“Really?” Zack said, immediately interested. “Where?”
“Believe it or not, at the fire station.”
“Really?” Zack said, looking at me pointedly.
“She’s not a firefighter,” I explained. “She stopped by one day to bring cupcakes to the boys.”
“Ah, a Samaritan?”
“Apparently,” I said. “I didn’t really ask about the cupcakes—”
“Of course not,” Zack said, giving me a wink. “You were interested in other things.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “She was really cool,” I said, remembering the conversation we had shared and how easy it was to talk to her.
“Describe her to me,” Zack said.
“She was beautiful,” I said. “Pretty, cute, attractive… none of those words cut it for her. She was nothing else but beautiful. She was blond, but dark blond, you know… the kind of blond that has hints of chestnut and caramel and just the faintest hints of auburn where the light touches. And her eyes… man, you should have seen her eyes. They were the most amazing pure green I have ever seen. And they were light, so they stood out, but she didn’t look severe at all. They were the warmest moss green you could find.”
“Wow,” Zack said.
“What?”
“You are so an artist,” he said. “You just painted me a picture right there.”
“Sorry,” I smirked. “That was a bit of a long-winded description.”
“Hey that’s what I asked for,” Zack said. “So tell me what happened? She stopped by the station with cupcakes and naturally you tried to charm her with your wit and intellect.”
“She’s studying music at Columbia,” I said. “She plays a few instruments too. She seems really well read and really passionate about what she does… when she spoke about music, it kind of reminded me of how I felt about my work.”
“And thus a connection was born,” Zack said.
“I thought so,” I sighed. “But then…”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know… we had a really great conversation, and I was pretty sure she was attracted to me—”
“How could she not be?” Zack cut in.
I frowned at him and continued. “So I decided to just cut the crap and ask her out… which I did.”
“She turned you down?”
“More or less,” I said. “She seemed reluctant immediately after I asked her out, which is weird because I was still pretty sure she really wanted to say yes.”
“Hmm… maybe she has a boyfriend?”
“She doesn’t,” I said immediately, even though I really had no idea.
“Did she tell you that?” Zack asked.
“Uh… no,” I admitted. “She didn’t tell me that, but Zoey just doesn’t seem like the kind of girl who would flirt with a random guy if she were in a relationship.”
Zack raised his eyebrows. “You had one conversation with the girl,” he pointed out. “What makes you think you know what she is and is not capable of doing?”
“I don’t know man,” I sighed. “We had this connection.”