Chapter 11 Now
I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. I haven’t slept well the past few nights, since the Holidays in July event.
It’s taken me an eternity to fall asleep, and once I do, I’ve managed only a handful of hours before startling awake from a deeply hot sex dream about Alex, heart pounding, drenched in sweat, my body on the sharp-sweet edge of release.
After three days of this nonsense, I am wiped out and on frazzled, and not even being at The Bookshop today can make me happy.
Ro, a fellow staff member, comes in through the back door wearing a blush that jumps against their freckled skin and a dreamy smile that tells me their lunch break second date went just as well as their first.
When they see me, the smile drops from their face. “You’re still here?”
“Nice to see you, too,” I tell them. Shifting on my desk chair in the staff room, I wince. Everything hurts.
Ro rakes back the short-cropped strawberry-blond curls that fall into their eyes. “You said you were going to go home to rest.”
“After I got this under control,” I tell them. “Almost there, and then I’ll be gone, promise.”
Ro sighs. “I’m sorry I panic-called. I feel awful that you’ve spent the entire day here, and you weren’t scheduled to.”
I glance their way. “Don’t be sorry, Ro. That’s on me—I didn’t walk you through what to do when this happens.”
“Yeah, but I could have called Fern instead of bugging you.”
The desktop dings with another disgruntled customer email. I click it open and start to type my now-memorized response. “Good luck getting ahold of her,” I mutter.
Ro frowns. “She has been, like, oddly absent lately, hasn’t she?”
It’s comforting to know that it’s not all in my head, that I’m not the only one who’s thought Fern has been scarce.
She hasn’t shown in the office since the event, hasn’t reached out or said a word about it.
Even before that, over the past month, she’s been dodgy about coming in or talking on the phone.
I should reach out to her and check in—about her absence, the event, the business proposal I’ve been waiting for the perfect time to put on her desk.
Except between the tension with Alex and this impending “vacation” and my horrible sleep, I’m so fried and anxious, I have no confidence I’ll do any of those things well—most of all, the business proposal—and there’s a lot riding on my doing that well.
And Alex, the one person I want to talk to about it, is being just as elusive as my boss.
I expected that, after our flirty antics done in the name of scaring off Kate. That’s what we do, when we veer off the friendship-only path—we go quiet for a couple days, or we stay chatty but avoid the topic.
Or, in my case, have highly detailed, very horny dreams three nights in a row inspired by our latest inadvertent, dangerously lusty detour.
Ro opens their locker and drops their belt bag and Bike da ’Burgh water bottle inside. “Do you think Fern’s sick or something?”
I freeze, hands hovering over the keyboard. That possibility never occurred to me. I’d just assumed I’d done something—or hadn’t done enough—to inspire Fern’s distance.
“I hope not,” I finally manage.
“Yeah,” Ro says. “Me, too.” They shut their locker door gently, then head out of the staff room to the front of the store.
Another email featuring a grumpy customer headline pings the inbox. The vision for how my day was supposed to go flits through my mind—curled up with Argos on his fluffy doggy bed and Charmaine Wilkerson’s new release.
I sigh heavily. “I need a real vacation.”
Hailey, our fresh-out-of-college new hire and the reason I dragged myself to work today rather than curled up on my couch with a good book, pops her head into the staff room. She’s still humming with nervous, guilty energy.
“How’s it going?” she chirps. “Need another coffee?”
“Going okay. And no, I’m all caffeined out. Thank you, though.”
Her nervous gaze darts between the computer and me. “Need anything else?”
“Nope. I’m heading out for the day. But if Fern comes in before closing, would you text to let me know?”
Color drains from her face. “Is Ms. Holloway coming in?”
“Not that I know of,” I tell her, eyes back on the computer screen as I crank out one last email response to a disgruntled customer. “Just wanted to be notified if she does.”
Hailey nods. “Okay! Of course!”
Once she’s gone, I let out a heavy sigh, stand, and stretch. A miserable groan leaves me.
I’m halfway to the staff door exit when my phone buzzes. I pull it from my overalls pocket, glance at the screen, and smile as I answer.
“That’s a pretty fancy outfit for a run, Lo.”
Lauren’s behind the wheel of what looks to be the latest rental sports car, in her usual corporate-chic attire. Hair swept up into a tight chignon, eyes hidden behind Manhattan sunglasses, her look today is very Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. If Holly Golightly had road rage.
Lauren slams on the horn and yells, “Asshole!” She darts a glance my way, then back to the road. “Sorry about that. As you can see, I’m running late for our buddy-run. Why are you in real clothes? Are you at work?”
