“Those are some high standards,” I said. “Your mom is literally one in a billion. Does a woman liketheRenata Kovalenko even exist?”
Ezra shrugged, but his expression was no less fiery. “You exist,” he said.
I snorted, rolled my eyes, forced my heart rate to slow.He didn’t mean it like that, I thought, as he steamrolled ahead, venting about the man who was more his benefactor than his father.He never means it like that.
But what about now?I thought, staring at Ezra’s revived text thread. What did he mean now that he knew how I had once felt about him?
Ezra: I want to see you.
Ezra: I know I agreed to wait till the benefit. But I’ll be honest with you, I don’t see the point. It can be quick. Coffee? Or I can just come by your place? Just like old times.
Ezra: You look amazing today, by the way. Hope you and Dahlia are having a good night.
“Uh-oh, what is that face?” Dahlia said, leaning out of her seat to snatch a salmon maki off the rotary sushi belt. Her social media platform had recently shifted focus from health care to lifestyle, and she’d initiated the transition by visiting little-known Chicago restaurants and posting reviews. After a few of her posts went viral, she’d started getting offers for comped meals in exchange for promotion. “I can’t believe you’re not making them pay you,” I’d complained, but as a former poor kid, I knew better than to turn down free food.
Not that the meal didn’t come with a price. Instead of money, I paid my way through my services as Dahlia’s camerawoman and collaborator. In true Boateng-Cortes fashion, we’d shown up fabulously overdressed: Dahlia in a tight black mock-neck dress that showed off her tattoos and lace-up booties that showed off her calves, me in a white baby doll dress and clunky Mary Janes that lent me four inches of height and gave my legs the illusion of length. Of course we’d taken pictures for the Gram. I kept it cute with the caption:health care heroes ????
Within two minutes of posting, Ezra had commented fromhis official account:gorgeous??.My followers immediately fell into a tizzy: @beyoncesgivenchydress had already commented:NOT ONE TRUE KISS’ ZACHARY THIRSTING ON OUR GIRL DR. JOJO!!!! ????????????????????
“Wait, do that again,” I told Dahlia. “I got a text. It messed up the shot.”
Dahlia gave me a knowing look but acquiesced, this time grabbing a spider roll from the rotating belts. I sat up straighter, zooming in to capture its textures, then panned over to Dahlia, who mimed snatching it in her chopsticks excitedly. The second I lowered my phone, she lowered her smile.
“It’s Ezra, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Yup,” I admitted.
“Told you,” she said. I threw a kick under the table that she dodged. Then she held out her hands for my phone. “Let me see.”
I handed it over, and Dahlia scrolled through Ezra’s messages, her eyebrows rising higher as she went.
Ever since I lifted the embargo on communication between me and Ezra, he’d been coming on strong.Where he’d always sort of skirted the line between amorous and platonic intent, now he was crossing it boldly and unabashedly. He’d sent me apology hyacinths before, but yesterday’s delivery had been vibrant red camellias. (“I negotiated my terms and got five grand this time! Thanks for the advice, Dr.B,” Raymond said gleefully before taking his delivery confirmation picture.) Dahlia and I had looked up the meaning together and found words likepassion,desire,romantic love. And then there were the photos Dahlia was seeing now, sent this morning, of Ezra looking very dapper in a navy suit, with the shirt unbuttoned just enough to show the dip of his clavicle, and another of him in a sheer, bejeweled black button-down andleather pants that made him look like he’d just walked off the set of a vampire movie. Underneath, his pretense:What do you think I should do? Play it safe? Or have some fun?
Or,he sent a few seconds later,you could send me what you’re wearing and we can try to match.
No wonder all his girls folded so easily. I’d only ever received Ezra’s charms at half power. Now that he’d pulled them out full force, the emotional equilibrium I’d built had been upset. Twenty-year-old Josephine would have been thrilled. Twenty-nine-year-old Josephine was bewildered. I’d gotten used to a clumsier, more earnest approach, to sincerity and directness. To a guy who could tell me he loved me without flinching or talking around it, then promise to wait for me to catch up.
Except I’d only known Mal for three months to Ezra’s ten years. Except in those three months, Ezra Adelman might have actually woken up and seen me in a new light. Except if my suspicions were correct, and Ezra, who I knew would never screw me over, had feelings for me, I might regret not giving him a chance.
“Goddamn,” Dahlia said, zooming in at the hint of abs visible through the mesh. “Don’t know if I realized that Adelman was built like this. Sheesh.”
“Yes, yes, he’s irritatingly hot,” I said, groaning. “You know, maybe I should respond to Dr.Makinen. Medicine was traumatizing, but at least I wouldn’t be bothering myself aboutboys.”
This time it was Dahlia who threw a kick, and unlike mine, hers landed squarely on my shin.
“Nuh-uh. You’ve spent enough of your life hiding behind the hospital. It’s high time youdobother yourself about boys,” she said. “And just FYI, I veto Ezra’s request to ‘come over.’ I do not trust that man in our home. He’s going to eat you alive.”
Suddenly I remembered the last time I had been consumed—Mal’s hot breath against my ear, his hand holding my jaw as he plowed into me,You like that?whispered into my ear. I buried my face in my hands, flustered. Yesterday on the pier, when Mal asked me whether I’d avoided calling him because I was confused about Ezra, I’d answered truthfully and watched his heart break before my eyes. We nibbled at his spread for a little while after that, watching the sun dive below the horizon, and when we packed up to leave, he didn’t hug me, didn’t kiss me, didn’t invite me home. Instead, he’d held on to the straps of his cooler backpack in tight fists, smiled at my shoulder, and said he wouldsee me around.
I’d hurt him and hated every second of it. When I told Dahlia this, her jaw dropped.
“This man asked you what you felt when you saw Ezra again and you saidnot nothing?” she repeated, aghast.
“Yes? Because it’s the truth?” I said, confused.
One, I thought that Mal deserved to know. It was his right to decide whether what I could offer him was enough. What he deserved was a person who could love him wholly, who could trust him with her whole heart, who wasn’t so messed up inside that when he told her he loved her she couldn’t say it back, even though she suspected she might feel the same.
Dahlia’s hand covered mine. When I looked up at her face, her expression was grave. I groaned.
