Chapter 14 Horned-Up for 500
Bridget’s classroom door is like the rabbit hole in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: Pass through, and it’s all whimsy and color.
School started a few weeks back, so big, summery suns hang from the ceiling and there’s a neon Welcome sign she must’ve rented, because we are best friends for a reason, across universes.
“Jesus, Ruby.” Bridget sits at her desk while her class is in PE. At the sight of me, she stops eating her everything bagel, extra cream cheese. “You look like shit.”
Correct. I look like if Gollum shopped at Limited Too.
This morning, at a little after eight, Penn texted me to ask if I was awake and wanted to go out for breakfast. I told him I couldn’t—that I had a meeting.
Then I fled the mansion wearing purple jeans and a pastel sweatshirt with glittery stripes, a pair of massive pink sunglasses covering my swollen, tired eyes.
I slump into the wooden chair opposite Bridget’s desk and scan the rainbow ABCs strung along the chalkboard.
I wish anything in adulthood was as simple as the ABCs.
Nobody teaches you that someday, you might get stuck inside a backassward universe you came up with when you still thought butterfly clips were deeply sophisticated.
“I didn’t sleep.”
Bridget snorts. “Yeah, your string of midnight messages hinted as much.” She lifts her phone with a knowing smirk, my early-morning hysteria filling the screen.
brIDGET. HEEEEEELPPPP!!!
SOS
CODE. RED.
HE KISSED ME AND…NOTHING!
I’M SERIOUSLY TRAPPED.
FOREVER!!!!
Frankly, my panicked stream of consciousness seems quite appropriate considering I’m doing something wrong, and I don’t know what.
“Penn’s a bad kisser,” Bridget says. “Isn’t he?”
God. I wish.
Clocking my dismay, her eyes widen. “Was it that bad? Or were you just not feeling it?”
“No, I…” My cheeks blaze at the memory of Penn’s hands on my skin. “I…”
Bridget’s laugh is a low rumble. “Oh. Ohhhh. You definitely felt it,” she teases, sitting back and clasping her hands like a Disney villain. “I’ll take Horned-Up for 500.”
I level her with a look. “You know what? Feelings aren’t the problem, okay?
The problem is I’m still here. Which means I’m not there.
In my real apartment. Doing my real job.
Living down the street from Ryan, who’s totally different there, by the way, and…
” I take a breath. My eyes prick with tears.
“And I have a very real breakup to deal with, too, with an ex I’m supposed to meet here.
Today. In a little over an hour.” My stomach churns.
Bridget gives me a sympathetic look. “Ruby,” she says. “I have to ask. Did you use tongue?”
I huff out an irritated breath. “Are you serious?”
“It’s just a thought, okay?” She shrugs. “Maybe the kiss wasn’t passionate enough. Or the sleepover-game powers that be didn’t buy your act.”
“It wasn’t an act,” I blurt out, and Bridget’s eyes nearly bug out of her head. Flustered, I trip over the truth. “It wasn’t even just one kiss, okay? It was a full-on make-out situation. With hands involved. And hips.”
“Hips?!”
“Yes. Hips. So, if that wasn’t enough for the MASH gods, then I don’t know what they’re looking for, because as far as I’m concerned, Penn and I nearly rounded second base.”
I regret my detailed rundown immediately. Bridget looks almost as excited as she did when I gave her a signed Dawson’s Creek poster I bought on eBay. She had one hell of a crush on Dawson’s dad.
“Maybe second base wasn’t enough,” she says. “Maybe you need to take it all the way home.”
“Bridget, MASH is a game for middle schoolers. That’s not the answer.”
She shrugs. “Might be worth a shot.”
I shoot her a disapproving look, but I can’t pretend I haven’t considered how last night’s activities might have looked if we’d moved them from the beanbag to the bedroom.
No way am I admitting as much aloud.
Bridget’s phone dings, and when she eyes the screen, she beams. “Ohmygod.”
“What is it?” I ask.
She wriggles her eyebrows. “Ethan just asked me on a second date.”
“Wait. You went out with him?” Ethan Jones is the new school librarian. Tall, shy, and British. The latter is what really grabbed her attention.
Bridget laughs. “Oh, is that not a thing where you’re from?” She texts him back wearing a girlish glow so obvious, it’s almost cartoonish. “We got drinks before school started, and I was starting to worry we were a one-and-done thing, but I think he’s just nervous. Cute, right?”
I nod, a little unsteady. I know all about the drinks-before-school date.
In reality, I talked her out of it. I told her it seemed risky to date a colleague, and she cackled and pointed fingers, noting that I didn’t just date my colleague—I also lived with him.
I insisted it was different. Connor and I had already mapped out our future when I joined his dad’s firm.
