Page 2 of Tattoo My Heart
When she puts it like that, it sounds terrible. I cringe at the sad picture she’s painting for me. I’d be out in the Hamptons, partying it up with her boyfriend for a three day weekend while she stayed home with a screaming baby.
“I’ll watch the baby so you two can go away on vacation somewhere,” I blurt out. I am offering a little more than I’d originally planned. A vacation could be a full week.
“That’s very sweet of you, Evie,” she smiles into the phone. “I’ll take you up on that!”
“Aww, you are the bestest friend anyone could ask for!”
I about start jumping up and down in the middle of the cereal aisle at my local grocery store. This was a lot easier than I thought it’d be.
“But I’m not letting you use my boyfriend forthatweekend,” she continues, taking the wind out of my sails. “This is our first holiday as a family of three. I can’t imagine James not being here with us.”
I stomp my foot in frustration, ready to whine and beg, but then I realize that I wouldn’t agree to this stupid plan either, especially if I had a boyfriend as nice as James is.
“What am I going to do, Carrie? I can’t go alone. Help me,” I beg.
“This girl James works with signed up for a date through an app,” she casually informs me.
“An app?” I can’t even process what she’s saying.
“Yes!” She sounds excited now. “She needed a date for a Christmas dinner or something. Not sure, but it was holiday related. And there’s this app calledHolidates. It specializes in finding people a date for a holiday.”
I let out a nervous giggle. “Itspecializesin it?”
“Yeah, so for example, you need a date for the Fourth of July party, right?”
“Right,” I confirm when she pauses for me to do so.
“You go on this app, and you enter whatever you’re looking for. Then you get matched with someone. You take them to your event, then you part ways. Easy peasy.”
She makes it sound like it’s no big deal.
“Care, you’re crazy,” I finally say. “I can’t bring home a guy I got off an app. Like I bought him or something. What would I tell my mother when she asks about him after? That I had to return him?”
The idea sounds stupid as hell. I’m not feeling it at all.
“Who cares if you bring a boyfriend or not, Evie?” She sounds amused by my predicament.
“I do!”
Once again, I am way too loud considering the location. This time, there’s an older gentleman a few feet away who gives me a curious look.
“My mom said that Cal is bringing a date, Care,” I try explaining. “A nice girl,” I add with contempt and roll my eyes toward the ceiling. “I can’t go alone.”
“Oooohhhh, the hot stepbrother.” Carrie sounds a lot more invested into the story now. “He is still hot, I presume.”
My reply is way too quick. “No idea.”
“Uh-huh,” she chuckles in my ear. “So he is then.”
I hate that she is right. Cal is still as good looking as he was when we first met. In fact, he is even better looking now that he’s older. He’s added a few tattoos to his body… He is just so… yummy and perfect and…
“You’re daydreaming about him now, aren’t you?” My best friend calls me out on it because she knows me well enough.
“I don’t want to go alone,” I pout and stomp my foot on the ground even though she can’t see me.
“Evie,” she sighs in understanding. “I know it’s hard to get over your first crush, honey, but it’s been a while. And chances are, he rejected you at the time because you were still a child…”
“I was seventeen.” I almost yell at her when I cut her off. “That’s not a child.” We’d known each other for a year at that point.
