Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating(55)

“So anyway,” he says, “that’s why I had no flowers.”

I look up. “Huh?”

“To bring you,” he says, leaning in and cupping a hand around my forearm. “I gave you a drawing of flowers? At the door?”

He did? “Right, right. It was so pretty, though.”

He ducks, smiles humbly. “Well, I wanted to bring actual flowers, and wine. Do the romantic thing.”

The romantic thing. To Tyler, that used to be a six-pack of PBR and the promise of some good ol’ fuckin’ later. I wonder if it’s still true, and he’s just upped his seduction tangibles a little. I push back from the table and out of his reach. “That’s so nice. You know I’ve never needed flowers.”

“No one needs flowers.” Grabbing his plate, he follows me into the kitchen, rolling up his sleeves like he intends to do the dishes. “But everyone likes them.”

Apparently, I’m right. Tyler turns on the water, filling the sink. I notice that he doesn’t get the water particularly hot before plugging the drain and filling it, and I mentally cover Josh’s eyes so he doesn’t have to watch such blatant disregard for proper cleaning technique.

“So tell me something about yourself,” Tyler says, reaching for my plate. He frowns at it before scraping the entirety of my lasagna helping into the trash. “Something that’s happened in the past few years.” He’s been here over an hour and this is the first question that’s been directed to me.

I lean against the counter, watching him.

He might be somewhat clueless, but he sure is pretty from behind. And from the front, too.

And he’s here, trying. Washing dishes, making conversation. My stomach feels like a houseboat on a rolling river and if I could just calm the hell down, I might actually enjoy his company.

“Well, you know I’m a teacher.”

“Yup. Fourth grade?”

“Third.” I reach for my wine, sniff it, and decide against it again. “This is my first year at Riverview. Let’s see … what else. My mom lives in Portland now.”

“Moved from Eugene, right?”

Okay. Maybe not so clueless after all. “Yeah.” A tiny flicker of light ignites in my chest. He remembers things about me. Things completely unrelated to my cup size or erogenous zones. “My closest friend here is a woman named Emily—”

“Josh’s sister? I think he mentioned her at dinner.”

I allow myself a mental knee-slapping laugh. Josh probably mentioned a lot of things that I missed entirely during my mental meltdown. “Yeah, good memory. And she’s married to our principal, this sequoia of a man named Dave, who—I swear to you—makes the best barbecue this side of the Mississippi.”

“That sounds awesome.”

“I mean, I’ll admit that I’ve never been east of the Mississippi, nor have I sampled barbecue at all that many places, but Dave makes good food.”

Tyler laughs at this. “Maybe we can have dinner over there sometime.”

And just like that, just when I’d been starting to relax, something tenses inside me again. The idea of sitting next to Tyler at Emily and Dave’s dinner table feels dirty. I imagine Josh across from us, sitting beside Sasha, and then I imagine throwing a sauce-slathered rib at him. In my head, it lands with a dark splat on his pristine work shirt and he glares at me.

I mumble a belated “Sure” before making a cabinet dive for the Cap’n Crunch.

Shoving a hand into the box, I continue, “You know, I’ve got animal family in town as well. You’ve met Winnie the Poodle, Vodka, Janis Hoplin, and Daniel Craig.”

Tyler looks at me over his shoulder and I answer the question in his eyes, “Sorry. My fish. Daniel Craig.” Another question lingers there, and I answer that one, too: “Daniel Craig is a fitting homage. My fish has got a great tail.”

I catch the amused smirk just before he turns back to the sink.

Maybe it is different this time. Maybe Tyler really has grown up, and maybe that makes it okay that I never will.

..........

When the doorbell rings, Tyler is halfway through the second bottle of wine. The single glass he poured me earlier sits mostly untouched on the kitchen counter.

He turns toward the sound. “Did you call me a cab?” he jokes, voice low and slow. “I thought I’d stay here tonight.”

The awkward laugh that comes out of me sounds like a cyborg malfunctioning, and I stand to answer. Up until now, we’ve been having a genuinely good time—I mean, not I’m gonna get some good time, but it’s been nice. Yes, there’s a lot of Glory Days reminiscing on his part, but I’m surprised to find that Tyler remembers things pretty accurately, and with not a lot of reimagined glossing.

I’m also surprised to find Josh and Sasha standing at the door. She’s got all her hair in a bun that looks like it could house a family of eagles, and is holding another bottle of wine. In Josh’s fist there’s a small bouquet of sunflowers.

“Hey!” Sasha smooches my cheek before pushing past me into the apartment. She sees Tyler there. “What a coincidence! Double date, take two!”

I look up at Josh, who is busy studying Tyler’s long frame sprawled familiarly on one end of my couch. Although we text almost constantly, I haven’t seen him all week, not since he left my apartment after we …