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“Well?” Maxine prompted, her voice shaking me out of my unsettling thoughts.
“Looks like we’re getting lunch,” I announced, pushing the curtain to the side and stepping out.
Maxine whistled. “She is style, she is grace, she is a total smoke show.” She motioned for me to spin around. “I don’t want to say I told you so, but girl, did I tell you so! You’re absolutely getting that dress. I don’t care if you have to sell multiple organs on the black market to do it.”
Suddenly I realized that I had liked the dress so much, I hadn’t even checked the price tag. I groaned, spinning to face her.
“Please tell me you checked the price to make sure this was in my budget before making me fall in love with it.”
“Chill, it’s comfortably within your budget. You can totally afford a new pair of shoes or a matching clutch to go with it.”
I let out a relieved breath.
“That’s good, because I honestlywouldconsider selling an organ or two for this dress. I feel...I don’t know...like myself, but not like myself. Better, maybe?”
Maxine moved to stand next to me, throwing an arm around my shoulder and pulling me into a sideways hug.
“You, my computer-coding friend, are beautiful every day. Youmakethat dress, and don’t forget it. Now —” Her hand dropped from my shoulders to the small of my back, practically shoving me back into the dressing room. “Stop checking yourself out and get dressed. I’m starving. Chop chop.”
She didn’t have to tell me twice. I slipped out of the dress and back into my clothes in record time. I did stop to check the price tag, just in case, and was happy to find that the dress was indeed well within my budget.
I didn’t even flinch when the cashier rang me up. It felt like a small price to pay to see Sissy’s face when I walked in wearing this dress.
We made our way to Max’s favorite restaurant in the shopping complex. It was an old school diner that had amazing French fries and milkshakes, so you wouldn’t hear me complaining about her choice. We placed our orders at the counter and headed to a booth.
“So,” I started, twirling the straw in my water glass, “Holden showed up at my apartment uninvited the other night with dinner.”
Maxine sputtered and started coughing. It took her a solid minute to pull herself together. “If you could not drop a bomb like that while I’m taking a drink, I would appreciate it. Why did you not tell me about this immediately?”
“I don’t know. I needed to think about it at first, and then things got crazy at work and there wasn’t time.”
“Sutton, there is literally always time for that kind of gossip.Always.” She slapped her palms on the sticky linoleum table. “Now tell me everything.”
“Well, he texted me on Wednesday to ask if I was available for dinner. I asked for a rain check, because it was meeting day and I knew I’d be tired.” I paused as the server set down our milkshakes. “Then he showed up at my apartment around seven-ish with dinner from this amazing Italian place. They had phenomenal lobster ravioli, and don’t even get me started on the breadsticks. They were still warm and literally theperfectamount of butter and garlic —”
“Yeah, really not that interested in the food,” Max interrupted. “How did he even know where you lived?”
“I guess he asked my dad for my address, which now that I think about it, is kind of weird. At the time, I was too stunned to really think that much about it. He met the squeak squad and —”
Max groaned, dragging her hands down her face dramatically. “Oh God, not the rodents. I forgot about the rodents.”
“Anyway, it was oddly...nice.Hewas oddly nice.”
“Wow, this is like the worst post-mortem ever. Less info about breadsticks and rodents, please, and more details about you two.”
I held up a hand. “There is no ‘you two.’ That implies some type of relationship, and this was just a drive-by dining situation.” Maxine managed to glare at me while taking a huge drink of her milkshake. “Oh, fine. We talked about work and a little about back home. Just the normal meeting-new-people dinner conversation, really.”
Maxine’s shoulders slumped, her nose scrunching up like she smelled something terrible. “Well, that was as unsatisfying as the kale and quinoa salad from that vegan place Jin made us try. Remember, the one next to the bakery that smelled freaking delicious?” I nodded. “Did he tell you why he wanted to have dinner in the first place? Not that you’re not a delightful dinner companion, but it does seem a little random.”
“I agree. I didn’t even know his phone number when he texted me. He said he felt like we had unfinished business from that horrible sibling dinner, mainly the ‘trash’ comment I made when I was hangry and nervous. I don’t know. I kind of get the impression he can’t figure me out, and that he doesn’t like not being able to figure something out.”
“Or,” Maxine said, perking up, “he’s interested in getting to know his future sister-in-law a whole lot better now that she’s all grown up.”
“We didn’t even know each other that well when weweregrowing up. I don’t think I ever said one word to him before Macon and Sissy got engaged.”
“Sex, Sutton. I’m talking about sex. I was trying to be discreet or whatever, but apparently, I’m going to have to spell it out for you: Holden might want to have sex with you.”
“Ew, gross! No. That’s practically incest.”
