“I don’t know—probably in his thirties. I can ask Jonathan.”
/> “That’s hot. Holy shit, I’m so excited for you! I want to meet him.”
“You can. Just not yet, maybe. I don’t know what is going on, but I cannot remember ever feeling like this toward someone. And I just met him, which is the crazy thing.”
“Sometimes it happens that way,” Caroline said. “Consider yourself lucky.”
The next morning, I was up well before my alarm, and I didn’t feel the least bit hung over. I was too excited to get to work to see Ian, but when I arrived at the office, he wasn’t there. Jonathan was, though, and he smiled when he saw me and asked me how last night had gone.
“It was fun,” I said. “You’ll have to come with us next time.”
His face lit up. “Yeah! I’d love to. Maybe the two of us could go somewhere.”
I looked toward the door, wondering when Ian would be showing up. “Hey,” I said. “How old is Ian?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I was just curious.”
“Oh.” The look on Jonathan’s face was hard to read; maybe a little perplexed. Was it a weird thing to ask?
“I was just . . . um . . . people’s ages are interesting to me.” I cringed inwardly. That sounded so lame.
“You don’t know how old I am,” he said.
“You’re right; I don’t. How old are you?”
“Do you want to guess?”
“Sure. Let’s see . . .” I gazed at his face, taking in the beginnings of crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes, the clump of gray hair that had started to grow in amongst the light brown hair right above his ears. He was in good shape, though, and his eyes had this sort of youthful quality to them. “Twenty-eight?” I said, deliberately shaving a few years off what I really thought.
His face lit up when I said it. “Thirty-four.”
“Wow,” I said. “You don’t look thirty-four at all.”
“All that gym time, I guess. And Ian’s thirty-four too. We’re the same age—we went to school together.”
“Yeah, he mentioned that. I wasn’t sure if you guys were in the same grade or what.”
“We were. He used to come over my house a lot; we didn’t live that far from each other. About a ten-minute ride by bike. He was sort of like the brother I never had, since I was an only child.”
“That’s so great,” I said. “I’m an only, too. Well, I’ve got half-siblings, but I don’t really know them. I always thought it’d be fun to have a brother or sister my age growing up; sort of like having a built-in playmate.”
Jonathan nodded. “Exactly,” he said. “I was always glad when Ian was around, because things were just more fun.”
I felt the same way, though I thought better of saying it out loud.
Chapter Nine
Ian
I could tell there was something that Jonathan wanted to ask me.
“What is it?” I finally said. “Is there something going on that I should know about?”
He jumped back a little, as though my taking notice of him was the last thing he expected.
“No . . . no, I . . . well . . . I was just wondering how it was going with Daisy.”