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“Is there a coupon for that?” he said.
There was for a TV marathon.
Flick made popcorn and they marathoned their way through ten episodes of Westworld. Eleven hours and a pizza later, they were sprawled on the sectional speculating about what the next season would be about.
“It’s the dawn of consciousness in artificial intelligence,” she said. “Maeve is the only one who can wake herself up in the real world.”
“What makes you think that isn’t a manipulation? She’s programmed to try to leave the park.”
“That’s so cynical.”
“The whole show is a mind fuck.”
She slumped over sideways on the sectional. “Oh my God, they’ve sucked me right in. I’m going to get more wandering around in the wilderness and distorted reality and I’m never going to know what’s true. I want a happy ending and I’m not going to get one, am I?”
“Does anyone?” he said.
Was he serious? She sat up and thumped the seat. “Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“They exist. They have to.” Otherwise life was guilt and fear and loneliness and too damn hard.
“Where’s the evidence? Not from my parents, or yours, or your sisters. Wren is still pining after Josh, which is a kind of complicated I can’t begin to understand. What’s a happy ending anyway, except a manipulation sponsored by Hollywood and Mills & Boon?”
She crawled across the space between them, right up in his face. “Please tell me you’re joking?” He didn’t crack a smile. He’d told her earlier he’d never binge-watched a TV series before. It was sometimes hard to believe this man existed, walked around upright, functioning in the world and caring about her family relationships.
“I don’t think everyone gets the same kind of happy ending. I don’t think it’s a marriage-only bargain. Some people find it in their work,” she said.
“That’s not the deal. The happy ending is about finding the one.”
“Says you, who said you don’t believe in it. There could be more than one over a lifetime. And the one might be more than one at a time, and the—” He laughed and she stopped. “You know what I mean.”
“I have an inkling.”
“Ooh, an inkling. You do say the darnedest things.”
He grabbed her and hauled her into his lap. She was set to get inklinged, and it was about time. They’d both been so absorbed by the show, they’d only taken breaks for the bathroom and for food top-ups. Tom was overdue to marathon The Wire and it was well and truly time for another kind of top-up.
“What’s your happy ending look like, Flick?”
She knelt over his thighs, facing him, one hand resting on his heart, the other messing with his hair. By the fix of his features she knew this was a serious question. It made her stomach swirl. What was that, nerves? This was Tom—what was there to be nervous about?
“All my coupons redeemed.”
“That’s all you need?”
No, that was a fake-news answer, but that swooping in her stomach was in her chest now and she didn’t know what it meant, except she wanted Tom to kiss her and she wanted him to cook for her and be at her back and let her be at his. What more could she expect from a roommate she was in love with?
Oh. God. That’s what it was.
She was lovesick over him.
She’d couponed herself into a corner and she was going to break her own heart. They had this mad physical attraction thing, and they liked to argue, to talk shop about work, and since the coupons they’d learned so much more about each other, but that couldn’t be love; it was infatuation at best. She did stuff that annoyed him. And his stoic adherence to a routine made her want to shake him.
If he really wanted to be with her, he’d say, wouldn’t he? He’d missed out on his promotion and if he was going to quit for somewhere new, that somewhere new could be in Washington. But he wouldn’t do that, because he was Tom and he didn’t leap into the unknown and no matter how many romantic bubble baths they shared, they weren’t each other’s one.
Oh God.
