Page 133 of Turnabout Is Fair Cosplay
“If you insist.” I pour myself half a glass and take a sip. Oh, I make a face. “I don’t know why you don’t buy the kind with sugar.”
“Here it comes.”
“Here what comes?”
“The real reason you’re here. Go on, let’s get this over with.”
I take my cranberry juice with me into Mike’s living room and feel all kinds of jealous and bothered. The view is spectacular. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You insult me. I insult you. We bicker back and forth until you are convinced there is no more meat to pick from my bones. Then you bounce away to dust your cacti or walk someone’s dog or buy a Ferrari, and I get back to work.”
“I don’t dust my cacti. I spritz them. And I’m taking care of someone’s miniature horse this week in addition to four of my regular pooches.” And Porsches are more fun to drive than Ferraris, which is why I own one, but that is beside the point.
“My mistake.”
“And aren’t you glad I saved you from making more of those in here? Admit it. I was right to tell you to paint over the wood.”
“I just painted over the paneling so you’d stop hounding me about it.”
“I love how your ears turn pink when you lie.”
“And I love how you’re so desperate to see me in the morning that you can’t even bother to change into real clothes.”
My cheeks heat at that one. “Says the man who takes his shirt off at every opportunity.”
“And you would know how, exactly? Did you buy a stepladder to see over the privacy fence?”
“That’s your fantasy, right? To find a life partner who’s just as twisted as you are.”
“Who said anything about life partner?”
I did. It’s all I’ve thought about since my Thanksgiving chat with Mrs. Miller. It’s what keeps me outside listening to Mike work on his lines or straining to hear his music. I still want the space and time to call the shots in my own life. But my hopesand dreams of flexibility and independence have expanded to include a partner. If I can’t have a soulmate who underlines Brontë and Byron and fills the margins of Shakespeare with clever annotations, maybe having a man who reads those authors is the next best thing.
Maybe it’s enough.
I down the rest of my cranberry juice, but not without shuddering. That stuff is bitter. “Mike.”
“Bea.”
“I was so very grateful to sleep in today. And you were so kind to put me up when I was locked out. I wanted to thank you.”
“So much so that you had to scamper over in your silk sleep set and pour yourself a glass of my cranberry juice.”
“Well, it’s new. And no one but me has seen it before. Maybe I needed to preen a little.”
Mike sinks onto the sofa and massages a spot above his right eye. “Of course you did.”
“It’s cute, right?”
“Freaking adorable.”
“So…one of my clients has season tickets at Snapdragon Stadium, and I was wondering…” The words won’t come. Oh, who am I kidding? I’m never getting over the books. Asking Mike out would just be me leaning into the soul-mate fantasy I concocted. I can’t keep pretending there is more to us than that. This is Mike Benedick. He flirts with every woman he meets and flirts with all of humanity when he’s onstage. He’s an actor. It’s his job. It was one thing when I thought that there was all this substance behind it, but things are different now.
“Are you asking me out, Bea?”
I laugh. Screech is more like it. “Oh my gosh. Funny. Hysterical. I was wondering if you were on speaking terms with literally anyone besides, of course, yourself who would appreciate two tickets to the bowl game.”
For a moment, Mike looks…disappointed. “Very neighborly of you. Unfortunately, I’m busy tonight.”
