I also don’t tell her we exchanged phone numbers.
April and I walk together until we reach her apartment, and then I keep going to my row house a couple of blocks away. My neighbor, Mr. Goldberg, is sitting on his front porch as I climb the stairs, phone in hand texting April to let her know I’m safe.
“Out late tonight?” Mr. Goldberg asks.
“I stopped to have a bite to eat with a friend,” I reply.
“Got yourself a new boyfriend?”
I laugh. “Nope. Just April.”
“Well, that’s a relief. I’m not looking forward to the day you cancel our Wednesday tea dates.”
Mr. Goldberg lost his wife of fifty-three years almost ten months ago. When that happened, I’d started bringing over care packages once a week, which turned into Wednesday evening tea and cookies. He was a sweet man, and his loneliness made me sad sometimes. I didn’t have a boyfriend right now, but my life was still pretty full with good people and a job I loved.
“No boyfriend could get in the way of tea and cookies.”
“Ah, one day you’ll find someone better looking than me to spend time with, Miss Poppy.”
“Impossible, Mr. Goldberg.”
He smiles. “You’re good for an old ego.” He pushes out of his chair. “Well, now that you’re home safe, I can go inside and watch the news. You have a nice night, dear.”
“You too, Mr. Goldberg.”
I check my mailbox and bring in all the flyers and bills, sorting through them as I kick off my shoes. I live in the house I grew up in. When we moved out of Chicago, my parents decided to keep this place as a rental property, and when I came back years later, they gave me the keys with the understanding that I would pay the balance of the mortgage. It’s worked out well so far.
I drop most of the flyers in the recycle bin and toss the rest on the kitchen table. I’ll go through it tomorrow, when I’m not so tired and in need of my bed.
I change into my sleep shirt and brush my teeth. As I lie down, I try to think about anything but Lance. It’s impossible. He’s dominated everything every single time he’s come in to my life, even if he doesn’t know it.
I try to go all the way back to the beginning, when he was a boy in grade school and there was still some innocence clinging to all of us, but I can’t get past the night at the bar.
I’d been on the dance floor, which wasn’t really my thing at all, but Kristi had assured me it would be fun. I could already tell she was getting tired of trying to persuade me, so I didn’t argue. It was better than standing by the bar getting elbowed constantly, or hit on. I’d been about to call it a night when I’d spotted Lance making his way across the club with his friends. He was impossible to miss, his huge frame parting the crowd, the blacklights making his freckles glow and his hair look like flames.
Kristi had followed my gaze.
“Oh my God. Who are those guys?” she’d asked.
“They’re NHL players.” I’d rhymed off their names and Lance’s stats, because I knew them.
Kristi started screaming in my ear about how hot they were. I hadn’t paid much attention because I could only focus on my childhood crush less than fifty feet away from me.
And then I’d realized they were headed our way. I turned around, thinking it would be a great time to make an emergency trip to the bathroom, except there was no clear path off the dance floor.
“What are you doing?” Kristi grabbed my arm and looked over my shoulder. “They’re headed over here right now.”
I didn’t have a chance to answer because the next second I felt a tug on my ponytail. “I like yer hair,” a deep voice with only a hint of Scottish accent said in my ear.
I turned around to find Lance Romero standing right behind me, smiling.
In that instant I was eleven again, shoving books in my backpack after school. That lovely memory faded an instant later when I realized all of them were totally wasted, especially when Lance linked his pinkie with mine and said something about doing shots.
He shouldered his way through the crowd and pushed his way to the bar, maneuvering me into a gap that had opened up, and flagged down the bartender.
He ordered a bunch of shooters and passed them out, handing two to everyone. Knocking his glass against mine, he shot the first and then the second. I sniffed mine.
He smirked, his eyes heavy with alcohol. “You don’t think you’re gonna like it?”
“I don’t really do shots. What’s in it?” Shooters didn’t seem like the best idea when I was already tipsy.
“A bunch of stuff. You wanna know what it tastes like before you try it?” he asked.