Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Seventeen
Is hysterical laughter typically the sound one makes while watching Jeopardy! ? I thought it was more of a civilized show.
Reese called me out of the blue to babysit this morning. I came prepared with all sorts of Saturday activities up my sleeve, but Ainsley and Miles disappeared down to the courtyard for badminton and, as she called it, “dancing boot camp” (“He needs a lot of work, Lenny”). But now they’re back upstairs and posted up in front of the TV together.
I balance a bowl of popcorn on one hip and drinks in my other hand, stopping cold when I get to the door of the living room.
Because Ainsley is laughing so hard her face has gone red, her knees pulled into her T-shirt as she overbalances to one side like an Easter egg. Miles, meanwhile, is reclined on the couch, one arm over the back, legs outstretched, and his other hand covering the bottom half of his face as he—and I mean this—howls with laughter.
I have never heard either of them make sounds like these.
I set the food and drinks down and turn to the television. They’re watching a man attempt to run across a moving platform ten feet in the air. He jumps, clings like a koala to a gigantic greased-up ball. There’s a moment where I think he’s achieved the impossible, but then he slides down the side and then belly-flops into what appears to be a pond filled with Jell-O.
I chuckle, but they absolutely explode with laughter.
“Oh, my God,” Ainsley gasps weakly. “I can’t believe he’s trying again.”
“This is—” Miles tries to say, but his voice does that high squeaky thing that happens when people try to talk through hysteria. “This is the fifth time he’s tried.”
I’m bemused and delighted. “I take it Jeopardy! reruns were a bust?”
He wipes his eyes and takes a deep, wobbly breath. “We never even made it there. We found this instead.”
I’d love to stay and laugh, but it’s going so well between them that I decide not to intrude.
I putter around the kitchen and a few minutes later Reese gets home. She puts her bag down on the table and then halts.
“Is that Ainsley making that noise?” Her eyes are wide.
“And Miles. They’ve been dying laughing at one of those shows where people get greased up and try to complete an obstacle course.”
“Wow. I’ve never heard her laugh that hard.” She goes and peeks at them and then comes back looking equal parts befuddled and charmed.
I knew she was only about two chess moves away from loving Miles.
An hour later Miles and I leave together, and as soon as the door closes I jump to face him.
“I have to tell you something.”
“Okay…”
“It’s good! I think! But also, when I think about it I might puke!”
“Okay?”
“And also—”
“Tell me, Lenny.”
Instead of telling him, I show him. I click into my phone, to a text thread, and hand it over.
He’s squinting and scrolling my original text and actually it takes a few swipes because…it’s long.
“Skip all that!” I demand, and scroll the phone down to the bottom. “The important part is what he said!”
Miles stops reading the text, looks up at me, and grins. And I’m telling you, this smile is a heart-starter. If I ever go into cardiac arrest, FaceTime Miles and tell him to hit me with that smile. “Jericho said yes.”
“He really, really said yes!” I clap and jump and it must be because I’m excited even though the idea of a new friend has me a little nauseated.
“Lenny!” And that’s all he says. Because then he lifts his hand and, yup, he’s going in for the high five. Which, for whatever reason, absolutely cracks me up. But also, thwack, we nail that high five.
“Are you busy?” I ask him. “Because there’s something I want to do to celebrate this momentous occasion.”
“Let me grab a sweatshirt.”
Three minutes later Miles jogs down to meet me in the lobby in his faded black hoodie. He looks grumpy and gruff and I’m reminded why I fell momentarily in love with him when we first met. Maybe I’ll steal that hoodie someday.
He turns a full circle and then spots me sitting behind the desk with Emil the doorman, watching soccer on a teeny-tiny television with rabbit ears.
“This is the striker,” Emil says, pointing aggressively at the grainy image of a man with very tall socks on. “He is best in league.”
“He’s your hero,” I supply.
Emil gives me a look. “I have no hero. I am not child.” Then he dips his head to one side. “But he is very good at soccer.”
I don’t tell him this is textbook hero worship.
“Ready?” Miles asks me, leaning one elbow on the desk.
Emil jumps up, not having noticed Miles until now.
“Good afternoon, sir,” he says formally, prepared to race around the desk and swing the door open for us.
“Hi, Emil.”
I grab him by the shoulder and force him back onto his stool. “Your striker is about to score. Don’t get up.”
I scamper around the desk and outside as fast as I can so that he doesn’t try to beat me there.
Miles jogs after me, pausing to look back at the entryway as we skid to a stop on the sidewalk. “You’re the only person I’ve ever seen beat Emil to the door.”
“I’m very good,” I assure him.
