Page 16 of Dream a Little Dream

I spent another half hour on the floor, greeting guests and checking in with my employees. Three full-time and a handful of part-timers. Morale seemed to be high, which was always nice to see. I wanted the store to be a bright spot in the day for everyone who came through, not just the customers, and did what I could to be present and a good listener.

Maya, one of my full-timers, was the youngest on staff and also taking classes twice a week at the local college. “Jason asked me to dinner when I was swiping his eggs.”

Anywhere else and that would have been a weird sentence. In a grocery store, and with Maya, it made all the sense. I folded my arms and grinned. Jason was the mayor’s son, and she’d obsessed about him for months. I knew Jason’s favorite shirt. The different versions of his smile. I was aware of how often he was absent on Thursdays. The two of them had a chemistry class together and apparently had a little of their own.

“You could be Mrs. Mayor’s Son, Maya. I love that for you. Is this dinner happening?” We were in the midst of a lull and stood near the registers where we most often would shoot the small-town breeze.

“I don’t know. That’s the problem. I froze,” she said, green eyes wide. “I told him I’d have to check my work schedule.”

“No, you don’t. I clear you to dine with Jason. Tell me when and we’ll cover your shift if you’re on.”

“Yeah, we will,” Henrietta called from her register. As the seniorcashier and a woman in her sixties, Henrietta had been with the store for over two decades and had seen it all and wanted you to know it. “I’m not busy that night. I’ll put in the time in the name of young lust.”

“We haven’t scheduled anything yet,” Maya pointed out.

Henrietta shrugged. “I’m not busy any night. It’s just my life to not be busy.”

“Text him and tell him you’re in,” I said, with a soft touch to her shoulder.

She stared me down with fiery intensity. “You really think I should take this leap?”

“Maya, he’s all you talk about. What Jason wore to class. How maybe, when he smiled at you, it meant he really wanted to kiss you. This is your chance to find out.” I knew a little something about longing to find out and used it to usher young Maya forward on her quest to find love.

“Okay, okay. I’m gonna do it. But”—she held up an emphatic finger—“I’m gonna wait an hour.”

“That’s fair,” I said. “Whatever you feel most comfortable with. You be super vibey. Low key. Isn’t that what the kids do these days instead of chill?” I wasn’t low key. I had no rizz. I barely understood what the words meant.

“Eager is not your friend, sweet girl.” Henrietta nodded in agreement. She was the romance novel reader in our group, with an ever-changing stack in her employee locker at any given point. The saucy kind, too. “Wait two. Make him squirm. I just read a book by Genevieve Haughton and her heroine played hard to get half the book and it paid off in really hot spades.” She fanned herself. “As in naked spades.”

“No, I think we translated,” I told Henrietta. I knew nothing about the games dating people played, preferring to be more of a straight shooter myself. Maybe my naïveté was why I hadn’t seen a ton of success in my own love life. Well,yet. I brought my shoulders to my ears at the prospect of that possibly changing with a very certain date approaching on the calendar very soon.

“Okay,” Maya said tentatively. “I think I’m gonna do it. But you’re gonna have to look at my outfit choices and tell me which is giving happy to be here but also don’t get too comfortable.”

“Easy enough,” I said with a smile. “I’m such an outfit pro. God, I wish people would stop pointing out how I excel at all things fashion. I mean, look at these brown boots whose brand I don’t remember.”

“They slay,” Maya offered.

I really liked these people. My friends. “I think that’s good. Gonna pretend, either way, because my ego demands it.”

I spent my lunch hour at my desk in the small office on the back wall of the store. I went over last week’s inventory shifts and put in the order for the following week. Tracking buying trends, especially how they related to weather patterns and changing seasons, was the most fascinating part of my job. For example, our lemonades and cold drink mixes sold much faster in the summer than in the colder months, and my ordering tendencies would always reflect that. In the midst of numbers, apps, spreadsheets, and orders, I tried not to hyper-fixate on the weekend ahead. When I did allow myself to imagine meeting Kyle on that bridge, it sent me on a daydream tangent, smashing my productivity like a gnat with no chance. Nope. I certainly wouldn’t think about the snacks I’d purchased for the roadtrip to Charleston, or the playlist I’d curated with the general thesisGood things are coming.No reason to dwell on the room I’d booked at the very same hotel where I’d met Kyle the year before. Or the suspension bridge we were scheduled to meet in the middle of in just five short days. But I was apparently powerless, because the excitement infiltrated my system anyway, elevating my heart rate and making me squirm in my chair with bonus, happy energy.

Kyle was near all I’d thought about for twelve straight months, and the possibility that maybe my own happily ever after was finally on its way.

“C’mon. You’re legit telling me that you’ve both kept your word and haven’t contacted each other even once?” Jonathan had asked the night before from the corner seat of my new perfectly beige sectional. It was too big for one person living alone. But you know what? Maybe that wouldn’t always be the case. At the very least, I could entertain more, now that I was embracing the space.

“No. I promise. There’s been zero reaching out either direction, which I admit was hard at first, but then I started to appreciate the romance in waiting.”

“It’s certainly a unique approach.” He squinted. “Not even a DM?”

I shook my head, enjoying his skepticism. “She has one social media account and doesn’t touch it.” I shrugged sheepishly. “I mean, I had to at least look.”

“Well, yeah, you did.” He sat forward, still incredulous. His hair, which he’d grown longer this year, flopped onto his forehead. I likedthe way he used it to express himself. “How could you not? This whole thing is very hard to wrap my mind around. Guys would never do this. We don’t have the patience for delayed gratification. Kudos to lesbiankind.”

I laughed. “On behalf of the others, thank you for the nod. I happen to think good things are worth waiting for.”

He eased his feet to the side so I could take my customary seat.

“If this all works out, it might be a great story to tell one day.”

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