Ego Maniac(11)

“How about Indian food? Curry House is a few blocks away and delivers quick.”

I scrunched up my nose.

“You don’t like Indian food?”

“Not really.”

“Okay. How about Chinese?”

“Too much MSG.”

“Sushi?”

“I’m allergic to fish.”

“Mexican?”

“Too heavy for lunch.”

“You do understand what the phrase I’m not picky means, right?”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Of course. You’re just picking weird stuff.”

“What would you like to eat, Emerie?”

“Pizza?”

He nodded. “Pizza it is. See? I’m not picky.”





After we finished lunch, Drew took his phone from the charger. Then he reached for mine. “Can I look at your pictures?”

“My phone pictures? Why?”

“Best way to get to know someone is to look at their cell phone pictures when they least expect it.”

“I’m not even sure what I have on there.”

“That’s the point. If you have a chance to clean up your pictures, I won’t be seeing the real you. I’ll be seeing what you want me to see.”

I tried to remember if there was anything embarrassing or incriminating on the phone as Drew slid it from my side of the table to his with a smirk on his face. At the last second, I covered his hand with mine, stopping him.

“Wait. I want to look at yours if you’re going to look at mine. And you better have some embarrassing things on there, because I’m pretty sure I do.”

“By all means. I don’t embarrass easily.” Drew slid his phone across the folding table.

I watched as he keyed in the password and began to swipe through my photos. After a moment he paused, and his eyebrows rose. “This one tells me a lot about you.”

I reached for the phone, but he pulled it back too fast. “What? What photo is it?”

Drew turned the phone so the screen faced me. Oh, God. How embarrassing. It was a close-up of me last week while I was working. I’d had a full day of telephone therapy sessions, and my speakerphone had decided to stop working bright and early on that Monday morning. I didn’t have time to run out and get a new office phone, and by early afternoon I was frustrated with not being able to multitask because one hand had to hold the phone to my ear. So I’d gotten creative. I’d taken two large, orange rubber bands and put them around the phone and my head—effectively banding the phone in place so I didn’t have to hold it anymore. One of the rubber bands ran across my forehead, slightly above my eyebrows and pushed my brow down, giving me an odd, scrunched face. The other rubber band wrapped around my chin, causing the skin to pucker into a very crooked chin dimple that I didn’t normally have.

“My speaker phone died, and I had a lot of telephone calls that day. I needed to be able to use my hands.”

He chuckled. “Inventive. There hasn’t been a good iPhone update since Steve Jobs died. You might want to look into selling them your new technology.”

I crumpled up my napkin and threw it at his face. “Shut up.”

He swiped a few more times and then stopped. This time, I couldn’t make out what he was thinking.

“What? What did you stall on?”

He stared at the photo for a long moment and swallowed before again turning it to face me. It was a full-length photo taken the night I went to a wedding with Baldwin. It was, without a doubt, the best I’d ever looked in a photo. I’d had my hair and makeup professionally done, and the dress I wore fit me like a glove. It was simple—black and sleeveless with a daring, low-cut V that showed off my cleavage and curves. The dress was more risqué than I would normally wear, and I’d been feeling confident and pretty. Although that lasted only about fifteen minutes after Baldwin took that photo, right up until I answered the door to his apartment and realized he was bringing a date to the wedding we’d both been invited to. And that date wasn’t me.

Remembering the sadness I’d felt that night, I said, “Wedding.”

Drew nodded and stared at the photo again before looking back up to me. “You look gorgeous. Sexy as hell.”

I felt the blush creep up my face. I hated having fair skin for this exact reason. “Thank you.”

He swiped a few more times and turned the cell back to me. “Boyfriend?”

That one had been taken a few minutes after Baldwin told me how beautiful I looked and took that full-length photo of me. His arm was wrapped around my waist, and I was smiling and gazing at him as he took the selfie. His date had rung the doorbell right after that shot. The rest of the night was all forced smiles.

“No.”

“Ex-boyfriend?”

“No.”

He looked down again and back up at me. “There’s a story here, isn’t there?”

“How do you know?”

“Your face. The way you’re looking at him.”

It’s pretty sad that a virtual stranger was able to see my feelings after ten seconds of looking at a photo of us, yet Baldwin never was. I could have lied, but for some reason I didn’t.

“We met in undergrad school. He was the TA for my psychology class while working on his doctorate. He’s one of my closest friends. I actually live in the apartment next to him.”