Page 6 of Pick One
We got the sofa out to the truck without further incident, and both of us stayed silent on the ride back to my new place, which was not usual for me, but even the silence with John felt comfortable. It wasn’t until we arrived back at the lobby of my new building, with John carrying most of the weight of the sofa between us, that he finally broke the silence.
“Chips,” he said firmly.
“Chips?” I frowned. “Oh! Oh my gosh, you must be hungry. I am theworst.” I darted a glance back out the front door of the lobby, wondering where the closest convenience store was. “Let me buy you dinner. We can—”
“No.” John grinned and shook his head. “I mean your philosophical… whatever you call it. I was thinking about it on the way back here, and my answer is chips.”
I stared at him, shocked. He’d been pondering this all that time?
“The chips might seem like they’re plain without the guac,” John explained, like he thought maybe I was staring at him because I disagreed. “But really, that subtle flavor makes them versatile. A dependent variable, if you will. They don’tneedthe guac the way the guac needs them, which ultimately makes them better, as a food.”
He cleared his throat when I continued to stare at him and said nervously, “Or did I completely misunderstand the question?”
“No,” I whispered. “No, that’s… that’s the perfect answer.”
I could fall in love with this man, I thought.I might be falling already.
And six months from now, I could be moving this couch out ofhisapartment.
I forced myself to look away from him. “This is getting a little heavy, so maybe we could…”
“Oh, fuck. Right.” John snapped to attention. “Okay, let’s turn so you can go up first. You said you were upstairs?”
“Yeah, I— Actually, hang on. Can we set this down for a second?” I put the sofa down to shake out my hands, which were genuinely cramping. “I know it’s hard to tell from my incredibly defined musculature, but I don’t do heavy lifting all that often.”
“Believe it or not, neither do I. Not since I left my moms’ farm, anyway. I’m just built this way.” He winked, inviting me to share the joke. “To lift heavy things.”
But I didn’t find it funny. I grimaced. “About what Martin said—”
John waved a hand. “T, I couldn’t care less what that guy said, and neither should you. He cheated on you. He’s an idiot.”
The words were so simple but said with a confidence that soothed me. “Yes, well. I wasdeluded,which is every bit as bad. I fooled myself into seeing him as something he wasn’t. Into thinking we had a connection.”
John took a seat on the stairs and regarded me steadily. “Or it means that the Optimism Fairy gave you a gift for believing the best of people and situations, because life is hard enough, and it’d be even worse if you went through life expecting it to shit on you.”
My eyes flew to his. That was maybe the kindest thing anyone had ever said about me. And also…
“You, uh… you really heard thatwholespeech I gave Fern, huh?”
“Yep. Pretty sure.” His grin was probably supposed to be apologetic, but his sparkling eyes gave him away.
I sniffed. “You probably think it was veryextra—”
“Yeah, extra-awesome,” he interrupted. His steady brown gaze held mine. “People who don’t get that shouldn’t get to have you in their lives, Teagan. And let me just tell you, if I ever run into Martin at a coffee shop, I am one hundred percent not letting him cut me in line, no matter how long the wait is or how much of a hurry he’s in.”
I sputtered out a laugh… then realized he was serious.
Holy fuck, John Curran was a Disney princess in a snap-back hat.
And, even holier fuck, it was working for me in a major way.
“You’re so…nice,” I said, because it was the highest compliment I could think of. He was smart and he was funny, and his smile was perfection, but there was this feeling ofgoodnesscoming off the man that made me want to curl up beside him and bask in his warmth forever.
And I really, really hoped I wasn’t imagining it.
“Oh.” John’s smile faltered a little. “Yeah. Thanks. You, ah… you good to keep going?” He stood and dusted his hands before tilting his chin up the stairs.
I smacked my forehead. “Jeez. Yeah, otherwise I’ll keep you here all night. Let’s go. Two more flights.”
