Page 20 of Merritt and Her Childhood Crush
Hunter and I take sips of coffee at the same time, mirror images of avoidance. Or maybe not avoidance exactly. I stare into his unreadable, chocolate-brown eyes. There’s a sense of anticipation here that makes me think we’re more like the picture right beside the dictionary definition ofdelay.
FIVE
Hunter
“So,what kind of tile did you have in mind?” I ask. “Travertine? Porcelain? Marble? Saltillo?”
Merritt and I have moved to the big house, where I’m taking more enjoyment than I probably should in messing with her. The woman clearly has zero knowledge of tile. But what she lacks in knowledge, she makes up for in a stubborn refusal to admit that she wanted to discuss somethingelselast night. I’m not even sure Merritt knows which tile is on backorder—it’s for the kitchen backsplash—or that some of the ones I’m suggesting aren’t even the correct material or style.
“Porcelain,” she answers decisively.
Good guess. I was hoping she would say Saltillo, which is a porous tile best suited to hacienda-style flooring. It definitely wouldn’t fit with the aesthetic Lo chose. Or work for a backsplash of any kind.
Pulling the pencil from behind my ear, I scrawl downporcelain. I don’t need the note. I just need something to do with my hands. And something to look at other than Merritt’s face, which I’m finding is no less alluring to me than it was years ago.
Maybe evenmorealluring. Because now, there’s mystery. There are gaps in my knowledge of the woman before me. She’s familiar, yet foreign. The same, but so very different. And it feels incrediblynecessarythat I identify the differences and similarities between the girl I knew and the woman who’s little more than a stranger. I am Sherlock Holmes, and she is my most beguiling case. One I feel compelled to crack.
“How about the pattern?” I ask. “Square-set? Subway? Herringbone? Basketweave? Offset vertical?”
Merritt clears her throat, glancing around the room like she’s going to find a cheat sheet defining these terms printed on the wallpaper.No help there, Merritt.Just a funky palm leaf print Lo insisted is the next hot thing. I don’t get it. But it’s not my job to get it; I just install it.
“Maybe …” Merritt trails off, clearly trying to look thoughtful.
Instead, she kind of looks constipated. I bite the inside of my cheek and press the tip of the pencil so hard into my paper it makes a dent. This game shouldn’t be so much fun. But in addition to figuring her out, I have a seemingly unquenchable desire to fluster this new, harder version of Merritt.
Am I trying to shake loose the younger, less rigid Merritt from my memories? Perhaps.
What if she doesn’t still exist?
That question makes me swallow hard. Because some part of me desperately needs to believe that Merritt hasn’t lost the qualities I love in her.
Loved, I remind myself.Past tense. VERY past tense.
“How about chevron?” I ask. “Diamond? Versailles?”
Her eyes narrow and laser in on me.
Okay—I might have pushed too far. Merritt is done pretending. I watch the shift in her expression like it’s the morning sun cresting the horizon, chasing away the velvet night sky. There is nothing unsure aboutthisMerritt, and I shouldn’t find it so sexy.
She points a finger at me. The ruby red polish on her nails is just starting to chip. “I know what you’re doing.”
With exaggerated casualness, I lean back against the counter. I am the literal picture of innocence. Move over, newborn babies. You’ve got nothing on me.
“And what am I doing?”
“Teasing me. Messing with me.”
I shrug. “You said you wanted to discuss tile. In fact, you were so dead-set on discussing tile that you called me late last night. So—here we are. Discussing tile.”
Tile—not all the other things she brought up last night. Things that awakened a whole mess of feelings and memories I can’t seem to shake.
I dreamed of Merritt last night—that’s how bad it is. Her laughter, echoing through a dark cavern I stumbled through, chasing glimpses of a girl with wild, dark hair and paint smeared across her cheeks.
“Are those all even tile patterns or are you making things up?” she asks, clearly disbelieving.
“Those are all tile patterns.”
She deflates. “Oh.”
