by Tess Harper
“So you want a Spanish coffee, then?”
“Ugh,” I groaned. “I want my zinger!”
He looked genuinely confused. “Zinger?”
“Yes! My zinger! You promised me another zinger. I’ve been waiting for it all night.”
“Oh right. Another zinger.” He smiled. “You’re cute.”
I leveled him with a glare. “Was that supposed to be the zinger?”
“Oh shit,” he whispered with a smile.
“Yeah. Oh shit is right.”
“Hey, I wasn’t being sarcastic. I was just telling the truth.”
“Uh huh.”
“I’m serious—”
The light changed and I started walking across the street.
“Hey Emily! Wait up!”
I turned with a smile. “I’m not going to let you off easy now. Now that I’ve reminded you, this zinger better be epic.”
“Oh, it will be.” He gave me a slow smile. “I’m waiting to give it to you at the end of the evening.”
“Uh huh.”
“I’m serious.” He gave me a grin I felt all the way down to my toes.
I tried not to notice how my toes were curling. “Is it gonna be good?”
“I hope so.”
“Well, I’ll let you know if it isn’t. How about this, I’ll rate it for you.”
Peter glanced up at the sky. “Please don’t do that. If it isn’t a perfect 10—no, if it isn’t the best you’ve ever gotten—I’ll die.”
Now he was just being silly, and I felt like being silly too. “I feel it’s only fair to warn you that I’ve gotten a lot of zingers in my time,” I giggled.
“Oh Emily, I’m going to get you back for this so hard that you won’t know what hit you.”
This made me laugh harder. “What?”
“You heard me. I’m gonna make it so that the only zinger you can think of is mine.”
I almost fell over. I think I would have if Peter hadn’t caught me. This had to be one of the strangest and most hilarious conversations I’d ever had. “I’m really intrigued by this zinger,” I admitted, somewhat breathless as I gripped his arm. Even through his jacket, I could feel his hard muscles flexing.
Alright Emily. Keep your mind out of the gutter. You don’t want to freak out the guy who’s doing everything he can to make you feel better!
I let go of him and stepped away. “I had a great time at the museum.”
He raised his brows at the subject change, but didn’t comment on it further. “I did too. Thanks for letting me invite myself.”
Damn. Where do I take the conversation from here? “The kids were great.”
“Yeah, they were.”
Okay, this was just getting lame. Why was I suddenly so nervous around Peter? This just didn’t make any sense. I had to think of something to say fast. “Man I feel old.”
Boston is never totally quiet, but I swear to God, after I let that bomb drop the streets got as quiet as I ever heard them for a full five seconds.
Peter stopped. Turned to me. “At 24?”
Okay, I had to redeem myself. I had to say something that would let “Well, I’m almost 25.”
“You think 25 is old?”
“Alright, I know I’m not granny old—I’m only like a half or a quarter granny—but I remember when I was those kids’ age, and it doesn’t seem like very long ago. And I’m now teaching students. I was their age just a few years ago. It feels like things are happening too fast.”
“Everything’s just getting started for you. You’re following your dreams. It should feel a little scary…and, for me at least, it feels like things are moving simultaneously too slow and too fast.”
I smiled to myself in the dark. “I think it’s that way for me too, but something feels off, like I left something important and irreplaceable behind.”
“Like a person?”
I stopped walking when he said it. A face flashed in my mind. It wasn’t the face I expected. It wasn’t the one I’d spent years loving and chasing after. It was the one I’d tried to run away from as fast as possible, as if I’d wanted to put as much distance between that face and myself as possible so I’d never understand my feelings.
Peter stopped too. “Sorry. I know I said I wouldn’t pry.”
“It’s alright,” I whispered.
“You were with him a long time. You don’t just walk away from that, or forget.”
I shivered. That’s not it. Nathan is…Nathan is everything I’d once wanted. He’s like a collage of all my girlish hopes and dreams. Jack is everything that scares me. Everything I’m certain I don’t want. Everything that’s forbidden.
It was hard to walk away from forbidden fruit. It was impossible to walk away once you’ve taken a bite.
I hugged my stomach. “I don’t know if love is for me. It doesn’t feel safe, or right. I think it’s too late.”
I didn’t realize I said the words until I heard Peter’s sharp intake of breath. “Why on earth would you say that?”
I thought of Jack’s youthful smile. The intense heat in his eyes. How he had every opportunity in the world, and every chance to explore it. “I just feel…old.”
Peter chuckled. “Yeah, you better snag a guy before you turn 26 and get wrinkly.”
“Hey,” I laughed, realizing how ridiculous I must have sounded. “I’m being serious!”