“Apparently.” He falls into step as I charge us toward the train. I won’t tell him what our errand is for fear he’ll bail. Luckily he doesn’t ask. “So…you and Emil are friends?”
“Sure. Buddies. We formed an alliance because we’re both employees of the building, in a way.”
“Still fantasizing about him?”
“Huh?” I laugh. “Oh. No. He killed our love a few weeks ago.”
“How?”
“He said, and I quote, ‘I see the way you look at me but I have girlfriend back home.’ Now I’m not in love anymore.”
“That’s all it takes for you to fall out of love? Not very tenacious.”
I shrug. “Falling in love is the fun part. Staying in love is a chore. You know firsthand, I fell out of love with you even faster than that.”
He grunts.
We get to the train, skid down the stairs, and slide through the doors right before they close. It’s not too crowded so we sit side by side.
“I don’t get you,” he says eventually.
“What do you mean?”
“You make googoo eyes at the doorman so obviously that he has to address it with you. You get firmly rejected. And it doesn’t even bother you at all. To the extent that you can laugh and chat and watch soccer with him.”
I consider this analysis. “You think I should have spent more energy hiding my feelings? Or that I should be too embarrassed to talk to Emil anymore?”
“Not should. It’s just…most people would. ”
“Having a crush isn’t embarrassing to me.”
He studies me. “And getting rejected? It doesn’t hurt? Not even your pride?”
“I mean…it was all a fantasy anyways, right? So, kind of, who cares?” Now I’m the one studying him. “How do you tell someone you have feelings for them?”
He pushes his lips out and considers. “Michelle Walker in high school, I caught up to her at a football game and said ‘let’s date.’?”
“Amazing. What happened next?”
“We made out in my car.”
“So she said yes, I take it?”
“No, actually. But we kept making out for a few weeks after that.”
“You dog.”
“ She was the dog. I was the one who wanted commitment.”
“And with Kira? How did it all unfold with her?”
“Oh.” He extends his feet and thinks back. “She asked me to go to her cousin’s christening with her.”
“Wow.” I’m all eyes. “Heck of a first date.”
“Well, it wasn’t supposed to be a date. It was just a friend thing.”
“Uh-huh.” Palpable skepticism on my end.
“But then one of her aunts said, ‘Introduce me to your boyfriend.’ And she said, ‘This is Miles.’ And so, that was kind of that.”
I laugh and poke his arm. “What do you mean that was that? That’s definitely not how people normally decide to be boyfriend and girlfriend!”
“Well, I didn’t object and then we slept together that night, so…”
“Ah, well.” I nod. “ That is definitely one of the ways people become boyfriend and girlfriend.”
“Not the most romantic.” He sighs and crosses his ankles in the other direction.
I poke him again. “I’m sure you’re plenty romantic when motivated.”
He raises his eyebrows but doesn’t agree or disagree. “So, what’s this errand?”
“Um? Sandwiches? Really good ones?” It’s an obvious lie and he just laughs and leaves me to my deception.
I haul him off the train and down one block and then the next. It’s perfect sweatshirt weather. The trees on each block shake their green-golden leaves in the breeze. We pull up to a trendy shop with a giant pair of spectacles over the door.
He turns and gapes at me. “For me or for you?” he demands.
“I’m not the one who looks like this when reading.” I squint like I’m trying to make out a distant cosmos with the naked eye.
“In order to celebrate Jericho agreeing to go to the concert with you, you want me to get glasses? That doesn’t even make sense!”
“Look, you made me invite Jericho, which I didn’t originally wanna do, because it was good for me. So now you’re gonna do something you don’t wanna do because, you guessed it! It’s good for you. Tit for tat, baby! You’re finally getting a real taste of what it means to be a part of my life!”
He’s not impressed with this. “I’m not going in there. You can’t make me get glasses.”
“Yes, you are. And yes, I can.” Actually, turns out I can’t. I plant my feet and shove at his back with all my might. The only thing this accomplishes is me eventually sagging, elbows planted on his butt while I breathe for dear life.
“Are you having fun back there?” he asks dryly.
“Miles, we came all the way here! Now go!” I plant my hands and push again.
“I don’t need glasses,” he asserts, crossing his arms over his chest.
“You can’t even read the label on the pickle jar in your fridge, you stubborn arse!”
“Who needs to read that? Pickles. That’s what it says. No reading required.”
I give up on pushing, because clearly he’s made of cement and never thought to tell me. Instead I veer around to the front of him, uncross his arms, and take one of his hands in mine. I expect to have to tug as hard from the front as I had to push from the back, but to my great surprise, he comes easily along in my wake. I pause and blink at our linked hands. Apparently this is the key to getting him to do stuff. Noted.
