Page 53 of Finding Jack
My phone buzzed again. Another text from Jack. “Yeah. It was. But I’m lining up other ones. Got lunch with an architect soon.”
She shook her head as she dug through the fruit bowl.
I opened the text and blinked at it. “Ranée? How did Jack get this picture?”
She froze. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The fact that she hadn’t even turned around to see what I meant told me she knew exactly what I was talking about. It was the “Good choice?” picture I’d sent her of my shoes before the coffee date, only Jack had Photoshopped an ankle bracelet of Scrabble tiles onto it. The tiles spelled, “Great choice.”
I got up and set it on top of the fruit bowl in front of her. She studied it, then moved it to the counter and plucked out an apple.
“You don’t have anything to say for yourself?” I asked.
She took a loud bite of her apple.
“What am I supposed to think about this? Is it supposed to be charming? Or stalkerish?”
Her eyes widened and she spit her mouthful of apple in the sink. “Not stalkerish. I sent it to him to motivate him. I said you were going on a date, and he should Photoshop it so you would know he didn’t care. It was supposed to make him care enough to tell you not to go.”
I groaned. “We’ve reached an uncomfortable level of weirdness.”
She winced. “I know. That’s my fault. But that’s on me again, not him. I swear I’ll stay out of it.” And then she slunk out of the door.
Now I had to figure out what I was supposed to say to Jack. It wasn’t any of his business whether I was going on other dates, but if I didn’t answer it would turn into an awkward text silence. Yet it bugged me that he was so chill about me going on another date. It felt like a dig.
I made no sense. I knew it. But I also knew what I wanted to say back.
Thanks!
There. Boundaries enforced.
Chapter 21
Thursday I set out for a lunch date with an architect named Reza. He spent half the meal talking about how much he liked women in high heels. And sandals. And wedges. And flats. I declined dessert and deleted his profile on the grounds that I suspected he’d picked me for the wrong reasons.
Saturday I ended up getting coffee and bagels with a physical therapist named Martin. The only red flag was that we kept having long silences that neither of us could fill. It maybe wouldn’t have been such a big deal except I had conversations with Jack to compare it to.
Jack.
The one thing I did not have over the weekend was a date with him, and when I got home from boring coffee, Ranée had something to say about it. She was stretched out on the living room floor, flipping through a recipe magazine, but she sat up when I walked in.
“Coffee Martin is too quiet.” I hung up my handbag and debated whether to get some work done next or do some cleaning.
Netflix. Netflix was obviously the correct answer.
“Please tell me you’re doing something with Jack tonight.”
“I’m not.”
“Ugh. Why are you being so stubborn?”
I glared at her. “I’m not.”
“You are, or you wouldn’t be going on lame dates.”
I plopped down on the sofa. “I’m not being stubborn. Jack just hasn’t asked me out.”
“Did my grandmother burn her bra in the Elko courthouse so you could wait for a guy to ask you out?Youaskhimout.”
