“It is. Maybe Willis. Well, Mabel Willis, but everyone calls me Maybe.”
“That’s a cool nickname,” she says, holding out a hand for me to shake and then turning the chair opposite me around so she can straddle it backward. “I’m Lena Hawkins.”
I look around the shop, actually nervous for her that she’s being so lax about working, but she pulls my focus back to our conversation pretty easily.
“So, I’ve noticed you’re starting to turn into a bit of a regular around here. Do you live close by?”
“Just around the corner,” I say hesitantly as Bruce’s warnings about stranger danger play uninvited in my head. I never really thought of skin glistening with glitter as something associated with a serial killer, but I guess you never know. “I just moved back to the city two weeks ago.”
“Really? You don’t seem like a transplant.”
I smile at that, wondering if maybe Lena’s been watching me a little bit too. The thought is exhilarating for a disenchanted introvert like me. “I’m an original New Yorker,” I say with a smirk. “I was in California finishing my master’s degree, and now I’m back, trying to survive the pits of hell that is job hunting.”
Lena smiles, but it’s a little forlorn. “At least you’re looking. I’m twenty-seven, and I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do with my life.”
I let out a relieved sigh. “I may know the job I’m looking for, but I’m hella far from having it all figured out,” I assure her.
“Oh, you have no idea,” she responds, leaning into the table with her chest. “I’m about the most indecisive person you’ll ever meet. Career. Apartments. Boyfriends. I never seem to be able to find exactly what I want.”
“Your name should be Maybe,” I say with a smirk, and she laughs.
“Okay,” she says. “I’ve decided. We’re going to be friends.”
Wait…what?
“We’re going to be friends?”
“Uh-huh. It’s officially settled. You and I are going to be friends,” she answers without hesitation, like this is a completely normal way to start a friendship.
“And you say you’re indecisive,” I tease.
A soft laugh escapes her lips. “No time to change like the present, right?” She starts to open her mouth to say more, but two customers walk in the door and head toward the counter. “Shit,” she mutters and jumps up. “I better get back to it.”
“Oh, okay.” I glance to the now-busy counter and back at her. “Well, it was great chatting with you.”
“Girl.” Lena laughs and nudges my shoulder with her hand. “We are friends now. This isn’t a one-time thing.”
She pulls her phone out of the back pocket of her skinny jeans, and before she heads back to the counter, we exchange numbers and she pretty much demands that we hang out—outside of Jovial Grinds—soon.
By the time I leave the shop about twenty minutes later, I can barely even believe the interaction happened, but a text message from her a short while later confirms it.
Lena: Keep next Tuesday free. I’m off work, have a little extra cash that NEEDS to be spent, and you’re going to have lunch and go shopping with me.
Apparently, when Lena decides you’re going to be friends, she fucking means it. I guess there’s a chance she’ll turn out to be the first mass murderer to have a smiling cartoon butterfly tattooed on her shoulder, but I’m lonely enough—and she’s fun enough—that I’m willing to take my chances.
Honestly, the mere idea of it makes me smile, but just before I can shoot her a message back, my phone vibrates in my hands and the screen flashes with Incoming Call Evan.
I answer it on the second ring.
“What are you doing?” he asks by way of greeting, and instantly, his voice reminds me of seeing Milo in the shop this afternoon.
But it takes exactly one second for me to squash it down and lock the embarrassing details of that interaction in a vault only I can open.
My smartass of a brother would probably have a field day with his best friend not remembering me.
Lord knows, if the situation were reversed, I sure as hell would.
“Uh…not too much,” I answer on a sigh. “Just walking home so I can sit on my sofa and try to contemplate the meaning of life.”
“Pretty sure you mean sit on my sofa.”
“Shut up, asshole,” I mutter. “I know it’s your apartment. Trust me. Every time I turn around, there’s another poster just waiting to grace my nightmares. Your Suzanne Somers obsession is frightening. She’s older than Mom, you know?”
His laughter is obnoxiously good-natured.
Annoyed, I push it further. “Does Sadie know about your creepy grandma fantasies?”
“Easy, sis. As your landlord, I could kick you right out of that apartment, you know?” He snorts. “And it’s not my fault you chose my apartment in Chelsea over the one on the Upper East Side.”