Chapter Ten #3
“He loves peacoats,” I add, smiling at Giovanna and letting some of my smugness shine through. “ Loves them. We’ll be back soon to see what you have available for the fall season.”
We leave soon after that. We’ve already got plenty of video of us in the clothes, but also because Giovanna is now using the fitting room tablet to eagerly show James every single peacoat available, and even I have my limits of how long I can watch him be tormented.
James waits until we’re out of the store and into the relatively small bustle of the mall before he leans over and pinches my upper arm.
“Um, ow, ” I say. “What was that for?”
“You little fiend, ” James says. “You threw me under the bus back there.”
“Excuse me,” I say, rubbing my arm. “I think what you mean to say is, Thank you, girlfriend-of-mine, for distracting the bejeweled lady long enough for me to escape without her writing her phone number in lipstick on my forehead. ”
“That’s not a thing,” James says. “And this whole thing was your idea, so really you are obligated to get me out of awkward encounters, because I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you.”
I smile up at him sweetly. “Did you get that in writing? I don’t seem to remember me saving your ass being a contractual obligation.”
James snorts and rolls his eyes as a group of teenagers sprint around us laughing and egging one another on toward what I can only assume is the food court by the heavy smell of burgers and Cinnabon that grows stronger with our every step.
“William would take Arabella to a fancy restaurant,” James says as I beeline us toward a pizza place that sells slices as large as my head.
“It’s Italian,” I point out. “So that still counts for something, right?”
James raises an eyebrow as I grab a tray and get a slice of cheese pizza and one with different cheese.
“You’re picking cheese on purpose, aren’t you. Because you know I can’t stand it.”
“Who can’t stand cheese ? Were you locked in a delicatessen or something? Lactose-intolerant?”
James shrugs. “Don’t know,” he says. “Maybe I just don’t like foods that can sweat and foods in which it is acceptable— desirable, even—to eat moldy versions.”
“Oh yes, thanks for that,” I say, smiling to the worker behind the counter. “Can I actually get some blue cheese dip as well, please? Thanks.”
James visibly shudders next to me.
“It’s a food court,” I remind him, giving him a small shove with my shoulder. “Go get something else if this offends your delicate, wrong sensibilities.”
We convene at a small table that overlooks the ground floor of the mall. Half of a slice is already gone when James sits across from me with a taco salad and…
I gasp.
“Traitor,” I say. “You got dessert without me? How dare you.”
“It’s to split, ” James insists. “Who can eat a whole Cinnabon on their own?”
“Gifted people,” I say, taking a bite of pizza. “People who aren’t quitters. People who don’t hate cheese. ”
James nudges the box between us. “What if we split this one and I buy you one to take home?”
“Now you’re talking.”
We eat in silence for a while after that, both of us angled so we can watch the people roaming in and out of the Lego Store directly beneath us. James laughs when a boy comes out with a bag twice as big as his body, refusing help from his grown-up.
“ Star Wars build,” James says. “Willing to bet my half of the cinnamon roll on it.”
I take a slurp of my Coke. “Too bad we will never know.”
Like I’ve commanded it with my doubt—or, my brain whispers, like magic—the boy’s bag slips from his hand and tilts over to reveal the edge of a Millennium Falcon set.
I haven’t thought about magic much lately.
There’s been too much to do between recording and still hunting for publishing jobs.
I’m applying to everything: production, editorial, marketing, and even the few sales jobs I’ve seen.
But despite the new addition to my résumé of being an audiobook narrator for the Meadow series… nothing.
When I whine-texted to Serena about it, she reminded me it had only been a few weeks, that these things took time.
But I don’t have time. I need to know if I’m going to have work so that I can confidently move to New York City and pay exorbitant amounts for an apartment that is no bigger than a Texas walk-in closet.
Even with my chunk of change from this project, it’s going to be a stretch.
Maybe an impossible one, which makes my stomach twist around the pizza just to think about. Even if my stomach was already contorting as I claw and careen toward a future that Mom would be enthusiastic about but that I find myself becoming more and more ambivalent toward.
“Told you,” James says, and I’m brought back to the present with the bustling mall and the eager little boy, who we watch walk off hand in hand with his dad, the Lego bag with its Millennium Falcon secured to his father’s much taller, stronger arm. “Looks like I still get to eat my half.”
“You earned it,” I joke, but my voice comes out slightly hollow, and James notices.