“So am I. A girl as young and pretty and successful and driven and self-sufficient as you should have a partner. Not a guy to run your life or to complete it, but someone who will be able to support you in every way possible. Someone kind and giving.” His eyes softened. “Maybe a doctor.”
“A doctor, huh?” I grinned. “I guess you’re out of the running.”
Peter frowned. “What?”
“You’re not a doctor yet. You’re due for your 28-year-old midlife crisis. You might throw it all away to become a street musician or something.”
“That’s even better. I’ll be so poor that I won’t care if you look like a walnut.”
I tried really hard not to laugh. Really, really, really hard.
Then I failed. Epically. “A walnut?”
“Yeah, a walnut. We made old walnut people in school once. Glued on googley-eyes and drew on smiles with black permanent marker. I think mine had a superhero cape. You’ll probably look like that,” he said with an almost straight face. “I’ll write songs about worshiping your body, and then sing them to you and worship your body. And then you’ll feed me because, you know, I’d starve without you.”
“That actually sounds oddly romantic,” I mused.
“It sort of is because…I wouldn’t be able to survive without you.”
I wrinkled my nose. “I could also get a dog, though.”
“But he won’t sing.”
“Sure he will. All dogs sing whenever they see another dog or the full moon.”
“Guess on nights when the moon isn’t full you’re going to have to invite me over.”
“You calling yourself a dog, Peter?”
“I might feel like one. Sometimes. When I’m with you.”
“Well, just don’t start humping my leg or begging for scraps.”
He smiled. “I will try my very best to resist such urges.”
I laughed as we got to my block. The mundane streetlight above wasn’t exactly romantic, but the scene it lit was. Sophie and I had splurged on the cute little brick apartment. Ivy curled up the walls into the darkness. The evergreen bushes surrounding the property were caged by the same cast iron fences you see in romantic comedies.
I twirled, grasping my hands together like a little girl. “This is it.”
Peter’s eyes darkened as they studied mine. “It’s beautiful.”
I gulped. What was up with that look? It looked like…like…like I don’t know. No, I did know—like he was going to push me up against the walls entwined with ivy, pin my hands above my head and…
Okay, I had to stop thinking this way. This
was Peter. Peter. And I was…I don’t know what the fuck I was, but I wasn’t the kind of girl who, just after being dumped by her long-term boyfriend, fucked a student senseless over the summer and then started fantasizing about her best friends before she was even over him.
Or maybe I was that girl.
Oh God, I hated girls like that. I couldn’t be that girl! I took a deep breath. Stop thinking about him like that. Operation ‘Make Emily Feel Good’ doesn’t need to make Emily feel that good. “Thank you for everything,” I blurted out. “I am no longer in need of your services this evening.”
No longer in need of his services? What was he, my chauffer? Could I possibly be any more rude?
Peter grinned. Slowly. “Really?”
I frowned. Why wasn’t he asking me what the fuck was wrong with me? I sure as hell wanted to know! “Um, yes?” I replied
He stepped forward, towering over me. Okay, had he always been this tall and hot? I already knew the answer to that. Yes. Hell yes. But I’d never felt like he was something I could touch. Until now. “You don’t sound sure.”
“Um, I thought I was?”
“I’ll ask you one last time. Is there anything else I can do for you? Anything at all?”
God damn, what was going on? Why couldn’t I think? Why was Peter suddenly so—suddenly so—fuck, so I don’t even know what. My mind felt foggy. The kind of fog that appears on the windows when you’re really going at it in a car. And the fact that I used that metaphor to describe the situation my mind was in was not coincidental.
“Emily,” he drawled. “You can’t even think of one thing?”
I could think of one thing. I was only thinking of one thing. It was a very bad thing, and the exact thing I should not be thinking about.
He stepped closer. His finger trailed my cheek. Was I imagining this? Was he…petting me? Was my face really red or something? Was he trying to cool it down with his cold fingers? Wait, how would that work when his fingers weren’t even cold?
“Emily,” he whispered.
I shut my eyes tight and stuttered, “I can’t think of anything!”
“You can’t?”
My head was swimming. What the hell was going on? “Um, I don’t think I can?”
“Well then,” he whispered, leaning forward until his lips were just inches from mine. Adrenaline coursed through my body. Every cell in me screamed for his touch.
And then he pulled back with a knowing grin. “I’ll just save my zinger for another night.”
“What?”
“Goodnight Vaughn,” he said, grinning.
“Um, goodnight?”
“You look a little confused.”
“I am? I mean, I do?” I mean, what the fuck is going on?
