Page 40 of The Goat in the Bedroom
She let out a laugh that was half sob. “This is a disaster. He's so nice and confident and completely unfazed by me being a giant next to him, and I'm ruining everything.”
“You're perfect.” I swallowed hard. “I mean, you're doing perfect. You're fine. You're doing perfectly fine.”
“Puck seems nice,” she said weakly.
“All I can think every time I look at him is that he's like a cute little meerkat. This is insane. We're both terrible at this.”
“The worst,” she agreed, looking up at me.
My eyes dropped to her lips. I leaned in slightly...
Someone banged on the bathroom door from inside. “Other people need to pee. Stop having your crisis in the bathroom.”
“We should...” Artie gestured vaguely toward the dining room.
“Yeah.”
We walked back to find Rob and Puck deep in conversation, completely oblivious to our return. Rob was showing Puck something on his phone, both of them leaning in close.
“You've done base jumping in New Zealand?” Rob was enthralled with Puck.
“Six times. Have you done the Nevis Bungy?”
“Next month, I'm going for my birthday.”
“Oh my god, I'll be there next month for a yoga retreat. We should totally jump together.”
Rob suddenly noticed we were back. “Oh. Hey... so this is awkward but...”
Puck bounced in his seat. “Could we maybe switch? Rob's literally my dream man. He teaches aerial stunts.”
“And he does aerial yoga,” Rob added. “We're already planning to go skydiving tomorrow.”
“We could do a tandem jump,” Puck suggested, batting his eyes at him.
“Or side by side. I have my own rig.”
“That's so hot,” Puck sighed.
Artie and I looked at each other, then said in perfect unison, “Check, please.”
Twenty minutes later, after I paid the check, we were walking to our cars. Rob and Puck were a few feet behind us, making actual concrete plans to throw themselves out of a perfectly good airplane together.
“Did our dates just... date each other?” Artie asked.
“I think we're so bad at this, we created a rom-com for other people.”
“You're right. I think I saw this in an old movie once.”
Rob and Puck exchanged knowing looks, then gave us a wave and climbed into Rob's Jeep together, already discussing which skydiving location had the best views. Sloane and her camera crew headed out as well after deeming the evening ‘a thing that definitely happened’ and she muttered something under her breath about saving what she could.
Artie and I stood in the parking lot, alone finally, the weight of the evening's disaster settling over us.
“You know what?” Artie said suddenly. “Flynn and Tempest are expecting a full report. We might as well go commiserate with people who actually like us.”
“Strawberry margaritas?”
“And that non-dairy ice cream Tempest hides from Flynn.”