He raises an eyebrow.
“Don’t,” I say.
“Don’t what?”
“Ask me what’s wrong,” I say, folding my empty paper plate in half. “It’s stupid. And you’re being nice and playing along and I don’t want to ruin everything.”
“Ruin what, exactly?”
“The vibes,” I say. “They’re good vibes.”
James is quiet for a while, his eyes leaving me to train on the people below us again.
He might not be watching me, but I’m watching him.
His eyebrows are scrunched, and his always sharp jaw looks more approachable when he’s actively chewing his salad.
It’s easy, I realize, to see why James Neely’s father and manager and the powers that be in Hollywood want to make him the next big thing. He has the look.
It’s not just that he’s handsome, but there’s a depth to him in the shadows at the corners of his eyes that suggests emotional intelligence, a way he holds his mouth when he’s quiet that hints at careful thoughts rather than an empty slate.
He’s like one of those paintings whose subjects follow you with their eyes: eerily knowing.
It stays food-court-easy between James and me. It doesn’t evaporate on the walk to the parking lot, on the car ride in which I hijack his phone to play the first Meadow soundtrack through his speakers, or even when we pull up to Dad’s house and James kills the engine.
I do, however, feel suddenly shy in a way that makes me want to punch my brain. We are in our thirties, I remind it. No sense in becoming a blushing teenager just because your fake-boyfriend co-worker is making his way around the car to open the door for you.
But I feel my cheeks heat a little all the same, especially when James opens the door and stands there in an expectant way, like he’s deciding whether or not to tell me something.
“What is it?” I ask point-blank.
James looks down at me as he leans forward to brace himself against the car.
“I have meetings out of town this week.” When he sighs, I feel his breath on my face. “I won’t be in the studio at all.”
“Oh,” I say. “That’s…well, that’s unfortunate.” I jerk my eyes up to his. “For the social media stuff, I mean. I was hoping we could do another live Q and A now that people think we’re…Now that we’re…”
The words keep getting stuck in my throat, and why, why am I suddenly, irrationally, completely stuck on the fact that James won’t be here?
The foreknowledge that he’ll be gone feels weighty and wrong and makes the whole week feel bleak.
And it really does mess with my plans for recording more videos.
“I’ll be back Thursday, technically,” James says. “Late.”
“Okay,” I say, and I resist the urge to drop my gaze again even though the weight of his full attention is crushing and absolute. “Um. I guess have a nice trip?”
“I won’t.”
“You can’t know that,” I say, laughing.
“Can, too,” James says. Does he lean closer to me or is it just my overactive imagination again? “It’s going to be a series of small miseries, but then it will be over and I’ll be back.”
I reach behind me to grab the box containing the full Cinnabon bun and wiggle it just under James’s nose.
“Come back with another idea for a social media post and maybe try to not be miserable on your trip, and I’ll buy you one of these,” I promise.
James snorts.
“Deal,” he says. “But no guarantees. My dad…” He hesitates. Starts again. “My father is not like yours.”
I’m bold in the growing darkness. “How so?”
“For one,” James says, raising his eyes above my head, “my father has never once peeked through the curtains to watch me come home from a date.”
I turn around in my seat just in time to see the curtain fall back into place.
“ Dad! ” I call. “We can see you!”
The curtain moves aside again, but instead of Dad’s face, I see a duster. A feather duster. I didn’t even know he had one of those.
When Dad does appear a second later, he waves cheerily at us and yells, “Hi, kids!” through the window. “Just cleaning up in here!”
I groan.
“Take me to your meetings,” I beg James. “I’ll be quiet and I won’t drink a single beverage so there won’t be a risk of spillage.”
James is still hovering above me, and the nearness of him is something I still don’t want to consider because it’s not on the list. We are not really dating.
“I wish I could.”
He says it so quietly— so quietly that I’m not sure I heard it right. I’m not sure he muttered coherent words at all. But it’s what my head tells me to hear, and my cheeks react accordingly.
I’m saved from a reply by Dad throwing open the door and turning on the porch light.
“Hey, kids!”
James steps back and I slide to the ground in one movement as if we had choreographed the moment…except for the thump of the cinnamon roll box as it falls from my hand to the ground, lying icing-down on the gravel.
Because of course it does.
“At least it didn’t land on your shirt,” James says, bending down to clean up the mess before straightening to wave at my dad.
“Good night, Mr. Green,” he says.