another decision again or anything, but honestly, I could get used to not carrying that load.”
“You need to put this in your piece,” she said thoughtfully. “Something our grandmothers got right.”
“Maybe,” I allowed, picking at a loose thread on the couch cushion. “I need to think on it some more. But right now I have a more pressing issue to deal with.”
“Like?”
“Like the fact that he didn’t fall for my shtick at all! And I thought I did a pretty good job setting him up, too.” I was indignant at the injustice of it. How dare Jack turn out to be decent?
She waved a hand. “Maybe he’s just saying what he thinks you want to hear. Gabriel does that all the time.”
“If that were the case, he would haveagreedwith the nonsense I was spewing, not pushed back on it.” I shook my head. “I don’t think this is going to be as easy as we thought. He’s just not as... manipulatable as I expected. Is ‘manipulatable’ a word?”
“Think it might be ‘manipulable’?” she guessed. “Let’s check. Hey, Alexa,” she called out, and I smirked—as writers, this was the type of thing neither of us could let go. “Is ‘manipulatable’ a word?” We both listened intently as Alexa confirmed that it was, in fact, a word. “Thanks, Alexa, you’re a sweetheart,” Nat said graciously.
“Anyway, I think I’m gonna have to come at this from another angle, though I do have an idea on that front.”
“Oh yeah? What’s that?”
I flashed her a grin. “Call for reinforcements.”
Double date with a happily married couple—let him see what it’s like!
“Hi, give me a second to find my earpiece,” my sister’s voice rings out amidst a din of chattering background noise.
“No problem,” I reply, sidestepping a mountain of trash bags piled high on the sidewalk as I make my way home from work later that afternoon.
“Alright girls, I’m talking to Aunt Cassidy now. That means I don’t want anyone to interrupt me for the next few minutes. Okay?”It comes out as more of a threat than a question, and I stifle a laugh.
“Okay, I’m here,” she says, sounding harried. “Warning, this is the witching hour, so I’m not sure how long they’ll give me.” I hear a loud banging noise in the background.
“How are my sweet little nieces doing?”
She snorts. “Sweet, right. Do ‘sweet’ children cut a chunk out of their sister’s bangs when their mom is in the shower, then tell you it’s fine because Rapunzel did it inTangled?”
“Oh no,” I say, trying—and failing—to contain my laughter. “How bad does it look?”
“Pretty darn bad. I’ll send you a pic.”
“It almost sounds like something you would have done to me,” I say pointedly. “She’s her mother’s daughter.”