“Not anymore.” I shut the staff door behind me and start across the gravel parking lot.
“I thought you were off today.”
“I was.”
Lauren glances my way again, a notch of concern in her ordinarily wrinkle-free brow. “I feel like there’s a story there.”
“A long one.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Maybe once we start our run, if I can talk while running, which, knowing the pace you make me run, I probably won’t.”
She grins evilly. “You like my grueling pace.”
“Oh sure. I love it. Maybe I’ll get started on the run now so I can take it easy but still finish when you do. I probably could run in what I’m wearing.”
“Let me guess,” Lauren says. “Stretchy overalls and Birkenstocks.”
“Bingo.”
She sighs. “One day, I’ll get you to wear more flattering footwear.”
“You’ll never take away my ’stocks.”
Lauren smiles. “At least I convinced you to invest in decent running shoes.”
“Which I’ve broken in nicely the past couple months. If I wasn’t so sleep-deprived, I’d say this three-miler is going to be a breeze.”
“That, and it’s eighty-five-percent humidity in Pittsburgh right now. This swamp weather makes runs miserable.”
“Way to sell it, Lo.” I frown. “Wait, how do you know it’s eighty-five-percent humidity here?”
Lauren pauses for a beat, then says, “I checked the weather app. Drink lots of water before you head out, young lady.”
I roll my eyes. “Long-distance friendship has turned you into such a mom.”
“Deal with it,” she says. Then she blows me a kiss. “I’m going to sign off so I can focus on getting around all these slowpokes. Good if we push back our run by a half hour?”
“Perfect.” I mime starting to jog slowly. “I’ll get a head start. And you’ll drive safe, right, speed demon?”
She cackles deviously. “Please. That’s as likely as your giving up Birkenstocks.”
I’m hiding in a patch of shade as I stretch my quads, on the edge of the pedestrian and bike path beside PNC ballpark, my usual starting point for my runs along the Allegheny River.
“This,” I tell Lauren, “is going to suck.” I try to wedge my earbuds in tighter. They already feel like they’re about to slip out, I’m so sweaty.
“It’s disgustingly humid,” she agrees.
I frown. “In San Francisco?”
“Nope,” she says.
Squinting, I rub my forehead. I could have sworn she was still in San Francisco, dealing with the new client from hell. “Then where are you?”
“Surprise,” she says coyly.
My head snaps up, searching the path, just as a woman rounds the bend. Short dark hair tugged back. Long, willowy limbs. A wide, bright white smile.
I run toward Lauren, screaming so loud, the geese perched on the grass nearby startle into the sky.
“Oh my god,” I pant. “I’m gonna die.”
“Mm-hmm,” Lauren says, fiddling with her fitness watch, “me, too.”
I stumble onto the grassy hillside in front of the ballpark and flop down, our vicious three-mile loop complete. “Did I hallucinate you? You look real, but you’re not even winded, which is impossible.”
She rolls her eyes. “I’m not a hallucination. I’m here, in person, because my best friend’s having a tough time, and I now have enough professional boundaries to take a day off and fly in so I could be here for her.”
I pat her foot. “You’re the best. And the worst. You made me run so fast.”
“It’s good for you,” she says, eyes back on her watch.
“At least,” I tell her between gasps of air, starfished on the grass, “I think I’ll finally sleep well tonight.”
Lauren peers down at me, head tipped in concern. “You sound like a dehydrated camel.”
I lift my middle finger to the air.
“Come on,” she says, offering me a hand. “I’m parked in the lot right up those steps. I have a bottle of water in the car.”
I slap my hand into hers and let her yank me upright.
Lauren says as we walk, “So, you’re not sleeping well.”
“Too much on my mind. Weird dreams. I keep waking up after four, five hours of sleep.”
“Sounds like you need to get laid.”
I glance at her sharply. “Lauren. I’ve told you, unless you live through what Alex and I did, you will never understand why it will be a cold day in hell before I ever use a dating app again.”
“There are other ways to get laid.” She lifts her hands. “And I won’t bring up the obvious solution of banging Hot Chef. There are lots of scenarios that could lead to hookups for casual sex.”
“Not for me. I’m a homebody bookworm whose social life consists of Banjo Night at the Elks and monthly euchre tournaments with my ladies’ choir.”
“Once again, my deepest grief that you are straight. If you weren’t, that would be incredibly fertile ground for sapphic hookups,” Lauren says.
A sad laugh leaves me. “True.”
“So what’s going on?” she asks.