Page 27 of Holiday Love
When it gets to the famous scene where Meg Ryan fakes an orgasm in a New York deli, we both laugh, but there’s a definiteblush on Helen’s cheeks and I feel it too, like we’retooaware of each other. It’s awkward watching a movie about romance when so many aspects of our own relationship are ill-defined.
What are we? Strangers? Friends? Something more? Is there the potential for something more? These questions circle my brain, relentless.
Be quiet, I tell them, still spooked by earlier, how she read my mind so easily. Finally, I decide to make a list.
I title it: Reasons Not to Bone My Landlord.
I need a place to stay.
Gwen will kill me.
Helen has her life together and I…do not.
Helen is vulnerable right now. Don’t be an asshole.
I feel better after I mentally review the list. These are all very good reasons to keep things platonic.
Yes, that’s it.
Friends.
We’ll be friends.
Blindly, I dip my spoon into the almost-empty ice cream container, but Helen already has hers there. Our utensils clash with the ring of metal-on-metal. My hand brushes against hers, our fingers briefly tangle, and a jolt of electricity travels up my arm.
“Oops, sorry,” she says. Then she slowly, languidly, licks the back of her spoon. Holding my breath, I track the movement while my brain happily supplies visions of what else that tongue could do.
Fuck me.
This is going to be impossible.
Chapter thirteen
Helen
We spend the entire day on the couch watching TV. Ice cream is breakfast. Pizza from the shop around the corner is lunch. Microwave popcorn for a snack. A diet fit for a college freshman, not a doctor. When I admit to feeling guilty, that maybe we should try something green, Teddy waves me off.
“This is how I always eat,” he says, confirming what I suspected, he’s still living the carefree student lifestyle. No worrying about cholesterol, high blood pressure, or whether he’s getting enough antioxidants. If he knew how much I worry about that stuff, would he think I’m too old? Too boring?
For someone who almost died, he’s in a shockingly good mood, cracking jokes and making sarcastic comments about the shows we watch. I’m grateful for his distraction. I wish I could be aslight-hearted. As the day wears on and five p.m., the time I normally start my shift in the ER, gets nearer, the worse I feel. Anxiety crawls like ants over my skin, making me itchy, irritable. I shift on the couch, folding my legs under me, then stretching them out, then folding them again. No position feels right.
Teddy notices. “You okay?” he murmurs, his voice low and careful.
