Page 70 of Flirting with Forever

John just stared at Richie.

Richie glared back.

“Wow,” John eventually said. “I was gonna wait until she got back from Connecticut. But... I guess I’ll go call her?”

“Good.” Richie nodded his head, swiveled back to his desk and made several decisive swipes with his pen on whatever paper was in front of him.

John stepped out into the hallway and strode all the way down to the window at the end of the hall. Brooklyn sprawled out a few floors below. He watched people scurrying from place to place, guzzling water and trying to stay out of the blazingly direct sunlight.

“Hi,” Mary answered on the first ring.

“Hi,” he answered slowly, partly because his stomach was swooping and partly because she sounded different than she normally did. “I was going to wait to call you until you got back to Brooklyn. I didn’t want to interrupt your family time—”

“You’re not interrupting. I came home yesterday. Unexpectedly.”

He frowned. She sounded dull. Hurt. “Is everything all right?”

“Ugh. Yes. I just had a fight with my mother, and I needed to get back to reality before she got too far into my brain.”

“I’m sorry, Mary. I’ve definitely been there with my dad before.”

John wanted to know more. He wanted her to unload on him so that he could help carry some of the heaviness he could hear in her voice. But he had to be in court in twenty minutes, and he assumed that she was at work as well. Besides, maybe that was better done in person?

He took a deep breath.

“I was calling because I was hoping to see you this week. Are you free anytime? I could just pop by the shop.”

She paused, his stomach plummeted.

“Will you make me dinner instead?” she asked.

His stomach took off like a Fourth of July firework. He actually felt a little ill with how fast it swooped. Making someone dinner was a date-like thing to do.

“I know it’s presumptuous to invite myself over to your place,” she said. “But it’s been a hell of a couple weeks, and I just want a beer and something simple to eat, and I want to pet Ruth.”

John blinked. He...kind of couldn’t believe his ears? Because this was Mary Trace on the other end of the line. She was asking for Ruth. And for a simple meal. And his studio apartment. She was asking him for a whole lot of things that he could absolutely give her. What a freaking world.

“I—Yes. Of course. Anything.” He cleared his throat. “What day are you free?”

“Thursday.”

John felt a bite of disappointment. It was only Monday and that felt like an interminably long wait to him. He imagined a movie star happening into her shop tomorrow, falling in love with her on sight and whisking her away to Ibiza.

No. It was just three days. He could be patient. And besides, this was his moment. This was what Richie was talking about. John had an opportunity to tell Mary exactly what he was hoping to have happen between them. And that was all he could really do, lay it all out there for her. If he was lucky, she’d want something similar to what he wanted. But he was never going to know if he didn’t take this chance. If he didn’t treat Thursday like the stroke of heavenly opportunity that it really was. He could be bummed that he wasn’t going to see her for half a week, or he could treat this as if the cosmic cogs of kismet had all ticktocked into perfect sync in order to create this little window of a moment.

Thursday. Whatcouldn’thappen on a Thursday? Thursday was a gift from God.

“Perfect.” He checked his calendar. “Eight o’clock work for you?”

“It does.”

“See you then, Mary.”

“See you then, John.”

MARYHUNGUPthe phone and stared unseeingly down the cereal aisle.

“This ain’t your living room, honey,” a woman said at Mary’s shoulder, muscling past her with her grocery cart and giving Mary the stink eye for blocking the way.

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