Chapter 42
Chapter Forty-Two
PotatoBake888: Okay … I know the movie pick for the night.
TheBakingChick: You know, eventually, I will be out of my depressive funk and want a turn picking the movies.
PotatoBake888: Right … I’ll believe it when I see it. Tonight, we watch You’ve Got Mail
TheBakingChick: No romcoms, remember?
PotatoBake888: But we have to watch You’ve Got Mail.
TheBakingChick: Why on earth would we have to watch that?
PotatoBake888: Because it is about two people who meet online and then meet in person.
M y heart stopped. Last night, I was too tired to watch a movie when I got home. I had messaged PotatoBake888 and told him I would talk to him tomorrow. Then I spent the day brainstorming how the hell to move forward. But my thoughts kept swinging back to Jared. I may have been prepared to revise my dream, but there wasn’t anything to do about Jared. Despite my best efforts to build a wall around my emotions—especially when it came to vacationers—he had weaseled his way in. Now here I was, devastated. PotatoBake888 was a nice distraction, but now I stared at the screen, panicking. What did I say to that? Was he saying he wanted to meet? Did I want to meet him? I had to ask what he meant, right? What if that wasn’t what he meant? I would look stupid asking. I shook my head. Why was I like this? Damn it. I was sick of being me!
TheBakingChick: Are you implying something?
I typed out and sent before I could second-guess it. It was time to stop being me. Just a little bit.
PotatoBake888: Maybe …
Jesus, those ellipses were going to kill me. I waited for him to finish his thought.
PotatoBake888: Alright, fine. I would like to meet you.
I blinked, my heart thudding uselessly in my chest. It had just been broken and now some random guy, well, not random at all. PotatoBake888 was kind of my best friend. A week ago, I would have died on the spot that he had suggested we met. Now, I hesitated? Because of Jared?
“Stop being stupid,” I said out loud to no one, which brought Mouse onto the desk with a little prrrpt. “Not you, Mouse. I should say yes, right?” I asked the cat who tried to roll on my keyboard before I moved him out of the way. “Okay, I’ll say yes. We can meet somewhere public. Then he can’t murder me.”
TheBakingChick: Okay. Let’s meet.
PotatoBake888: Took you long enough to respond. Almost gave me a heart attack.
TheBakingChick: Just wanted to make you sweat.
Even as I typed out the words, my own palms were sweaty with anxiety. This one week of my life was likely shaving off years of my life with all the stress.
PotatoBake888: You’re in Cape Shore?
TheBakingChick: Yep.
I didn’t remember if I had ever told him the specific beach I lived at, seems like a stupid move, but I must have.
PotatoBake888: Alright, let’s meet at the fudge place on the boardwalk.
That was probably public enough. But also took us dangerously close to the bakery. What if Jared saw us? Oh! What if Jared saw us! I would love to see his face when he saw me on a date. Now I had to make it happen.
PotatoBake888: How about tomorrow at twelve. If you don’t think I am a total weirdo, I can take you out to lunch.
TheBakingChick: Sounds good.
PotatoBake888: See you tomorrow.
I stared at those words for longer than was healthy. Was this a mistake? No matter how I imagined this going, it felt like the answer to that question was yes, of course it was. Still, even if this meeting crashed a burned, there was a potential silver lining. Maybe Jared’s ego could be taken down a notch by seeing me with a date, then it would all be well worth it. But I wasn’t sure my own ego, or fragile heart, could handle the pain of it not working.
When I finally closed the computer and got into bed, I stared at the ceiling as shadows danced in the dark. Excitement and terror mixed with utter confusion as I thought about meeting Pota toBake888. He was everything I wanted, and yet I couldn’t stop thinking about Jared. How had I gone from swearing off all romance to having two complicated men occupy all my thoughts?