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I stopped to light a cigarette and looked up from my lighter just in time to see Lola, moving a hundred miles an hour on a pair of roller skates, make an abrasive move, spread eagle, and go down hard right on her ass on the sidewalk.
I tossed the unsmoked cigarette down without a thought and jogged across the street after one cursory glance to check for traffic.
She was still trying to pull her shit together when I got there.
“Need a hand, LoLo?”
Lola stared at my hand, considering the offer with about as much enthusiasm as if I’d offered to share my plague with her. I was about to retract it and my hand when an annoyingly fake British accent-wielding woman approached us in a trumped-up tizzy.
“Oh my God, are you okay? Everyone just saw you fall. That looked so embarrassing!”
She shifted her attention from Lola to me rather quickly when she arrived.
“Oh! Who’s this?” she asked coyly of Lola, who was still sitting uncomfortably on the sidewalk.
I’d had enough. Reaching down, I scooped my hands under Lola’s armpits and brought her to her feet. She looked annoyed, but like there was no way in hell she was going to reference her feelings toward me in front of the fake Brit.
“Reed Luca,” I said, offering her my hand. She took it and held on an uncomfortably long time before I prompted, “And you are?”
“This is Simone,” Lola grumbled before she could answer for herself.
Yeah, right. If this chick’s real name was Simone, I’d pay you five hundred dollars.
Sensing Lola’s annoyance with absolutely everything transpiring in that moment, I turned my attention to Simone. “Nice to meet you. Practicing for a role?”
“Excuse me?” she asked.
“Your accent. I figured you were practicing for a role. Which is a good idea, by the way. It could use a little work.”
“I’m not an actor,” she protested, a little uncertainly but dialing up the charm.
“Oh. Well, I guess that’s probably a good thing, huh? Pretty tough field to break in to if you’re short on talent.”
Lola coughed to cover a bark of laughter.
Simone turned to her with fake concern. “Oh, dear. That cough sounds horrible. So unattractive too.”
“Know what, Simone?” I cut in. Her big doe eyes came back to mine. “It was really nice bumping into you, but we’re late.”
“Oh? What for?” she asked, and Lola looked to me again. I didn’t mind. This was one of my absolute favorite fucking things to do.
“We’re doing a huge shop for a thing we’re doing with Meals on Wheels. That’s actually why she’s on the skates.” I hooked a finger toward Lola with emphasis. Simone looked between us, and her eyes lit up. Time to squash that.
“Anyway, it’s too bad you’re not an actor because we were hiring a few extras for the whole TV spot, but we really do need people with experience.”
“Oh, when I said I’m not—”
“Nice seeing you,” I interrupted her, pulling Lola into the store on her skates by an elbow. She turned awkwardly to wave over her shoulder, so I moved behind her and grabbed her by the hips to make sure she didn’t eat it again.
“Bye, Simone.”
“Oh, my God,” Lola cried when the automatic door closed safely behind us. “Far be it for me to give you credit for anything, but that was amazing.”
“What?” I asked innocently, grabbing a basket and hooking it on my arm. I didn’t need anything. I hadn’t been intending to shop at all, but I figured that was the reason Lola was here.
“Using your evil to do good. I swear Simone is the vapidest, fakest, most annoying human being on the planet, and you just schooled her at her own game.”
“And yet,” I mocked, a finger to my chin in question, “you seem to be friends with her.”
She rolled her eyes. “We can’t just ditch her. We’ve been friends for years.”
“Sure you can. It’s easy. People I don’t like in my life? Zero.”
“Well, even if I get rid of Simone, I still have a very persistent one,” she said pointedly, and I laughed, guiding her into one of the aisles. She just hung on for the ride with two hands clamped around my elbow.
“You only fake-hate me. That’s different.”
“No, no. The hate is very real.”
I waved her off and grabbed a box of tampons from the shelf, throwing it into the basket. “No. You hate that my opinion is different from yours on many topics, but you don’t hate me. You like me. You enjoy me. You’re entertained right this very second.”
