Page 72 of Finding Jack
I spit out my tea. “Oh, man. That is so much better than anything I thought you were going to say.”
“It’s not funny,” she said, handing me a napkin so I could mop up the tea on my shirt.
“I’m living for this.” I switched to Sandra Bullock’s singsong taunt fromMiss Congeniality.“You like him, you want to kiss him.”
She disappeared into her arm cave again.
“You want him to corner you in a stable and smooch your face off.”
Her head shot up. “No, I want him to ask me politely if I’m okay with him kissing me.”
“All right, fair enough. Yay, consent.”
“But then I want to drag him into the corner of the stable and kiss him.”
I burst out laughing. “Not to make it weird or anything, but it’s definitely worth it.”
“You really don’t mind?”
“No. You know I don’t dwell on exes. When I move on, it’s for a reason, so I’m fine with letting the past go. This one was even easier because you distracted me with Jack.” I gasped. “Was this all a plot to steal Paul away from me?”
“Yes. Em. I somehow knew that Paul would show up at the barn where I volunteer and suddenly act and talk like a totally different person, so I plotted against you in the most genius romantic sabotage ever.”
“You’d be smart enough to do something like that. And to, oh, say, put into motion a complicated plan involving a cheesy romance cover hero and a handsome Photoshop expert with a man bun.”
“Fine. You caught me.”
“I knew it.”
She took a sip of her tea and glared at me over the cup rim before she banged it down again. “Two months ago, I really did think Paul was the personification of paint drying.”
“I know. That’s what makes this so fun. So, you’re going to kiss him.”
“Nooo,” she wailed. “There’s no way. He’ll never do it. He’s not the kind of guy who would ever jump from one girl to her roommate. He has this code of honor, I think.”
I knew that. But I didn’t point it out. “It means you have to make the first move, let him know you’re okay with it.”
“No, because then I’ll look like the girl who would move in on her best friend’s boyfriend.”
“Ex-boyfriend.”
“That’s like the smallest possible improvement. And I’m not that girl. Except I am that girl.”
“No, you’d be that girl if I cared, which I one thousand percent do not. So you should make the first move.”
“Except you know that, and I know that, but he doesn’t know that, so it’s still going to look bad no matter what.”
A new thought struck me, but I hesitated to express it. I didn’t want to ruin the stirrings of this new thing—whatever it was—that she was feeling, but I also didn’t want her going any further down the wrong road if it was going to dead end. “I guess I should ask you…do you think that’s something Paul wants? Do you get a vibe from him?”
“I do. That’s what makes this so hard. Like I’ll catch him watching me, but then he looks away. And if we’re slipping past each other to hang the tack or get a brush, I swear there’s that heightened thing going on between us. You know that thing where the air kind of tingles?”
I held up my hands. “I don’t want to hear about your tingling.”
“You know what I mean!”
I did. “I can honestly say it was never like that between me and Paul. So your gut says he’s feeling it?”
She hesitated then nodded. “Yeah. He is. I’d bet on it. That’s why this is killing me. There’s as much unsaid stuff floating in the air of that barn as there is stable dust.”
