Chapter 3 #2
“Well, that’s amazing. What did you talk about?”
“We didn’t talk about much. She’s a bike tour guide or something like that. And she had her group waiting for her, and I had Mrs. Rawlings with me. But she has my number, and I bet she calls me tonight. Probably a little after eight if I had to take a guess.”
“A little after eight?” He eyes me with a single raised eyebrow.
“It’s just a guess.” I grin.
“Is she hot?”
“Hot is not the right word for her. She’s beautiful in an effortless way. Not all made up. Nothing fake about her. She has this cute little scar above her lip.”
“A scar above her lip?”
I nod.
“Like someone hit her?”
I shrug. “Or like she face-planted on her bike.”
He winces. “Ouch.”
I chuckle. “It’s a scar, not a recent cut. It’s not like it happened today.”
“Maybe it’s from correction of cleft lip or cleft palate.”
“Huh? What is that, and how do you know anything about it?”
“Because I graduated high school. And I can read.”
“Fuck you. I can read.”
“Yeah, at a third-grade level.”
“Well, I’m a better mechanic than you, and I’ve never had formal training.”
He shrugs. “Maybe. But I’m an actual mechanic, and you’re a muse. I bet you didn’t even know what a muse was when that rich guy hired you.”
I flip him the bird, but not without grinning.
Monroe laughs because he knows me too well. “I gotta wash my sheets,” he says, standing and stretching his arms over his head. “Clean sheets gets my girl horny.” He smirks while passing the sofa.
After I spend the next hour mindlessly clicking YouTube videos on rebuilding engines, I throw a frozen burrito in the microwave and fetch another beer. Naomi waltzes through the door, eyeing me while removing her heels and curling her wavy blond hair behind one ear.
“Oh, hi,” she murmurs.
The “oh” is an obvious oh, you’re still living here?
“Oh, hi,” I parrot like, oh, you’re still sleeping here?
I want to like Monroe’s girlfriend because he’s my friend, but she’s so judgmental.
Her way of doing everything is always the right way, like bath towels must be folded vertically.
I disagree—they don’t have to be folded at all.
And when she speaks, she uses this tone, like she’s talking down to everyone else.
Except with Monroe she ends every sentence with an exaggerated fish-lipped kiss while pinching his chin like an angry mother.
“Aren’t you tired of living on a sofa? You eat, sleep, and drink on that thing,” she says, opening the fridge.
“Thanks for your concern. This sofa feels like the only stable thing in my life. I can’t imagine ever leaving it or this apartment for that matter,” I say, just to get her worked up.
She lifts her head out of the fridge and wrinkles her nose. “Do you know how pathetic that sounds?”
“You mean heartbreaking? All I have are an old sofa and the world’s best friend.
I would never survive without either of them.
Did you know Monroe and I shared a foster home when we were thirteen?
And then we ran into each other at a gas station several years ago.
I was living out of my car. He took me in.
That’s the kind of friendship that lasts a lifetime.
” I take a bite of my burrito and chew slowly while she scowls at me.
“Where is he?” she asks, slamming the fridge door and marching toward the bedroom.
I laugh just as my phone dings with a text: I feel violated
It’s two minutes after eight. It has to be her. So I call the number.
“When someone texts you, you don’t call them. That’s not cool. The whole point of texting is so you don’t have to call people,” she says in a tone which sounds like a song even if she’s trying to sound exasperated with me. She’s no match for Naomi.
I put her on speaker just long enough to add her to my contacts. “Where are you?”
“You think the solution to my feeling violated by your adding yourself to my contacts and setting a reminder in my phone to call you is to ask my whereabouts? My parents taught me better than that.”
“Lucky you. I didn’t have parents or anyone to teach me shit. So that’s probably why I didn’t hesitate to violate you.”
“That’s just sad,” she says.
“I don’t want you to be sad or feel bad for me. I’m just stating facts.”
She laughs. “Okay. You got my attention. Now what are you going to do with it?”
“Dunno,” I say, trapping my phone between my shoulder and my ear while carrying my plate and empty beer can to the kitchen. “I still can’t believe you called. I have never caught a falling star—until today.”
“I’m the falling star?”
“June, you’re the whole damn galaxy on a cloudless night, a hundred miles out of the city.”
“That’s …” She pauses, leaving me hanging. “That’s actually really sweet.”
I grin, feeling most excellent because I have no clue what I’m doing, but I know sweet is good—and something I’ve never been.
“But,” she says. “For the record, I didn’t. I texted.”
“But you didn’t have to. So let’s do this. What’s your last name, June?”
