The Hot One(10)

I smile to myself, pleased that I still have it in me to win a battle or two.

I show the cashier my salad, and she weighs it, then subtracts a quarter since I brought my own container, though that’s not why I do it. It’s the same reason I fill my own water bottle from the tap—I don’t want to add more waste to the landfill after every meal.

I grab a table and dive into my salad with gusto, enjoying the crunch of the fresh green beans. As I spear a cherry tomato, I open a new email to send my mom a cute shot of Nicole, Penny, and me from the other day. My mom is my rock, and she loves seeing pictures of my friends and me.

When the phone bleats a second later, I swear it’s not me who nearly knocks her water bottle over in a mad rush to see who’s calling. That’s my evil twin sister sliding open the screen, cheering like a Sweet Valley High teen to see the number is a New York cell.

“Hey, this is Delaney.”

“Hey, you.”

And that damn stomach of mine? It flips like a flapjack in the skillet. “Hey there. I’m eating a salad.”

I’m eating a salad? Why the hell did I just announce my lunch menu? So much for winning at words.

Tyler laughs, a deep, throaty chuckle. “Can I take from that you still won't eat anything with a face?”

A tiny smile tugs at the corner of my mouth. “Me and green beans, we’re as tight as we’ve ever been.”

“Excellent. The lady still loves carrots. I’m taking notes. And does bacon still win for the meat you’d least want to eat?”

I shake my head as a bespectacled woman at the table next to mine barks into her phone at a million miles an hour about who’s picking up the laundry. “Ham, actually,” I say, glad my conversation sounds more fun than hers. “It overtook bacon in a long, but well-fought, race.”

“Poor ham,” he says wistfully.

I scoff. “Poor pig.”

“For the record, bacon is way better. Anything wrapped in bacon is pretty much a perfect food,” he says, and I laugh.

We used to tease each other mercilessly about my devotion to a vegetarian lifestyle and his to a carnivorous one. I don’t believe in eating animals; he prays at the church of the almighty barbecue.

“And does your affection for snack food still remain strong? Pretzels and peanuts for the win?” I ask.

“Always. But only as long as there’s beer,” he says, and I remember he used to joke that beer warded off hiccups, and he was one of those unlucky people who was prone to them.

Wait.

I turn down the volume on the memories. I’m not supposed to be talking, or joking, or laughing with him. This is far too easy. I slipped into old habits with him in a heartbeat, like we were pre-lubed and ready to go.

“Anyway,” I say, resuming my all-business tone as I pick up my fork. “How did you get my cell? It’s not on Facebook.”

“I tracked it down.”

“How? Is that hard to do?”

“It’s not like splitting the atom hard, but when you’re a determined bastard, you get stuff done,” he says, and I hate that I love that he worked for my number.

Almost as much as I abhor that I adore that he remembers I don’t eat anything with a face. I take a quick bite of a garbanzo bean. “So, how are you?”

“I’m great, but I was better before I got your note this morning.”

I sigh. “Tyler . . . I’m busy,” I say because I can’t give in. I clench a fist, trying to hold tight to my advice to Violet a few hours earlier. Completely rewarding. Biggest victory. Catching a taxi in a storm.

“No time to catch up with an old friend?”

I set down the fork. “You’re hardly just a friend,” I say because what’s the point in pretending? We were boyfriend and girlfriend, madly in love, college seniors who couldn’t keep their hands off each other. There was nothing remotely friendly about how he touched me.

“But I have the ability to become friendly,” he says, pressing on. “Did you know I’ve been lauded for my friendship skills?”

I roll my eyes. “Yeah, what are those?”

“Let me take you out for a drink, and I’ll show you. I’ll show you that I can be an amazing friend.”

My phone buzzes. My alarm. I bolt up out of the chair. “I have a massage in fifteen minutes. I need to go.”

“Think about it,” he says, in a firm but hopeful voice. “Promise me you’ll think about it.”

As I gather up my salad remains and pop the plastic top onto the bowl to save for later, I press the phone harder against my ear. “Why? It’s been years since we’ve talked. Why now? I saw you in the park for five seconds, and now you want me to think about a drink?”

“Yes, Delaney,” he says, his voice smooth and certain. “I do want you to think about having a drink with me. I want you to think about it a lot. So much you say yes.”

His persistence reminds me of the man I fell for in college. The guy who was dogged in his pursuit of me then, sending me texts and messages, chatting me up after classes, finding me in Josiah Carberry’s late at night and telling me I was going to fall for him if I’d just give him a chance.

I’d relented, giving him all the chances, and all my heart.

Then he broke it, and derailed my plans, too.