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“I am,” I said, rubbing my eyes and taking my blue light glasses off. “What’s up?”
“I figured I would come and see you in your natural habitat.”
I snorted. “How was your day?”
Em made a face. She worked answering phones for her uncle’s insurance company. Not the most thrilling work, but there were donuts from Sweet’s and she got to wear jeans every Friday, so that was something.
“I hate it, but then I’m afraid to get something else I’d hate more, you know? I can pretty much get away with reading smut on one screen while I manage invoices and emails on the other.” A steady paycheck was almost worth it, in my opinion. I’d never really been able to stick with that kind of job. I couldn’t do one thing for eight hours a day, five days a week, without feeling my entire soul dying slowly in my chest.
“Plus, I get weekends off, so I can work on my other stuff. Speaking of that, you want to come shell hunting with me this weekend?” Em collected seashells and made them into art, sometimes crushing them and making beautiful coasters with the bits mixed with resin, or she used whole shells to make wreaths or lampshades. She sold everything online and didn’t make much, but that wasn’t why she did it. Making things fed her soul in a way that her job never could.
“Someday, I’m going to have enough supplies for a whole coffee table,” she said. One of her big goals was to collect enough beautiful shells to arrange in a mosaic between two pieces of glass. She’d been collecting for years, but still didn’t have enough of the “good shells,” whatever that meant.
“Yeah, that sounds great. I’ll bring my suit and we can take a swim too,” I said.
“Good deal. Now that’s out of the way, how are you doing with ruining my brother’s life?” I was glad I had some positive news to report.
“Funny you should ask, because Esme ended up coming in today, and I got her number, and I gave her an invitation to come over to my place whenever she wants. So, what do you think about that?” I crossed my arms.
Em gave me a slow clap. “Well done. See? That wasn’t so hard.” I’d texted her about the entire saga with Wyatt sending me the drink and the aftermath of that.
“I’m almost jealous,” she said. “Esme is just so hot.” She let out a dreamy sigh. “I’m so fucking single it’s not even funny.”
“You know we can do something about that. There’re plenty of girls in this town.”
Em gave me a sardonic look. “Ones that I haven’t already hooked up with or dated or who aren’t my type?”
I thought about that for a minute. “Okay, you may have a point.”
The dating pool in town was shallow, and if you were queer, it was even more shallow. Em and I had even dated and fooled around with the same people and compared notes afterward. Awkward.
“I rest my case,” Em said, leaning back in her chair. “You wanna buy me a drink and a pastry to make up for it?”
I laughed as I slid my laptop and cord into my bag. “Sure.”
* * *
I stoppedat Mom’s on the way home to see how she was doing.
“You want to stay for dinner?” she asked. “I’m making fried chicken.”
Who would say no to that?
“Yeah, that would be great. I can’t stay too long because I have to get home to the pets.” I’d been considering getting a dog for the longest time, but I’d have to hire someone to come and walk it during the day, or take it to doggie daycare, and that seemed like a huge hassle. Potato and the fish were enough for me right now.
“Sit down, sit down,” she said, and I took a chair at the dining table.
I braced myself before asking, “So, how’s it going?”
“Great!” she said, her voice bright. “I have so many people joining my team. I’m on my way to being a triple star advanced consultant.” I had no idea what that meant, but I knew it was one of those bonkers ranking systems that the scam companies used to keep people sucked in. We’d done this dance before.
“Just be careful how much product you buy,” I said, for the thousandth time. Could we talk about anything else? I was already exhausted with this.
Mom just waved me off and the conversation stalled for a little bit as she carefully dropped the chicken in the pan of oil. There was almost nothing I loved more than my mother’s fried chicken. I made sure to stay out of range of the oil. I’d been burned before. Mom yammered on about local news, including a proposal for a new parking lot, one of my old teachers getting divorced, and a girl I’d gone to high school with having another baby. Mostly, I just listened and didn’t have to participate too much.
Once dinner was on the table, she finally got around to asking me about my jobs, and if I was going on any dates.
“I saw Wyatt with Gretchen at the grocery store the other day. What a tramp. You should warn him about her,” she said.
