Page 48 of Finding Jack
“Couple years, I guess.”
The answer startled me. I’d expect to see his own style in there somewhere after so long. Not that I knew what his style was, but he’d already said it wasn’t this.
“What about you?” he asked. “How long have you been in San Francisco?”
“I’ve been in the Bay Area for about ten years. I came up for college, and I’ve been around ever since.”
“Up? San Francisco is not up. Oregon is up.”
“Up from the suburbs of LA. Everything is relative.”
“Should we have a deep discussion about that? Relativism?”
“I mean, sure. Is this because we’ve veered into boring cocktail party talk?” It bothered me a little that he wanted to shift the conversation so quickly, but I couldn’t figure out why. It had definitely been small talk. People always say “small talk” like it was a bad thing, but at the same time, those things added together gave a true picture of a person, not walks through London and Rome.
“It is,” he said. “But it’s a me thing, not a you thing. I’d love to know all of this stuff about you, but it’s not fair to ask you to share all that stuff when I’m not willing to.”
For a minute, I wanted to blurt, “Let’s play Scrabble!” because here we were, three minutes into this conversation and already I had the perfect opening to bring up the most premature and awkward define-the-relationship talk EVER. And I didn’t want to do it. I’d rather just goof off, but Ranée’s words were sticking with me. Stupid Ranée.
“Why is that uncomfortable for you?” I asked instead of taking the easy road. I waited for some internal glow of satisfaction at having done the “grown-up” thing. It didn’t come, unless it felt like my stomach clenching while I waited for his answer. This whole situation was suddenly a thousand percent less fun than the clever DMs and texts we’d been exchanging.
“Shady past? Problems with emotional intimacy? Desperate need to project an air of mystery to hide how boring I am? Which one of those answers is good enough to get me off the hook and keep this conversation going?” He gave me a tight smile, the kind that said he knew none of the answers were good enough.
I rested my chin in my palm and studied him. After a few seconds, he imitated me, only he crossed his eyes, and I laughed.
“This is a weird situation,” I said, deciding to stick with the grown-up thing. “We’re not dating, but—”
“Wait, isn’t that exactly what we’re doing right now? We’re on a date, and unless I’m way off, we’re about to have a talk about definitions.” His expression and tone were mellow, maybe slightly amused.
“It sounds dumb when you say it like that,” I said.
“What? No.” Now he looked as if I’d told him we needed to speak only in Swahili. “It’s good. Why not talk about it? If we lived in the same town and went on these dates in person, we probably wouldn’t need to discuss any of this stuff for a while. But we’re not, and so it makes sense that we have this conversation in a different order too.”
“I guess I just want to be sure we’re…” I stopped.
“We’re what?” He leaned toward the camera slightly, as if it would put us closer.
“This is fun. The texts and DMs and now this.” I pointed back and forth between us to indicate the video call. “And it could be this forever and ever and I’d be happy with it.”
“Forever and ever?” He held up his hands in a “settle down” gesture. “I don’t know you well enough for forever and ever.”
It made me laugh again. “I mean that I’m fine with us just having a virtual friendship.”
“Friendship?Come on, this is at least a flirtation.”
“All right, flirtation. I’m fine with a virtual flirtation indefinitely.” It was true. Going back and forth with him in any medium had become a bright spot in each day, but I wasn’t into the idea of a long-distance relationship with a person I hadn’t met, would never meet, and even if I did meet…what was the point? I wasn’t moving. I didn’t expect him to, either.
“Indefinitely.” He scratched his nose. It was adorable. “All right. I accept your terms. An indefinite virtual flirtation.”
I nodded. I wasn’t sure what else to do. It was so official sounding that it seemed like we should shake hands.
I held up my hand to the camera. “High five to seal it?”
He held up his hand too and we high-fived.
Okay. So we were in agreement. It was exactly what I wanted.
So how come I felt disappointed?
