Chapter 10
Chance
I don’t know what came over me, teasing Danni. I should have said, “Thanks for getting me up to speed on the apps and I look forward to coding with you,” but that seemed too formal. It would have sounded dumb. My face wouldn’t have matched my words and she’d know she got under my skin today.
I toss my backpack on the couch and head for the refrigerator for a Coke, but after I pop it open, I stand in the kitchen peering into the open can. When she nudged me with her elbow today, I felt a zing. It nearly blasted me across the room. Ever since then, I’ve felt this weird static all over my arms. Maybe I’ve had too much caffeine. I probably shouldn’t drink this.
I step over to the sink and pour it down the drain. Some of it settles in the pipes, popping and fizzing like my body did when Danni elbowed me. I flip on the faucet to send it along, and then I walk the length of my living room five times, a closed circuit. On the sixth rotation, I pause to grab my gum from my bag, only to find an empty pack stuffed with a few used wrappers. I’ll have to pick up more from the store, but I need to work off this static first.
I head to my bedroom, dig through the top drawer for a tank top and tight shorts. Can’t have loose shorts on the leg press, then everyone can see my business, not that many people use the gym. The small workout room is a Wild Oaks Apartments perk, accessible by special code only, usually quiet, which is what I need–a private place to destroy my muscles. I gotta break this Danni loop in my head. She’s circling in there, worse than the nested loops I saw today, four of them. If I get a chance, I’m going to rewrite that code. But, yeah. She’s in my head. Danni’s lips. Danni’s frown, Danni’s hair that smelled like soap. A nice smelling soap.
I jog to the workout room, getting my blood pumping to push away my thoughts. My heart rate is already up as I punch the code into the security panel by the door. The room is empty, all the equipment waiting for me. I claim a bench and some free weights and start going to work. Ten reps. Fifteen. I swap out for heavier dumbbells and keep going.
My date on Sunday with the dog groomer didn’t affect me like this. Trish didn’t give me energy. She sucked it. Not her fault. We just didn’t click, so the conversation felt like two hours trying to keep a lead balloon afloat. Nothing like talking code with Danni today. We sparred back and forth about a few things, disagreeing more than we agreed. And it was...
I need heavier weights. I trade my fifty-pounders for sixties and make reps until my muscles feel like they’re ripping apart. And then I do five more until I can’t press the weights over my head anymore. I let them drop to the rubber floor and flap my arms back and forth to shake them out, then I head to the machine that’s like twenty machines in one. I spend the next forty minutes clearheaded, focusing on my mind-muscle connection and nothing else.
I’m about dead when the door opens and two young women walk in wearing tight workout gear that leaves nothing to the imagination. I’m too worn-out to look twice. Even if I wasn’t worn-out, I wouldn’t look. Call me crazy. It’s not about self-control. I have plenty of that. I’m saving my first kiss for someone special, someone I can see myself with for a long time. A couple of pairs of bum-hugging leggings won’t change my mind.
After wiping down the equipment, I head out, averting my gaze even though I can feel their eyes following my every move. Too tired to jog back, I take my time along the tree-lined sidewalk, enjoying the breeze as it parts my hair and cools my scalp. Not enjoying the briny, marshy smell as much, but I’m learning to tolerate it.
When I get home, I jump in the shower, put on some clean clothes, and then I find myself in front of my computer, my JustInCase spreadsheet open like it pulled me over and wants something. I scroll down the page, twenty-five lines filled with dates that lacked the zing and “she’s the one.” None of them warranted a first kiss.
When I reach Danni’s row, my finger stops scrolling. I reconsider her ratings, add a point for personality which brings her to 7. I leave her sense of humor at 1, but I up her appearance score by a point. This raises her total score, but not to 60. She’s still not on my callback list. So, I add another metric, call it Maybe , and drop Danni’s name into the column.
No one else’s name. Just Danni’s. And then I hit save and open Call of Duty, leaving JustInCase.xlsx to simmer in the background.
Danni
I might have sneaked to my window and peeked through my blinds when I heard Chance’s apartment door slam. Just a curious neighbor, that’s all. Where is he going at this hour? He doesn’t gallivant around town on a weeknight. He saves that for the weekends. I know because he slams his door so hard it vibrates my walls.
I watch him jog down the stairs, light on his feet, a little peppier than usual like he has some energy to burn off. The tank top and biker’s shorts mean he intends to exert himself, the shirt and shorts hugging his frame without showing too much. I watch him jog across the parking lot, his back sturdy and straight, his stride relaxed and confident. He jogs down the sidewalk and then disappears behind the low-lying tree branches.
Well, that was entertaining.
I spin around and make myself a decaf coffee and a Pop-Tart, warming it in the toaster before buttering it. While the fruity strawberry center of the Pop-Tart cools, I detour to my bedroom and shimmy out of my skirt, ever so thankful that I have nowhere to go and nothing to do but throw on a pair of jammies, pick up a book, and get lost between the pages. Which is exactly what I do until seven o’clock when I heat up a pizza and park myself at my dining room table in front of my laptop.
My sister, Willa, pings me at quarter after seven and we enjoy dinner together, separated by miles but still close in our hearts. We do this every Monday and Wednesday.
“You’re getting a promotion?” Willa says before finishing off her sushi roll.
“Maybe. My boss put me on a high-profile project. He’s going to go to bat for me during annual reviews.”
“That’s awesome,” Willa says excitedly, but her demeanor quickly falls. “Isn’t it?”
“Sure. Awesome,” I answer dully.
“So there’s a catch.”
I finish off my slice of pizza and clear my plate from the table, and then crouch in front of my webcam. “Not really.”
“Danni, what’s the catch?”
