Meaning she doesn’t want to watch a romantic movie with me.
I get it. I do. Probably not the best idea right now anyway.
“Right.” I nod. “Even better. I can pick a movie that definitely doesn’t have any romance in it, then.”
I walk toward her, and she practically trips over her own feet to keep a safe distance between us.
I try not to let her see how much it bothers me.
“Nothing too scary,” she requests as I follow her down the hall. “And nothing too violent.”
“That’s not leaving me a lot of options.”
“I don’t know about you, but a comedy sounds good to me,” she says, bending over at the table we have next to the door, fishing around inside her purse.
My eyes fall straight to her ass and the tiny shorts she’s wearing.
Look away, Cooper. This is the kind of shit that got you in trouble last time. Look what that led to.
She stands and I dart my eyes anywhere but at her, hoping she didn’t just catch me staring.
She shoves her card at me. “Here. I’ll buy.”
“No,” I tell her, pushing it back her way. “You got breakfast and drinks the other night. It’s my turn.”
Just like that, the air between us shifts, the mention of the other night hanging over us like a thick cloud.
We don’t move, her hand still outstretched, holding on to her card from one end while I hold on from the other.
I could easily pull her to me. Could wrap my arm around her waist and haul her onto her tiptoes until her mouth is even with mine. Could press our lips together and revel in how good she feels again.
But I shouldn’t. I fucking shouldn’t and I know I shouldn’t.
I shouldn’t want to kiss my best friend.
I clear my throat, letting go of the card. “Seriously, Care, I got it.”
She nods, then tucks the card back into her purse.
“What do you want on the pizza?” she asks, grabbing her phone and scrolling to find the place we always order from. “The usual?”
“Extra black olives.”
“Ew.” She scrunches her nose, bringing the phone up to her ear.
“Pretty sure you can’t say ew when you eat pineapple on your half.”
“I can and will say ew because ew. Also, since you’re buying, I’m ordering breadsticks.”
“Mooch.”
“Cheap ass.” She flips me off. “Hi, yes,” she says in her sweetest voice, “I’d like to place an order for delivery, please.”
She moves into the kitchen to rattle off our order and grab drinks.
We’ll spend the time it takes them to deliver the pizza watching previews and deciding on a movie. When Caroline said it was my turn to pick, she meant the genre. After that’s decided, we still must agree on the actual movie we’ll watch.
It’s our routine, and it feels good to be doing something normal.
After tossing some money on the table, I grab the remote and settle onto the couch in my spot, navigating back to the home screen of the movie app.
“Here,” she says, handing me a can of flavored carbonated water. “We ran out of lime.”
“Thanks,” I say, popping the top and taking a hefty swig.
Ugh. Grapefruit. My least favorite.
Caroline settles onto the couch, tucking her legs beneath her. It doesn’t escape my notice that she’s sitting on the complete opposite end of the couch, as far away from me as she can possibly get.
Guess I spoke too soon about normal.
Usually, she’ll come in here and grab her blanket, then lay her head on my lap, where she’ll inevitably fall asleep once her belly is full.
Not anymore.
We ruined that.
She pops the top on her own drink and takes a sip.
I catch the color of the can from the corner of my eye.
“I thought you said we ran out of lime.”
“We did. Just now.” She shrugs, taking another drink.
“And I thought you were a good friend.”
Do good friends kiss each other?
“I am a good friend. Case in point: I didn’t stop being your friend when you told the entire ninth grade class I had mono from practicing kissing on the water fountain.”
“I totally saw you using tongue on that thing.”
She rolls her eyes. “Just start scrolling.”
I navigate to the comedy section and flip through the movies until something jumps out at me.
I pause on one and we watch the preview.
A light chuckle from her, nothing from me.
Pass.
We do it again. Then again. And at least five more times.
Until finally we settle on something that gets more than a chuckle from both of us.
Just as we’ve decided on a movie, the doorbell rings.
“I’ll get it!”
She bounces from her seat, running toward the door like she’s starving.
I watch her talk to the delivery guy.
I watch him scroll his eyes down her body and stare at her for far too fucking long.
I clench my jaw tightly, trying to resist the urge to do something dumb like walk over there and put my arm around her waist.
Like she’s fucking mine or something.
I sit here stoically as it takes way longer than it should to get the pizza, doing everything I can to not listen in on their conversation.
When she finally closes the door, I snap my attention back to the TV, even though nothing is playing yet.
“You are never going to believe who that was.”
“Who?” I play along.
“Remember that guy from the bookstore who’s always in there when I am?”
“The stalker who wants to bang you?”
She huffs. “He is not a stalker. It’s just a coincidence that we ran into him at The Gravy Train too.”
“Yeah, he’s just coincidentally stalking you.”
“Anyway,” she says, setting the pizza down on the coffee table and resuming her spot. She slides a couple napkins my way, then leans forward, popping the top of the delicious-smelling pie and grabbing a slice. “He delivers pizza at night now to cover his book-spending habit.”
I snort, reaching for my own piece. “Sounds like a nerd.”
“And when he saw my name come up on the queue,” she continues, ignoring me, “he took a chance and grabbed the order.”
I pause my pizza slice halfway to my mouth, looking over at her. “He knows your name?”
“Yeah?” She shrugs. “I go to the bookstore a lot.”
I put the slice back down. “I don’t know, Caroline…I don’t like that he just happened to show up at the apartment.”
“He didn’t just show up. I ordered pizza. He was working. He delivered it.” She takes a bite of her pizza, chews, then wipes at her mouth with her napkin.
“Come on. You say this guy is at the bookstore every time you’re there. Now suddenly he conveniently works at our favorite pizza place we order from all the time?” I shake my head, biting off half my slice. “Sounds fishy.”
“You’re overreacting. Anyway, he just asked me if I wanted to get drinks with him on Wednesday. I said yes.”
“You said yes?”
“Why are you making such a big deal out of this?”
“I’m not.”