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“Who is? Your car?”
“Yeah,” he says, like this it’s perfectly normal for a grown man to give his car a nickname. “Does your car have a name?”
“No,” I say. “It never occurred to me to name it.”
“I can help you come up with one.” He starts Babs, puts his blinker on, and carefully pulls away from the curb. He pulls up to the stop sign and brings Babs to an alarmingly slow stop. There are no other cars at the intersection, but he takes a painstakingly long time checking each corner before stepping on the gas again.
“Do you like music?” I ask, hopeful for a distraction.
“I listen to video game soundtracks mostly,” he says. “You can open my Spotify and find my playlist. I can send you the link too.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” I say. “I’m more of a country music lover.”
“Oh.” He says this like I’ve just confessed that I like to eat raw meat. “Why?”
“I like the stories,” I say. “I’ve always liked stories.”
“Book shop,” he says. “Right.”
And that’s all he says.
And I remind myself again to keep an open mind.
But as we drive in the direction of the restaurant, I can’t help but think of the way it felt when Owen walked me to my car the other night. Or the way it felt when I was in his arms during the photoshoot. Or the way it felt when he helped coach me through my panic attack the day of the clean-up.
And as much as a part of me wants to put all of those feelings in a little box and bury it in my backyard, the truth is, a bigger part of me wants to take them out and relive them over and over again.
Owen
There are flowers on the seat of my truck.
Not just any flowers. Emmy’s flowers. Sunflowers. I walked into Blooms after work today and had to endure an unauthorized game of Twenty Questions with the older woman behind the counter. She wanted to know who the flowers were for, if it was a special occasion, and how I wanted the recipient to feel when she got them.
If her questions were a test, I failed, because I pretty much just mumbled “They’re just for a friend,” followed by “I’m in a hurry,” and ending with “Do you have brown paper to wrap them in?”
It was obvious by the look on her face she was feeling pity for whoever I was going to give the flowers to, but she stopped talking, so I guess that’s a win.
Now I’m sitting outside of Book Smart, waiting for Emmy to flip the sign over to “closed,” and the flowers seem to be looking at me with their big brown faces. If I walk in there and hand her this bouquet, she won’t be able to misinterpret anything.
I’ll be crossing the friendship line.
Is this a horrible idea?
I feel like I’m about to lose my nerve, so I open the door to my truck and step out onto the street. I reach in and pick up the flowers, thinking they really do remind me of Emmy, when I hear a familiar laugh. I glance up and see her, not flipping the store sign, but stepping out the door.
She’s not alone.
She’s holding the arm of a guy walking out beside her. He’s wearing a plaid button down with a gray cardigan with khaki pants and. . .are those loafers?
Without socks?
He’s got neatly combed sandy blond hair and no beard. I slip back into my truck and duck down but lift my phone up and snap a stealthy picture like a stalker.
I send the picture to Mack.
Owen
Who is this?