“I’m not. I’m trying to get away from you,” she protested, skating six inches away and releasing my arm all at once. “In fact, what are you even doing here? Are you fucking stalking me? Because that’s creepy on a whole new level.”
I moved her easily with a hand at the small of her back, the skates aiding my quest, and pushed her until she could see out the glass windows at the front of the store.
“See that?” I pointed to the building across the street. “That’s the office for the Journal. You know, where I work?”
I noticed she was silent then.
“But it’s interesting that you would accuse me of stalking you.”
“Why?” she asked warily.
“Because the easiest deflections come from a place of truth within yourself.”
“Are you saying I’m stalking you?” she scoffed as I grabbed a couple of packs of cookies and threw them in the basket.
“If it quacks like a duck,” I confirmed.
“As if!”
“Well, that sure looks like my office across the street. What’s a man supposed to think? That you just like this grocery store?” I pursed my lips and shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
“I do like this store! They stock my favorite coffee creamer.”
I nodded as though considering it and steered her in the direction of the refrigerator section.
“Okay. Wow. I guess you’re right. A situation actually can look like one thing and be another. Kind of like how a guy could not call and the reason could be something other than him just not seeing how awesome his date was the whole time?”
“Oh, you are an asshole.”
“Thank you. That’s pretty much the nicest thing anyone has said to me all day.” And quite frankly, that was true. Rhonda’s dislike for me made Lola’s fake hate look amateurish.
“Are you always this—”
“Likeable? Yes.”
“That wasn’t what I was going to say, and you know it.”
I pulled open the refrigerator and asked, “What kind of coffee creamer did you say was your favorite?”
“The Willow Hill Mocha…”
Finally, she started paying attention to more than the way I made her heart beat faster.
What? It doesn’t hurt to hope.
“What are you doing? Are you buying my creamer?” she questioned, rapid fire. “Are you trying to be like me? Jesus, next thing you’ll be cross-dressing.”
“Only on the weekends,” I muttered and she froze.
“What?”
I raised my eyebrow.
“God, you are such a liar.”
“Thank you.”
“That was not a compliment.”
“It was to me. And no, I’m not buying your creamer. This basket is yours.”
“What?” she asked as I handed it off, and she took a minute to look through it. “What the…tampons? Jesus. I actually love these cookies. And this toothpaste is my brand. How the hell did you do this?”
“Just lucky, I guess.” And that was the truth. That toothpaste was my brand. I’d gone ahead and tossed it in for later—when I convinced her we were friends and we had sleepovers—you know, the good kind.
With one last look and an innocent kiss to her cheek, I turned and made my way out of the store while she stood and looked after me.
“Reed!”
One last wave.
“Bye, Lola.”
I’ll be seeing you soon.
Studies Show that Smoreos Are More Addictive Than Drugs
My eyes paused on the screen. Wait…What? I loved Smoreos, especially Double-Stuffed Smoreos. No way in hell this is true. I clicked open the article immediately and started reading.
After a two-year-long study, the neuroscience department found that Smoreos triggered significantly more neurons in rats’ brains than cocaine did. This aided them in coming to their final result that the high-fat, high-sugar cookie could, in fact, be more addictive than cocaine.
Jesus. My favorite cookie is as addictive as cocaine?
What kind of sick world do I live in?
I groaned out loud, and a lady wearing a navy blue blazer sitting at the table across from mine glanced in my direction. Whoops. She wasn’t happy in the slightest, merely two seconds away from going librarian and shushing my ass. As I closed out the “Smoreos are the devil” article, I made a mental note to keep my audible groans to a minimum. I didn’t want to get the boot from one of my favorite coffeehouses in San Francisco.
Four Barrels had an eclectic, hipster vibe, and even though the animal heads hanging proudly on the walls came across as a tad sinister, I enjoyed coming here from time to time for their milk shakes. Sounded crazy, but they had amazing milk shakes, and their bakery selection would sway even the healthiest eaters to binge on sugar.
