Lucia’s warm brown eyes sparkle with her knowing smile. “I see.”
“For work.”
“Sure.”
Giving up, I say, “I’m sorry if you tried to get my help—I don’t even think I told you I was leaving, did I? Is there anything you need? I’m here for a few more days before I head out again.” To Belgium. I don’t tell her this.
She ponders my question anyway, tapping at her chin with a tiny wrinkled finger. “You could tell me all about your European adventures.”
Normally, my relationship with an apartment neighbor wouldn’t extend beyond reciprocating chores or running errands I could leave outside their door. However, talking to someone who doesn’t work with me—or would know who Arthur is—does sound nice. Sucking in a breath, I nod to my door. Lucia lets out a gleeful laugh before following me inside, and I feel myself smiling as the door shuts.
Maybe Arthur and his inability to turn down a good time has rubbed off on me more than I realized.
Lucia walks straight to the cabinets above my oven, hops on my step stool, and begins to rifle through the wicker baskets of tea. “I keep mine in the same place,” she says once she’s found two bags of Earl Grey. “Kettle.”
It isn’t a question. I run my polka-dot water kettle under the faucet as Lucia frowns her way through my meager collection of vegan honey substitutes. Once she politely refuses my shelf-stable almond milk, I ask, “Why tea?”
Lucia gives me a puzzled glance. “You’re getting sick.”
“I feel fine.”
She inspects me. “Either you’re sick or you’re in love.”
“Pass the tea,” I say stubbornly.
After I’ve gotten through my second cup of Earl Grey, I’ve told her about everything that’s transpired between Arthur and me, in layman’s terms: He’s like a coworker but more taboo, we’re in theprocess of convincing the world that we’re madly infatuated so that I can do an art project and he can get a different job, and now I’ve accidentally developed real feelings for him. Something about Lucia’s amused smile makes spilling my secrets too easy.
“But I can’t actually date him,” I say.
She gives me that impatient look only a grandmother can. The “speed it up, I don’t have all day” twinkle. “Why?”
“He’s only using me to get what he wants. It’s fake for him.”
“Which is why he set up a breakfast for you on a roof.”
“He is extravagant.”
“Coffee and pastries are quite simple.”
“But,” I press on, “the fact of the matter is, I’m only going to be around him until September. There isn’t a future where this works, if he did like me, which he doesn’t. Because if he liked me, he would be pursuing me. That’s his style. You have no idea how driven he is.”
“And him telling you all the ways it could work between you two was…?”
“Him joking around.” I sigh. “That’s what he does. And I’m very serious. To a fault, probably. I want a family. I want stability. I want to…” I trail off with a painful flutter. “I don’t want to rely onanyonelike I did with my ex. And if I can ignore my feelings, then I can make this film and start a career on my own.”
Lucia holds out her hand expectantly. “Show me your conversations with him.”
I relinquish my personal phone. She hoists it inches from her face to read the tiny text, then shoots me a judging eye. “So this ‘co-worker’ messaged you that he’s been eating the birthday cake you made him as his ‘guilty pleasure treat’ and you replied, ‘Thanks’?”
“What else could I say!” I sink my face into my hands. “Fuck. I’m sobadat this.”
“You are, dear.”
“I’m better off alone.”
I try to grab my phone back from her, but she’s surprisingly fast. “And why would you ever think that?” she says.
Her question stops me cold in my tracks. I wrap my fingers back around my teacup, nerves contorting, pinching, and slowly pull the truth into the light. “My last relationship messed me up. Which is… an understatement, probably? But that time, it had felt natural to start kissing this person I’d known forever. Like, maybe we were true love like everyone told us we were. And if I can screw something like that up, the easy thing, I can definitely screw up a much more complicated thing.”
