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“I don’t?” I ask. She shakes her head at me. “Why don’t I?”
She gets a smirk and says, “You haven’t seen your unit yet?”
“Uh, no. Somebody from the company set it all up. I just got into town. I’ve barely even been to the office yet. Spent a couple days bouldering in Moab and drove straight here at three this morning.”
“How rustic,” Cheryl says. I can’t tell if “rustic” means “charming” or “disgusting” to her. “Well, come along and let me show you.”
She ostrich-galumphs toward the elevator she was just referencing, and I follow. Eden doesn’t. I turn back. “Are you coming?”
“What? Where? To see your apartment? Why do I wanna see your apartment?”
I shrug. “Dunno. Cheryl’s making it sound very mysterious. You’re not curious?”
“Not really.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Really. Not really.”
I walk over to her now, because… because I want her to not be mad at me for whatever thing it is that she’s decided to be mad at me about. “Hey, listen. I don’t know if it’s really because I took your charger, but whatever I’ve done to rub you the wrong way… I’m sorry. OK? Really. I am. Do you wanna grab dinner with me tonight?”
What did I just say?
“What did you just say?”
“Um… It would appear that I asked if you want to… grab dinner with me tonight.” What am I doing right now?
“I thought you were having dinner with Pierce. He told Myrtle to make a reservation.”
“Yeah, and he said someplace not shitty. What? You don’t wanna have dinner with me and your boss at someplace not shitty? Not-shitty dinners are usually the best kind.”
She pushes her glasses up her nose again and eyes me. “What’s your deal?”
“What do you mean?”
“I know who you are. Myrtle told me.”
“Oh. Did she?”
“Yeah. So, I mean, what’s your deal? You drive a crappy pickup, you steal chargers—”
“Borrow.”
“Fine. Borrow chargers from strange women in traffic—”
“You are strange. That’s true.”
“You’re renting an apartment instead of, I dunno, buying a ranch or whatever you could do, and for some reason you’re hitting on me now. What’s your deal?”
What is my deal? It’s a reasonable question.
My deal? My deal, Eden, is that I’ve bided my time and re-centered myself in search of what I need in my life. And now that I feel like I’m close, I’m ready to get back into the business of sharing that with someone. And even though we’ve only known each other for about twenty minutes, I think you’re fascinating and cute and funny and I’m sort of imagining what you’d look like spread out horizontally. So how about we go check out my place and maybe, if you’re up for it, we do a little something my granddaddy used to call the “belly-bumping bed boogie…?”
“Yeah. I dunno. Shall we?”
I stare at her and gesture with my hand in the direction Cheryl just went. Eden stares back at me for another second, rubs her runny nose with the back of her hand once again, and then, finally, she walks past me toward the elevator.
Shit, man. What is my deal?
CHAPTER SEVEN – EDEN
Am I hallucinating? Did I slip into an alternate reality after hearing those guys on that ridiculous morning show talk about the Sexpert? Because my life has suddenly turned into… not my life.
But I’m on autopilot right now as I follow Cheryl into the elevator. Andrew slips in next to me just as Cheryl presses the button for the penthouse, and I’m just about to make a run for it and get out of this hallucination when the elevators door close and force me to see it through.
Why? Why the hell did I agree to go see his apartment?
Well, I am a teeny-tiny bit curious at what a guy like him rents in this building, so I just fake-smile the whole ride up as Cheryl talks about the summer concert series down in the Towne Centre and how the TDH is sponsoring a rodeo this weekend.
“Rodeo?” I ask. “I’ve never heard of that and I’ve worked here for two years.” Personally, I think Cheryl has the hots for Andrew and she’s hinting around that he might like to take her to these events.
“It’s new this year,” Cheryl explains. “Le Man opened up the new event center last fall and there was a lot of controversy about land use and protests about stewardship from the local ranchers before it was built. So Le Man said they’d sponsor one of the local rodeos and bill it as a main event.” Then she turns to Andrew. “It’s going to be great fun. You should go.”
I roll my eyes and realize Andrew is watching me, not looking at Cheryl or paying any attention to her obvious flirting.
“Are you going to the rodeo, Eden?” he asks.
Which makes me snort, it’s that funny. To me, anyway. No one else laughs. “No,” I say, serious again. “I’m deathly afraid of bulls.”