The bell above the door dings as we go through and a ridiculously hot saleswoman in oversized glasses turns in slow motion, wind tousling her blond hair, cleavage tastefully straining against the buttons of her blouse.
They must sell a shit ton of glasses here.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes. Please,” I say. “He needs an eye exam and a pair of glasses. Make it two pairs of glasses. You know what? Let’s be on the safe side and say an even twelve.”
She laughs. “Let me see if the optometrist has time for an exam.”
Miles and I peruse glasses while we wait. Well, I peruse glasses. Miles stands in one spot and glowers at me. A moment later an equally hot woman emerges, also in glasses, though she’s wearing a lab coat and has her black hair twisted into a bun at the top of her head.
“I have time to see you now, sir,” the hot optometrist says with a friendly smile.
Miles looks back at me plaintively. Don’t make me go, his puppy of an expression says.
“Go with the nice lady,” I tell him.
He doesn’t move.
I raise my finger and point at the doorway she’s disappeared through. He drops his head and drags his feet as he follows behind her.
The saleslady laughs. She’s leaning over a display case, chin resting on her palm. “You two are cute together.”
“Thanks,” I say. There’s no reason to correct her. Miles and I are cute together, even though it’s not in the way she means. “So.” I clap my hands together and rub them up and down. “Let’s try on some glasses.”
Twenty-five minutes later Miles finds me and Tanya the saleslady laughing our asses off while I try on a truly heinous pair of metal frames. We’ve eliminated eight different frame shapes for my face. We’ve yet to find one that looks good. Thank God for Lasik if my vision ever changes.
“You’re back!” I grin at him from behind the teeny-tiny frames. He walks up to me and pushes them back up my nose.
“I have 20/20 vision, I’ll have you know.”
My jaw drops. “You have got to be—”
“But I’m ridiculously farsighted and I need reading glasses,” he mumbles.
“I knew it!” I slap the counter. “Tanya, let’s find this man a pair of cheaters.”
“Hmm,” Tanya says, surveying him thoughtfully. She dips below the counter and pops back up with a pair of thick black frames. “Let’s start with these.”
“Aren’t these what nerds wear?” Miles asks mildly as he pincers them out of Tanya’s hands.
“Hot nerds,” I correct him. “If you wear these I think it will greatly increase your chances of being in a porn-style situation where you get to bang a MILF.”
“I don’t need any help in that department, thanks.”
I burst out laughing but abruptly stop when he slides the glasses on and frowns at me. Because wow. Shit. Glasses work for him. Even these ugly ones.
I point over my shoulder at the mirror and he turns his frown on himself. “Pass.”
“What?” I screech. “You look incredible in those!”
“I have more options,” Tanya insists. And produces just that.
Miles has the opposite problem that I do. He looks good in every pair of glasses he tries on. Which is actually a problem for me. Because at some point I stop being able to look at him for any length of time. Unfortunately, he demands I study him in every pair Tanya makes him try on.
I’m looking at my nails, my shoes, glossy ads of celebs in glasses with their mouths open. He’s drumming his fingers on the counter, watching me avoiding his eyeline.
“Lenny.”
I brush at my T-shirt.
“Lenny.”
“Hm?” I spin a rack of sunglasses.
“ Lenny. ”
I turn and glance at him over one shoulder. “Yes?”
“Choose a pair.”
I resent the fact that this makes a little flutter happen in my stomach. Rude. “Why should I choose a pair? They’re your glasses.”
“You’re the one who made me come here. Choose a pair. Any pair. Preferably one that you can actually make eye contact with me in.”
That earns him a glare, he glowers back, and I feel the world right itself. There’s the grouch I’ve come to tolerate. “How about…” I face away from him and choose a pair of heart-shaped cheetah-print sunglasses and slide them on my face. “These!” I jump back around and face him.
He squints at me. “Perfect for reading the pickle jar.”
I saunter back over to him, confidence restored by these ridiculous sunglasses. “Oh, these.” I point to the pair on the counter that look the most comfortable. “You won’t mind wearing them and they looked good.”
“Great.” He digs in his pocket for his wallet and I make myself scarce while he pays for everything and arranges to have his glasses sent to his house when they’re all ready. I wave goodbye to Tanya and go wait for him on the sidewalk in a patch of sun that is almost warm.
I’m eyes closed, chin tipped toward the sky when he walks up next to me and kicks his toes lightly against mine. Something is being slid into my hand. I blink down at the glasses case.
I glance at him and then back at the case, snapping it open and laughing. “You bought them?” The cheetah-print heart-shaped glasses smile back at me.
“They’re perfect for you.” He shrugs and then nods to a shop across the street. “Sandwiches. Let’s go. You’re buying.”