She smiled and went back to her ticket, making sure the line cook got it. I was about to walk into the office, but I decided that there was something about her that I couldn’t let go of. I needed to pursue it, or else I would be thinking about it all the time and kicking myself.
“Hey,” I said, catching her before she headed back onto the floor. “I have a question for you. If you don’t feel comfortable with it, it’s totally cool, but I wanted to ask if I could use your number. So we could hang out sometime. Not at work.”
I worried that I sounded too dorky, like I was tripping over my words. But she smiled again, and this time it was wider than the others. Then she bit her bottom lip and grinned.
“I’d love to hang out sometime,” she said.
“Great,” I returned her smile.
“Gotta deliver these drinks,” she said, before she skipped away. I watched her go with a feeling of accomplishment and adrenaline running through me. Maybe my dream and my fantasy weren’t so much fiction as they were predictions. I normally didn’t believe in wishing things into existence, but if it could work, I wasn’t going to turn it down either.
8
Chloe
I had the night off, my first, and I had no idea what to do with it. If I were still in LA, I’d be in a club or doing some other social function that other people who had wealthy parents did. All too often I found myself at them, bored out of my mind and watching the clock. For as much as some other people seemed to enjoy wasting their parents’ money on liquor and skimpy dresses to dance in, I just wanted to go home, get in bed, and read articles by my favorite journalists.
That was much more my scene.
At any rate, I felt like I might just do what I normally wanted to and spend the whole day and night watching trashy TV and catching up on some investigative reporting. It wasn’t sexy or exciting, but it would at least let me relax a little.
The problem was, I didn’t really feel like relaxing. I wanted to do something. I didn’t know exactly what, but something. The problem was Hannah was working the evening shift, and I didn’t know anyone else within a few hours of Portland. What constituted for friends, mostly just other rich people who I spent time with because we ended up at the same functions, were all in LA and would have zero interest coming to Portland. I could call Hannah and do something before she headed into work, but that would only be a little bit of time. The rest of the evening was going to be long and boring.
I sighed and was about to go change into pajamas and start my Old Lady Evening at the late hour of one o’clock in the afternoon when my phone made pinged a notification. I looked down to see that I had a text message from a number I didn’t recognize, and I opened it. It was from Matt. He was asking if he could call me.
I typed back that he could and wondered what was up. Maybe someone called out and they needed me to come in after all. I waited for just a few seconds, entering his name into my phone during that time, until the phone rang. I answered it on the first ring.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Chloe,” Matt said. “Do you have tonight off?”
“Yeah,” I said, “but I’m not married to it. If you need me to come in, that’s fine. Just give me about fifteen minutes and I’ll head down there.”
“Oh, no,” he said, sounding like he was holding back a laugh. “Not the bar. I was actually calling to see if you wanted to come to my place and watch some movies and grab dinner. I have the night off, too.”
“Oh.” I knew there was probably more surprise in my voice than was cool, and I hurried to follow it up lest he think I was put off by his invitation. “Yeah, that would be great,” I laughed. “I don’t know anyone here, and I was just going to watch TV and do a whole lot of nothing as it was. It would be better with company.”
“Awesome,” he said, sounding happy. “Come on over whenever you like. I’ll be hanging around. If there’s something you want to eat, text me.”
“Okay. See you in a little while,” I said.
I hung up and stared at the phone. Was that real? Did that actually happen?
The first thought I had was that I had nothing to wear. The only clothes I’d packed were lounging clothes and a handful of things I thought might work as workout clothes or pajamas. Nothing cute. I needed to find something cute, and I needed to find it fast. I opened the contacts in my phone and hit the button for one of the three numbers saved.