Part of Your World(16)
“Pull tabs?” Doug asked again.
“Ten bucks,” I said, fishing my wallet out of my jeans. “That’s it. And then I go home.”
Liz shouted at me from across the room. “Daniel! You’ve got a phone call!”
I looked over at her in confusion. “A phone call?”
She was grinning, holding her hand over the mouthpiece. “Alexis!”
I stared at her for a few disbelieving seconds. Then I ran to the phone so fast I tripped over a barstool and almost went flying. I limped the last few feet and took the cordless from Liz. “Hello?”
A tentative voice came over the line. “Hi…Hello. I don’t know if you remember me. We met last week? Alexis?”
A huge grin ripped across my face. “Of course I remember you. Hi.”
“Hi.”
“I didn’t think I was ever going to hear from you again,” I said, walking the phone over to the hallway by the bathrooms where it was a little quieter. “I thought maybe I did something wrong.”
She laughed. “No. You didn’t do anything wrong. At all.”
I smiled.
“I, um…I’m calling because I have a little confession to make,” she said, sucking air through her teeth.
“Yeah?”
“I stole your hoodie. I’ve been feeling really bad about it.”
“So let me get this straight,” I said, my smile so big there was no way she didn’t hear it in my voice. “You feel bad about stealing my hoodie, but not for running off on me in the middle of the night?” I teased.
“Yeah…about that. I’m sorry. I’m a hoodie thief and a runaway.”
“Well, you should know that one of those things ruined my whole week. The other thing was just a hoodie.”
She laughed. “Can I mail it to you?”
I shook my head. “Nope. Not fast enough. I’m gonna need that back immediately. Tonight preferably. I can come get it, just give me your address.”
“Tonight, huh?”
“Definitely. Poor hoodie, confused and lost. You’re probably keeping it in a dark closet.”
“Oh, no, your hoodie has been very well cared for, I promise you.”
I smiled. “Are you wearing it?”
“Well, you don’t steal a hoodie and not wear it. Otherwise it’s just another senseless crime.”
The idea of her wearing my hoodie made my heart pound.
“You know, I have a theory,” I said, switching the phone to my other ear.
“Oh, yeah, what’s that?”
“I think you took that hoodie because you wanted a reason to come back here.”
“Reeeeally.”
“Yeah. And I think I know why. The baby goat. Are you using me to spend time with my kid? Because if you are, I have to be honest, I get it.”
She laughed, hard.
“Well, if I do come back there, am I going to be accosted by the pig again? Because that was a lot of excitement for one night.”
“Okay, first of all, that pig has a name. It’s Kevin Bacon. It’s rude not to use it.”
She was laughing again. “Kevin Bacon?”
“Yup. Doug has a petting zoo, and he names them stuff like that.”
“Like what?” she asked. “What else?”
“Well, there’s Scape Goat—that’s Chloe’s mom. Chloe’s full name is Chloe Nose Bleat.” I ticked off on my fingers. “The chickens are Mother Clucker and Chick-a-Las Cage, there’s Barack O-Llama, the miniature horse is Al Capony—”
She howled.
I grinned. “The rabbits are Rabbit Downey Jr. and Obi Bun Kenobi—”
“STOP,” she begged. “You’re kidding me.”
“That’s Doug for you,” I said, grinning. “So what’s your address? I can leave in thirty minutes.”
I heard her let out a breath. She paused for a long moment. “I’m sure you realized this, but I’m a lot older than you.”
I shrugged. “So?”
“Don’t you want to know how old I am?”
“Not really. It doesn’t change anything for me.”
“I’m going to be thirty-eight in December.”
“Okay,” I said. “I don’t care.”
I didn’t.
She paused. “Daniel, this isn’t really a good time for me to get involved with someone. I’m not really emotionally available right now.”
“No problem. We can just hang out.”
“And you should know that I don’t do what we did the other night. Ever.”
Yeah, she’d said that the other night. A few times, actually. “Well, you should know I don’t do it either. Ever.”
And I meant that too. I didn’t.
She went quiet again.
There was something fragile in the silence. I got the feeling that if I hung up without getting her to agree to meet, I was never going to see her again. Like she would just disappear back into the universe. And something told me she could go either way.
I cleared my throat. “You are not going to believe this,” I said. “Doug just bet me a hundred bucks that I couldn’t get you to see me tonight. Wild, right?”