Joke’s on me.
Bridget sets down her phone and props her head in her hands. “He asked me to shop with him for Halloween decorations after school today.” She lets out an airy laugh. “That’s our second date: a trip to HomeGoods.”
I’ve listened to Bridget talk about many a man. We’ve rehashed a lot of dates. But never have I ever seen her turn into a human Lite-Brite.
“Our third date will be the pool party,” she adds.
“What pool party?”
“The one we’re hosting this weekend. At your house.”
“Um, no? I’ll take Not Happening for 300.”
She laughs. “But it will be good for you!”
Classic Bridget, offering me pool-party plans instead of get-back-to-reality advice. By all means, let’s drink jungle juice and toss a beach ball while I’m struggling for my life over here.
“This is serious, okay?” I stand and sling my wildly unserious sequin purse over my shoulder. “I need a new exit plan, like, now.”
Her attention shifts to the door, where two girls slip into the room carrying lunch boxes and a bulldozer of a boy barrels in after them. Bridget stands and singsongs, “Reading corner! Everybody head to the reading corner!”
Her smile evaporates as she turns to me. “You don’t need a plan, Ruby. You need a breather. Stress isn’t helping your cause, okay? You need to stop worrying about the time MASH-ine and have a little fun.”
I glare at her, unmoved. “How long have you been holding in that joke?”
“All week,” she says, ignoring my eye roll. “Trust me: I’ll handle everything. I still have the decorations from that luau, and—”
“Bridget, I really don’t have time for a party.”
“Nope.” She raises a finger. “I won’t hear it. You didn’t buy a mansion with two pools just to look at them.”
“I didn’t actually buy a mansion at all. Remember?”
“Okay, fine,” she concedes. “But the more spontaneous version of you didn’t buy that place just to sit in it and sulk, and that’s the version of you that I know. So we’re having a party.”
I stare. She stares back, unyielding. “Bite me,” I mutter.
Bridget smiles sweetly. “Sounds like someone’s already got that covered.”
A snot-covered kid tugs at her skirt, and I watch in horror as he wipes his nose with it. “That’s my cue,” I say, moonwalking away from the human typhoid.
“Just think on the bright side,” Bridget stage-whispers. “At least you picked zero kids.”
I shudder.
I need to count my MASH blessings.
Outside, it’s started to rain, so I hustle through the parking lot and all but collapse into the Jeep.
Scrolling through my phone, I accept a PENBY calendar invitation for the DD Logistics Meeting this afternoon and respond to Ryan’s many inquiries about the “cute redhead” we saw leaving the mansion yesterday.
I tell him that her surprise appearance was a “work thing,” knowing full well he won’t buy it.
I feel lighter as I start the car and turn up the radio.
Yes, I’m still stuck, but I’m making progress on multiple fronts.
And right now I’m off to meet Connor, whose business instincts I trust entirely.
No matter that he upended my real future—in any universe, Connor’s good at his job.
Once we talk, I’m sure I’ll have an inkling as to whether teaming up with Rollerworld is the right path for The Disco Diner.
Everything will be fine. I have a plan, and I just need to stay on track. I’ll keep following the most sensible rules I can come up with and take care of each game section as best I can.
An old Mariah Carey song starts playing, and I sing along, only slightly nervous at how quickly the lyrics make me think of Penn. But as I belt the bridge, a warning light glows on the dashboard. The engine sputters, and my heart jumps.
I pull over, trembling as a thin wisp of smoke billows out from under the hood.
Seconds later, the tie-dye Jeep dies.
—
Perhaps Connor should’ve pursued acting instead of accounting, because when he arrives in the same BMW sedan he’s driven for years, he doesn’t seem at all fazed by my call for help.
As if this is just part of his general package for clients: bookkeeping, tax preparation, and emergency roadside assistance.
He’s driven to another suburb twenty minutes from Lakeville to sit with me until the tow truck arrives and give me a ride home.
I couldn’t ask Bridget, who’s working, or Theo, who doesn’t have a car, or Ryan, who’s gallivanting through Positano.
And I definitely couldn’t ask Penn, who would have loved to help, because I might’ve done something stupid when he arrived. Like kiss him again.
It’s strange but comforting to see Connor’s face. He’s wearing a white button-up with his favorite striped tie and navy slacks, and when he leans across his front seat to open the passenger door, he looks at me with a sort of bemused concern.
Knowing him, he’s probably embarrassed on my behalf. He looks as handsome and spotless as his pristine leather interior, and in reality, I’d appear similarly polished. Right now, though, I’m in a soaked pastel sweater and lavender jeans covered in damp splotches.
“I look like a drowned Care Bear,” I tell him, hoping to break the ice.