He chuckled, stepping back. Was he enjoying my confusion? Was that why he…what the hell did he do exactly? “Sweet dreams, my beautiful walnut.”
It was a silly, silly, silly line. So silly, in fact, that there aren’t enough silly’s in the world to describe it. He was definitely teasing me.
And all I could do was shiver with a dark, strange, newfound desire as I watched him disappear into the night.
Chapter 13
“Ugh, Soph. Please tell me. What does it mean!”
I’d relayed the zinger story and the almost-kiss. Or maybe it wasn’t an almost-kiss. Maybe I was just wishing it was.
Sophie shook her head. “If you don’t know what it means, then you are too stupid to be my friend.”
“I’m serious Soph. Tell me.”
She sighed. Looked at me. “No.”
“Please!”
“No.”
“Sophie!” I whined.
“I don’t know, Emily. What would you think if Peter knocked on the door right now, and when you answered it, he pushed you up against the wall and made wild, fast, crazy love to you?”
I scrunched up my face. “What?”
“Ugh! I can’t believe I’m having this conversation,” she moaned. “Lets just say this: if the light wasn’t on and he thought I wasn’t home, that’s probably what the two of you would be doing right now.”
I felt my cheeks grow pink. “You’re wrong. Peter isn’t like that.”
“Uh huh.”
“Peter doesn’t think about me like that.”
“Uh huh.”
“I’m being serious!”
Sophie set down her bowl. “Alright then, he wanted your opinion on whether or not it would rain tomorrow. That must be it.”
“Don’t tease me, Soph!”
Sophie sighed and gave me a pitying look. “I feel really bad for you. Get your ass over here and eat some frosting.”
I didn’t need any more coaxing. I dashed over to her side and the two of us greedily stuck our fingers in her most recent creation: dark chocolate cream cheese frosting for the chocolate cake that was currently rising in the oven.
There are some days where I am just a tad jealous of Sophie’s chosen career path. “I don’t remember having homework like this in college,” I said as I licked chocolaty goodness from my fingers.
Sophie wiggled her eyebrows. “Well, you decided to be all stuffy and academic instead of passionate, wild, free, spontaneous, sexy—”
“Ugh, I get the point.” I licked some more chocolate off my fingers to make myself feel better. “This is seriously good, though.”
“Hey, I’m going to go change out of these clothes.”
I grinned as I look at her stereotypical, white chef’s outfit. “But I definitely don’t envy the uniform.”
“It’s a small price to pay.” Sophie didn’t quite keep the edge out of her voice. She was a little sensitive about the blocky, unflattering uniform.
I laughed. “I don’t deny that! You’re not going to let me to have just one thing to lord over you? That’s mean!”
She laughed. “Okay, okay. Just keep your eyes on the wontons while I change.”
“Okay!” I yelled as she dashed out of the room.
A few minutes later, I was wondering what the hell was taking Sophie so long and wondering how many pounds I was going to put on in her absence. If I didn’t stop myself she was going to have to make another batch of frosting.
Just then, my phone went off in the living room.
“Ooh, someone’s popular!” Sophie yelled from her bedroom.
I frowned. It was an unassigned ringtone. “Who’s it from Soph?”
I heard a scurrying of feet, then nothing.
“Sophie? Who’s it from?” I asked again.
“You just got a text, and you’re not gonna believe who it was from!”
“Uh…” It felt like I’d just been punched in the gut. Does Jack know my cell number? Oh God, this was bad.
“It’s from Peter!” she sang.
My heart skipped a beat. Peter. Peter. Not Jack, but Peter. Wait a second! Oh God, Peter! He was actually getting back to me? The relief I felt almost made me feel guilty.
I sprinted from the bedroom. “What does it say?”
“Get in here, girl! I don’t know your password.”
I almost dropped the phone as I picked it up, fumbling it in.
“What does it say?!” Sophie demanded.
“I don’t know yet!”
“This is a good sign girl. I mean, he was giving you a ton of good signs on the way home, but this is also a good sign.”
“What if it’s just like a ‘Hey it was fun seeing you at the museum,’ what if I like scared him off totally?”
“Emily, you couldn’t scare off anyone, are you kidding me? You’re gorgeous.”
“Ok, stop Soph. And you have no idea how embarrassing it was. I made such a fool of myself, I took him to like the most boring painting in the museum and he was so confused by it. He was like looking at it blankly and I just….I made a mistake.”
“No you didn’t…” Sophie paused. “Okay, just open it! Open it!” She said excitedly.
“Okay, okay. Just wait a second.”
I
tapped my four-digit password and slid open Peter’s text. I had butterflies in my stomach.