“Malone.”
“June Malone.” I like the way her name rolls off my tongue, almost as much as I like the way she grinned while biting her lip after I took the group picture.
“What’s your last name, Flynn?” There’s a hint of humor to her question.
Does she find me amusing in an irresistible way? I hope so.
“Morley.”
“Age?”
She likes me.
“Twenty-five. You?”
“Twenty-six.”
“Aw man … I’ve always had a thing for older women.”
She giggles as I collapse onto the sofa and stare at the water-stained ceiling. “So were you at the gallery with your girlfriend?”
“Huh?”
“You said you have a thing for older women. And you said you don’t have parents. So who was the woman at the gallery with you?”
“Who said the woman at the gallery was with me? Maybe we were just there at the same time.”
“Oh? In that case, what did you buy at the gallery?”
“Nothing. I was there with that woman.”
June’s laughter makes me feel warm everywhere, like a third beer filling my veins.
“She’s my boss. Or my boss’s wife. I’m not sure who’s in charge. It’s a new job.”
“What’s the job?”
“I’m a muse.”
“A what?”
“A muse. It’s—”
“I know what a muse is. But I didn’t know it’s a job.”
Fantastic. June is not only pretty; she’s smart, too.
“Rich people,” I grumble. “They can’t do anything themselves. I don’t know if she’s depressed or suicidal or what, but I’m supposed to inspire her to live. That should be her husband’s job. A friend’s. A sibling’s. Literally anyone but some strange guy who she’s never met.”
“Wow. That’s so sad. Sounds like she needs a therapist.”
“I hope that’s not what they mean by a muse,” I say.
“My form of therapy would be to tell her to get over whatever she thinks is so awful. Must be real rough living in a mansion. Never having to worry about money. Spending every day reading books and shopping for art. Touch some grass, lady. There are people who have real problems, and your husband hired you a muse. Fucking ridiculous.”
“Okay, then. Tell me how you really feel,” June says.
“Do you disagree?”
“I don’t know them, so I can’t judge them based on their wealth,” she says.
“You can. It will stay between us.”
“So if you were wealthy, would it be fair for people to judge you because of it?” she asks.
“Absolutely, because I’d probably be an entitled dick.”
She giggles. “As opposed to …”
“Hey, you don’t even know me, yet.”
“True.”
“Where are you? We should hang out,” I say.
“It’s late, Flynn.”
“Damn. Is twenty-six the new forty? Late? It’s a little after eight.”
“I’m trying to be polite.”
“Polite? Because you don’t want to hang out with me? Then why did you call—text. Why did you text?”
“I thought I’d give you a chance to sweep me off my feet.”
“Are you suggesting I’ve failed at doing that?”
“Well, how would you rate yourself?”
“You haven’t ended the call, so I’d say I’m killing it.”
“I should go, Flynn.”
A surge of panic hits me like it did when she walked out of the gallery and I froze. “You’re beautiful.”
She doesn’t reply right away. Why did I say that? I’m sure she knows she’s beautiful. How could she not? I close my eyes and press the heel of my hand to my forehead.
“I’m listening,” she says.
I open my eyes and mentally scramble for something else. What’s the follow-up to telling her she’s beautiful?
“I’m listening too. You should say thank you or compliment me back.” Words fly out of my mouth before getting proper permission from my brain. If she doesn’t appreciate sarcasm, I’m fucked.
“You’re tall,” she says.
“Thank you. I try my best.”
June chuckles, and I sit up tall.
“You have a great smile,” I say.
“Thank you. You take good group photos,” she replies.
I can’t help the shit-eating grin on my face. “We’re hitting it off. I think we should take this conversation to dinner.”
“I already ate.”
“But did you have dessert?”
After a few seconds, she says, “I did not.”
“Let’s meet at Sebastian Joe’s in twenty minutes.”
“I don’t know …” The hesitation in her voice stirs the panic in my chest. Why does she have this effect on me?
“Well, I don’t know either, June.” I stand and kick around the shopping bags, looking for something to impress her. “That’s why we should have ice cream and find out.”
“Find out what?” She laughs.
“Whatever it is you need to know. Meet me and I promise you’ll have your answer before ten.” I pull a shirt out of the bag and smell it out of habit.
New shirts smell pretty damn good.
“Nothing weird?” she asks.
“I’ll get Oreo or peanut butter. Nothing weird like cinnamon or mocha.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know it’s not. Just walk out the door. Don’t overthink it.” I pull the phone away from my ear and shrug off my shirt.
“Fine,” she says.
Again, that unavoidable grin steals my face.