Upside Down(15)

I stopped in the aisle. “No.” I had two seconds to move or I’d be walking back to my place from wherever the next stop was. “It can wait till tomorrow.”

He looked suddenly horrified. “No, it can’t. Do you know what that kind of waiting will do to me? I’ll be like the critter in Ice Age who chases that damn acorn for four movies.”

I laughed, but I really did have to get off. I climbed off before the bus driver could shut me in, and when I looked up at the window where he was sitting, his face was priceless.

“Tomorrow,” I called out.

He narrowed his eyes, his mouth open. I didn’t have to hear what he said. I could read his lips just fine.

Motherfucker.





Chapter Five





Jordan





“Do you know what kind of torture that is?” I asked Merry as I slid a pile of books onto the trolley. I’d barely slept a wink, and I’d let every possible conceivable question he might want to ask me run through my mind. I’d also talked pretty much non-stop at Merry since she arrived at work. By the way she’d stopped trying not to roll her eyes and sigh, I gathered she was over hearing about it. But this was driving me insane.

So as my best friend, it was only right she was driven up the wall too.

“Well, it’s not like waterboarding or the old bamboo under the fingernail kind of torture,” I allowed. “It’s more like a dripping tap that you can’t shut off. Like a constant drip, drip, drip. Or when you’re trying to think of the name of a song but you can’t because you can’t remember who sang it or any of the lyrics, only that you think it was in a movie where some guy holds up a stereo or fist pumps the air or something. Like that Simple Minds song and you could have sworn it was John Cusack in Say Anything, and you can’t think of it for days—it drives you motherfucking crazy—only to find out it was really Judd Nelson at the end of The Breakfast Club.”

Merry held up a book like it was a shield. “Do you know what my favourite part of a book is?” she asked, her face stoic. She didn’t give me time to change gears in the conversation.

“Huh?”

“My favourite part of any well-written book is that it will have a beginning,” she said. “And a middle, and a goddamn end, Jordan. An ending! Which is what this conversation is lacking. They’re magical. Maybe you can try it.”

“I hate you. And I take back what I said about your cardigan. It’s not cute. It’s hideous.”

“Of course it is.”

“Anyway, as I was saying, and this is the end so you can shut your taco-hole. He’s going to ask me something, and he’s given me twenty-four hours to think about all the possible scenarios. What if it’s something revoltingly embarrassing? I’ll need to change buses and possibly wear a disguise. Which brings me right back to his lack of social media presence. No one under the age of thirty doesn’t have some kind of social media thing. And Hennessy, the name. It sounds made up, doesn’t it? I’m convinced he’s in the witness protection program, in which case I’ll probably blow his cover. Or what if he’s actually an undercover cop? No,” I said, answering my own question. “They would have set up fake profiles as part of his new persona, surely.”

Merry took a long breath and sagged. “For the love of everything that is good in this world, Jordan, he’s not in the witness protection program. He’s not an undercover cop. He’s just a guy. A normal guy with an unusual name, who happens to catch the same bus you do. Who happened to be at the same local support group meeting as you. You’re overthinking this, and you’re going to give yourself an ulcer. For all you know, the grand and mysterious question he’s going to ask you is where you bought your shoes from. Or which restaurant you’d recommend for a date night with his husband. Or—”

“His husband? Why is he married? And why am I going out on a date night with his husband?”

Merry closed her eyes slowly and bowed her head, taking in a deep breath before she looked up at me. “You’re not going on the date night with his husband.”

“How do you know he’s married?”

“I don’t,” she replied. “But you don’t either. That’s my point. Stop overthinking this. For all you know, he won’t even be on the bus this afternoon and you’ll never see him again and this burning question will remain a mystery forever and you’ll die of old age still wondering what he was going to ask you.”

My mouth fell open and it took me a good ten seconds before I could speak. “Why would you say that?! Was it your mission today to come to work and inflict physical pain on me like that?”

She deflated. “Yes. It was my sole mission. It’s my life mission, actually. My cover’s blown. I’ve been recruited to infiltrate your social circle, just like Hennessy the Headphone Guy, to ensure harm is inflicted upon you daily.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “I knew it.”

She dumped her pile of returns onto my trolley. “You can put these away. I’m exhausted from this conversation.”

Then I felt bad. “I was just joking. I really do like your cardigan.”

She sighed the mother of all sighs. “Jordan, no matter what he asks you and no matter what comes from it, I can tell you’re already hopeful and invested, and I don’t want to see you get hurt, but even if he’s not interested in you like that, I think you could have a real good friend in him. Someone who understands you, who understands your relationship problems because chances are, he’s been through the same.”