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For the next two days, I focus on job hunting. For the next two mornings, Kaden texts me early. I ignore him and press on about my day. In forty-eight hours, I go on six job interviews. I receive zero call backs.
The restaurants, pet shop, and music studio are all a bust.
I’m so depressed, I return to my ‘spot’ at the cemetery, where I once spent so many afternoons typing up obituaries for theEaston Times. It’s almost as if I believe hanging out under the huge elm tree will take me weeks back in time, where I had my steady little crappy job working for Winston (who still hasn’t paid me).
On the fourth morning, a Wednesday, Kaden texts me yet again. I’ve already decided I’m taking it off from job interviews. Instead, I wind up at Strictly Pleasures standing among a shelf of bottles of flavored lube and an assortment of anal plugs.
I pick up an acorn-shaped metal plug with a purple crystal on the handle. “I like this one.”
“Take it. On the house. You need it.”
I choke on my next breath. “Excuse me? Speak for yourself. I don’tneedit.”
Imani grins. “Just in case. For the next guy named Not Grady.”
“You’re never going to let me forget I had a backslide, are you?”
“I’m hoping maybe the humiliation will finally make you stop,” she answers from behind the register. “What about the other guy? The one who spilled your lunch on you at Urban Greenery?”
“Hmmm?”
My interest shifts to the purple crystal anal plug, fiddling with its smooth, cold metal shape.
“Don’t hmmm me. You mentioned he was texting you?”
“I haven’t answered.”
“It’s been three days.”
Shrugging, I return the plug to its rightful spot among its brothers and cousins. “He seems like a decent guy… but I don’t know. We’re not compatible.”
“How do you know unless you get to know him more? See where it goes.”
“Something’s off about him.”
“Like?”
I rack my brain to articulate the feeling, yet I can’t come up with anything better than another shrug. Imani raises her brows and then shakes her head.
“You’re never gonna get out of your funk, Ly,” she says. “You insist on going in circles. Isn’t it time you did something different? Step away from the Grady’s and crap minimum wage jobs you hate. Pursue what you really love and give a different kind of guy a chance.”
“It makes a lot of sense when you say it that way.”
“Gimme your phone.” Imani snatches it up before I can stop her. “Passcode?”
“Ugh. No. You’re not going to text him for me, are you?”
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do. Passcode. Now.”
“898718.”
“That’s a lot of eights.”
I watch with an eruption of nerves in my stomach. Imani hardly gives what she types any thought. Within seconds she’s sending off the text, and then within another minute, we’re gasping at the response that comes through.
“He’s inviting you to lunch. Yes?”
I chew on the inside of my cheek in hesitation. “Okay… one more lunch. But that’s all!”
