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Twenty-Nine
A DATE. ATJack Stapleton’s house.
What the hell was I thinking?
I was crazy to go. But I’d be crazy not to go.
Still, it was going to take some courage. And some prep.
Especially since I hadn’t unpacked. So when I suddenly needed to find a great outfit—one that could, in theory, if I chose right, help me feel up to the challenge—I couldn’t find one.
I mean, after a while, I just started dumping the boxes out on the floor and pawing through them.
I had some date-wear in there somewhere.
I’d left myself plenty of time, but as box after box turned up wrinkled sweatpants, I started getting tense.
That’s when I heard a knock at my door.
I looked through the peephole.
There, in the fish-eye lens, was Taylor.
“I’m not home,” I called through the door.
“You clearly are.”
“I’m busy, though.”
“Can I have sixty seconds? I need to say something.”
I cracked the door. “Sixty seconds,” I said.
She held out a grocery sack, and as I looked at it, she said, “It’s the shoes you lent me for that thing. And it’s your heart-shaped baking pan I borrowed. And some books.”
“Keep it all,” I said. “I don’t want it.”
“I’m not keeping it,” she said.
“Fine. Donate it, then.”
“You love these shoes!”
“Not anymore.”
Taylor had been holding the sack out to me, but at that, she pulled it back.
“Okay, then,” she said.
“What did you need to say?” I asked then, like Let’s get this over with.
“More like ‘ask,’ really.”
“Fine. Ask.”
“Is there… anything I can do for you?”
I frowned. “That’s why you came here?”
