I watch her carefully. I can almost see the gears turning. Finally, after her brain has done a couple of full rotations, she looks at me apologetically and says…
“Well… Pierce thought it was Myrtle anyway, huh?”
Damn you, Eden.
“Yeah.” I sigh. “He did.”
“So… maybe it is.”
“Yeah. Yeah… Maybe.”
She looks at me like there’s more I should be saying. There isn’t. But I go along anyway.
“You think,” I say, “if it is her… That she’ll take Pierce up on his offer?”
“I dunno. Do you think she should?”
“Yeah. Yeah. I very much think she should. I talked him into this fragile peace, but it won’t last. He already feels like he’s showing weakness by even making the offer. If she doesn’t take it and he feels like there’s egg on his face… Well, to quote from Iron Maiden’s Number of the Beast, ‘Woe to you, o earth and sea, for the devil sends the beast with wrath.’ That may actually be in the Bible, but I dunno. I’m no biblical scholar, but I do know that Pierce is likely to go biblical.”
And, I mean, that’s it. I’ve done all I can do. It’s up to her now.
“Yeah,” she says. She just repeats it half-a-dozen times. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah… Yeah.”
“Yeah,” I echo, giving her a look.
“Well,” she says. “Thank you again for the piece. I love it.”
I sigh. Internally.
“You’re welcome. And, look, again, I’m sorry for going MIA. I promise, there was a reason.”
“I know.”
No, she doesn’t. But she’s gonna find out.
“Hey, do you want to come to my place later?” I ask.
“Really?” she responds, hopefully.
“Yeah. I’ve got one other thing for you.” I don’t want to lie to her, but I also don’t want to tip her off. Not here. Not at her job which she kind of doesn’t like in the first place. I don’t wanna do it here.
“Honestly, you don’t have to get me anything else.”
“No, I really kind of do. Swing by after work? Six? Six-thirty?”
“Can we say seven? I’ll wanna run to my place and change.”
“Sure. Seven’s fine. Just come on in when you get there. I’ll leave the door open.”
“OK,” she says, a small smile finally on her lips.
“OK,” I say, a probably sad smile on mine.
I give her a tiny, tiny kiss. It’s only tiny because she’s at work, otherwise I’d really lay one on her.
Because that’s what you do before you kill someone, right? Really plant one on ’em? A kiss before dying.
“See you tonight,” I say, and then turn and walk away.
I make bad choices! That’s what she said to me on the rock wall. I make bad choices.
I know, cupcake, I know. But you’ve got four hours and fifteen minutes to correct that pattern.
Please do, I think, as the clock keeps ticking.
Sexpert Advice
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE – EDEN
“So why were you calling me earlier?” Zoey asks. I have her on speaker phone while I put on my makeup because I’ve been telling her all about my upcoming date with Andrew.
“When?”
“When I called you and told you about Pink Lady Media. You said you were just about to call me. What was that all about?”
“Oh,” I grumble. And then I tell her the whole story about Pierce and his offer. Which you wouldn’t think I’d have forgotten about after how panicked I was earlier, but Andrew asking me out on another date—this is a date, right? It is—kinda made all my worries disappear. Plus, we did get that offer from Pink Lady Media. So yeah. My world was righted again. Andrew and I are still a thing and Zoey and I have a new opportunity.
Things are actually perfect. No need whatsoever to out myself to Pierce. Pierce who? And that makes me chuckle. I don’t need him anymore. He can take his offer and shove it up—
“Huh,” Zoey says. “Actually, wow. How did you keep that to yourself all day? I mean, why didn’t you call me back and tell me?”
“Oh, well. Sorry. I was distracted this afternoon. And I figured you didn’t want to take the offer anyway.”
“Right. We don’t want that offer.” But then she goes silent for a few seconds, and I don’t say anything either because I’m curling my eyelashes and I have to do weird things with my mouth when I do that.
When I finish, I blink quickly six times and say, “So yay for us, right? We got exactly what we wanted and I didn’t have to go crawling up to Pierce’s office like a puppy begging for scraps. And Gretchen can suck it, because she steals all my ideas. And Andrew is definitely interested in me. He sent me that gift and he asked me over to his place tonight. Things are really falling into place. Everything is perfect. I’m probably gonna marry him.”
Silence.
“Zoey? Shit,” I say, picking up my phone. “Did I lose you?”