“Are we painting tonight?”
Willa, my near twin except for her blonde hair, fans her fingers and scowls at her fingernails. “Definitely. I am not using those press-ons again. The glue ate my cuticles.”
She shuffles away from her computer to grab her fingernail polish and manicure supplies. I grab a few shades from my bathroom–a bright pink, dusty rose, and blue–and return to the dining table. A minute later, Willa rejoins me. She explains her cuticle restoration protocol. I ask her which color I should use. We both agree on blue. Blue for boldness. Just what I need as the project lead of a high-visibility IT project. Boldness, fearlessness, decisiveness.
We start prepping our nails for polish.
“What’s the catch?” Willa asks.
“There’s this guy.”
Willa flops her head back and groans. She knows my love-hate relationship with male programmers. I’ve never met a female coder with an attitude. Let’s just leave it at that. Most of the men I’ve worked with have been great. It’s just the small few that have ground my gears into metal shavings.
“Please tell me it’s not Zane 2.0,” Willa says.
“Absolutely not. There are no feelings between me and this guy.”
Even despite Zane’s mansplaining, his defilement of my code, his know-it-all attitude, I fell for him. I fell for him before he opened his mouth. Just laid my eyes on his otherworldly gorgeousness and I was hooked. When our eyes first connected, I thought, “It’s him.”
That’s it. Two words. It’s. Him.
I don’t hear voices, but the words seemed to come from the outside, like God was giving me a big hefty clue that Zane was my guy. He was the one I was meant to be with, to marry. Never mind his cheating past, his white lies, his bankruptcy proceedings. Dumb right? If it weren’t for Zane’s flattery and manipulative apologies, I might have heard God warning me that he was, in fact, not the one.
“The skies didn’t part and angels didn’t sing when you locked eyes?” Willa asks.
“Ha ha.”
“Bad joke. Sorry.”
“No. I did not hear any ethereal voices when we met. But I did get a taste of his coding style and it has Zane written all over it.”
Willa groans again and then quickly composes herself. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine. I’ve had practice. I know how to rein these types in now.”
“But you’re not excited about your project because of it.”
I lay a strip of blue nail polish on my thumbnail, and another beside it, careful to stay in the lines. “I guess not. But I’m also in mourning. Drew gets to take over my R&D project.”
“Oh no,” Willa squeals. “Your baby!”
She gets me.
“It’s fine. It’s fine,” I say. “I’ll take one for the team.”
“And for a raise.”
“Mostly that.”
“Except…” Willa stops painting her base coat and looks up wistfully. “A promotion means you won’t be coming home any time soon.”
I haven’t had the heart to tell Willa that I have no plans of returning home, not permanently. Now that I have a taste of living near the ocean, I can’t imagine giving it up. Secretly, I hope she’ll move down here. With both Mom and Dad gone, and no close relatives in Indiana, I’m not sure what’s keeping her up there. Moving was just what my soul needed. Putting distance between me and my hometown has allowed me to step out of the past into a new future. I want the same for Willa.
“I wouldn’t mind splitting my rent,” I try, dipping my toe into emotionally charged waters. She’d have to sell the house. Mom’s house. The house we grew up in. The house Dad left us with when he decided to flake out and disappear with his girlfriend. It’s where we played in the backyard as kids, making paths through the tall grass, road systems for our make-believe towns that were populated by make-believe people.
“You’re thinking about moving in with Morgan and Kayla?”
Is she playing dumb or is she deflecting?
“We’ve talked about it. The more roomies, the better the apartment–a luxury apartment with all the amenities.”
“You must make a lot more than I do,” Willa says with a tinge of skepticism. She knows how much money I make. I’ve never kept it a secret. As a teacher, she makes considerably less, but I’d be willing to cover more of the rent if she wanted to share an apartment.
“Molly loves her daycare,” Willa adds.
Okay. She knows what I’m getting at and she’s deflecting.
“She can’t wait to see her buddies every day,” she adds.
Molly isn’t human, but she may as well be. Mom gave her to us for Christmas nearly ten years ago. She was a pup, a rambunctious little Golden Retriever. I miss that dog more than I miss rolling hills, more than October harvests and bonfires on cold autumn nights. I miss some things about Indiana. But at least, I get to see Molly on Zoom.
At the sound of her name, her head pops above Willa’s table. She pants happily, letting her tongue lull to the side.
“Hey, girl,” I say in the high-pitched, singsong tone that I reserve for cute animals and babies. “Whatcha doin’ under there?”
Her head moves side to side, offsetting the weight of her wagging tail.
“She’s being a good girl, aren’t you?” Willa coos. She leans over and plants a kiss on her head. Molly responds by jumping onto Willa’s lap. “Molly, no!” Willa raises her hands to protect her polish from Molly’s long hair. It sticks to everything, including the air. “Down, Molly.”
She doesn’t budge which earns a snicker from me. Willa manages to gently shove her off and then leans over to inspect her nails. “She ruined them,” she says with a resigned sigh. “I have to start over.”
Willa slides out of her chair to retrieve her nail polish remover. I look at her empty chair at the table she and I used to share with Mom every night. A hint of sadness darkens my chest. I don’t know how Willa can stay in that house, but it’s not for me to decide.
I look over my shoulder at the living room window. Sunlight streams through the mini blinds making stripes on the carpet. Thoughts of the nearby beach brighten my chest. Thoughts of a beach day with Morgan and Kayla brighten it further. I have good friends. A good gig at JetAero. Putting up with Chance on my new project won’t spoil my vibe. I made the right decision, coming down here. With a satisfied breath, I turn back to my nails, dip the brush into the bold blue and get back to work.