“I tracked it down.”
“How? Is that hard to do?”
“It’s not like splitting the atom hard, but when you’re a determined bastard, you get stuff done,” he says, and I hate that I love that he worked for my number.
Almost as much as I abhor that I adore that he remembers I don’t eat anything with a face. I take a quick bite of a garbanzo bean. “So, how are you?”
“I’m great, but I was better before I got your note this morning.”
I sigh. “Tyler . . . I’m busy,” I say because I can’t give in. I clench a fist, trying to hold tight to my advice to Violet a few hours earlier. Completely rewarding. Biggest victory. Catching a taxi in a storm.
“No time to catch up with an old friend?”
I set down the fork. “You’re hardly just a friend,” I say because what’s the point in pretending? We were boyfriend and girlfriend, madly in love, college seniors who couldn’t keep their hands off each other. There was nothing remotely friendly about how he touched me.
“But I have the ability to become friendly,” he says, pressing on. “Did you know I’ve been lauded for my friendship skills?”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, what are those?”
“Let me take you out for a drink, and I’ll show you. I’ll show you that I can be an amazing friend.”
My phone buzzes. My alarm. I bolt up out of the chair. “I have a massage in fifteen minutes. I need to go.”
“Think about it,” he says, in a firm but hopeful voice. “Promise me you’ll think about it.”
As I gather up my salad remains and pop the plastic top onto the bowl to save for later, I press the phone harder against my ear. “Why? It’s been years since we’ve talked. Why now? I saw you in the park for five seconds, and now you want me to think about a drink?”
“Yes, Delaney,” he says, his voice smooth and certain. “I do want you to think about having a drink with me. I want you to think about it a lot. So much you say yes.”
His persistence reminds me of the man I fell for in college. The guy who was dogged in his pursuit of me then, sending me texts and messages, chatting me up after classes, finding me in Josiah Carberry’s late at night and telling me I was going to fall for him if I’d just give him a chance.
I’d relented, giving him all the chances, and all my heart.
Then he broke it, and derailed my plans, too.
Fine, plans might change, even for the better. But people? I’m not sure they do. Not when he sounds like the same cocky guy. “I’ll think about it,” I say as I leave the salad bar and hang up.
I try hard not to think about the ease of our three-minute conversation as I return to Nirvana and work my way through the afternoon.
That evening I hunker down in the tiny office in the back of the spa and take care of my online banking, then answer some work emails. I hit refresh once more on the inbox before I close out. For a few days I’ve been waiting for a particular email, hoping to hear from a guy I hired to track down information about someone I once loved. I’m eager, even antsy, but as I scan my inbox I’ll have to live with those emotions a little longer. There’s no word yet. I try to put the possibility out of my mind. I shut down my email and pore over bills and invoices, happily paying all of them—because I believe bills should be paid with a smile, since it means I’m fortunate enough to own a business that makes money—until the receptionist raps on my door.
“Hey Jasmine,” I say to the pretty girl who handles the phones. Yoga pants with a butterfly pattern hug her hips, and silver bracelets adorn her wrists. A nose piercing glints in the evening light.
“Look what we have! A gift for you,” she says. Jasmine loves gifts. She loves that working the front desk means she’s the one to sign for flowers and packages, even if they’re intended for others. She simply likes delivering them, like she fancies herself one of Santa’s elves.
She hands me a potted plant, bursting with light purple blooms.
A tiny lilac bush.
She rubs her hands together. “Who’s it from? It smells so good. Someone must know lilacs are your favorite flowers.”
My stomach pirouettes this time, like it’s excited. Like I’m excited. But I’m not. I swear I’m not.
I swallow but don’t answer right away. He does know they’re my favorite. But he was never a big gift-giver before. So these can’t be from him. I can’t get my hopes up.
A notecard hangs on the side of the pot. I flip it open and read: Don’t think. Just say yes.
Two, three, four pirouettes.
I bend my nose to the plant and inhale my favorite scent in the world.
Motherfucker.
4
Tyler
* * *
I suppose Delaney could have turned into a bitch. It’s possible she might bore me to tears. There’s a chance we’d have nothing to say to each other.
But I’m a betting man, and I’m not putting my money on any of those options.
“I won’t give up until I have a chance to talk to her again,” I say to my buddy Simon when I shoot hoops with him the next morning.
After he sinks a layup, he gives me a doubtful stare. “Talk to her? You’re trying to make me believe you simply want to talk to her?”
I nod, resolute and then some. “Hell yeah.”
“And what is it you want to talk to her about? The stock market? The weather? The latest movie you’re dying to see?”