I get dressed in something that I think says “casual yet cute,” which is just leggings and yet another large sweater, because apparently all my style icons are from ’90s movies. I don’t put on makeup, and I walk into my bedroom with my hair still wet.
The bed is empty, the sheets and quilts rumpled, and the indentation from a head visible on the pillow.
My heart surges. Maybe Drew went downstairs to make me breakfast. I mean, we haven’t talked at all about whether or not he can cook, but wouldn’t that be a perfect detail in a romantic comedy as a way to show that he’s the ideal man? There he is at a skillet, effortlessly flipping pancakes while the coffee brews!
I walk downstairs, sniffing the air for the telltale scent of breakfast, but stop at the foot of the stairs when I see Drew pulling on his boots.
Maybe he’s going out for coffee, I think, but some of my optimism drains out of me.
“What are you doing?” I ask, and he stands up.
“Are you kidding me right now?” he asks, his voice measured and bland in a way that I haven’t heard before. He walks to the door and pulls his coat off the hook.
I follow him, telling myself not to look too much like an eager puppy. “What do you mean? Are we talking in questions now?” I smile, hoping it comes off as cute but afraid it comes off as frantic.
He raises his eyebrows as he puts his coat on, and then thrusts his phone into my face. “I woke up to a lot of texts and notifications.”
I lean in to look at his phone. Hollywood Gossip is on the screen, and it’s a photo of Drew in my bed. It takes a moment for things to click into place, for me to figure out what’s going on here. How is there a picture of Drew in my bed? The picture I just took? That I sent to Chloe? Did Chloe send it to Hollywood Gossip? But why would she do that?
Oh no. Oh, no. I pull my phone out of my pocket and go to my texts.
There it is. The picture I just took of Drew, the one I thought I was sending to Chloe? I sent it to Hollywood Gossip in my sleepy post-sex haze. Chloe is almost always my most recent text, so I must’ve responded to the first one without thinking about it.
“Oh, my God, Drew, this was an accident,” I say. “I took . . . okay, so this sounds weird, but I took a picture of you to send to Chloe because she’s been wanting us to get together and I knew she would be so excited and you just looked so good, but then I had a text from Hollywood Gossip, and I guess I accidentally replied to that one.” I take a breath.
Drew shakes his head, not looking at me. “How much did you get?”
I stare back at him.
“For the picture, I mean. Was it worth it?”
“I didn’t get anything!” I shout.
“You knew,” he says, holding out his phone. “You knew how much this stuff bothered me, and you did this. Was this all some ridiculous long con for you, some way to get yourself on this website?”
“No! I don’t care about Hollywood Gossip!” I shout, tears springing to my eyes. “You’re my Tom Hanks.”
He holds up a hand. “Okay, spare me the Tom Hanks bullshit, please. I don’t particularly care what Tom Hanks would do in this situation, because he’s an actor who plays fictional characters, and I’m a real person. And now everyone’s going to see a picture of me sleeping next to details about my dick.”
Oh, God. I forgot I included that thing about him being circumcised.
“I’m sorry,” I say, trying hard not to cry. “It was an accident. Please believe me.”
Drew won’t look at me, and I just want him to look into my eyes and know that I’m telling the truth. Just look at me, I will him with my mind.
He does, but then he shakes his head. “I need some time, Annie.”
The way he says my name normally makes my entire body feel like a lit-up string of Christmas lights, but right now, with his voice so disappointed and defeated, it just hurts.
He turns and walks out the door, closing it behind him. I think about running after him, but I don’t want to look desperate and anyway, I’m pretty sure no one’s shoveled the sidewalks.
Instead, I start to cry.
Chapter Twenty
It’s not like I would’ve cried onto Uncle Don’s shoulder if he were here, but at least then I wouldn’t be all by myself. Even though I know Chloe’s studying, I text her and she comes over immediately, wearing leggings and her own Pizza Slut T-shirt.
“I’m sorry for interrupting you,” I say through sobs. “But I messed everything up.”
“Babe!” Chloe says, pulling me into a hug. “Don’t apologize. Remember that time I needed to pass a test and you helped me make flash cards about the core functions of marketing until two A.M.?”
She pulls back and appraises my face, squinting. “You are actually covered in snot, you know.”
“Ugh.” I lift my sleeve and wipe my nose.
“Wow.” She winces. “We’ve reached a new low. Sit down and I’ll find you a box of tissues while you tell me everything.”
I run through the story for her—the kiss, the wine, the sex, the fight. I show her the picture, and she gasps.
“God, he looks amazing,” she says. “Even asleep and with his mouth open. What’s his chest hair situation like?”
“What?”
“I’m trying to get a good mental picture of what he looks like naked.”
“Chloe! This is quite possibly my soul mate who now hates me, and all you care about is what he looks like naked?”
She rolls her eyes. “Annie. He doesn’t hate you. You pulled a reverse ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ and he loved it. If he’s anywhere near as nice as you’ve made him sound, he’ll come to his senses and march right back here and apologize to you.”
I sniffle. “You think?”
“Yes!” Chloe smiles. “Now this. This is the Big Misunderstanding, after which he’ll make some sort of Grand Gesture to apologize, and then you guys will have your Climactic Kiss as the cover of a ’90s song plays and the camera pans out.”
“Whoa.” I blow my nose. “You really have watched a lot of rom-coms with me.”
She shrugs. “You never want to watch my preferred genre, TV shows about murder. Speaking of which, do you want to watch a rom-com right now?”
I think about it for a second. On one hand, I’ve just been brutally abandoned by a kind and funny man. On the other hand, Sleepless in Seattle always makes things better.
“Yes,” I say. “But I want to watch it on VHS.”
Chloe narrows her eyes. “Um, okay?”
Typically I stream rom-coms, or rely on DVDs for those rare movies I can’t find on any streaming service. But when I was little, Mom and I used to watch them on VHS, and she kept all her favorites on the shelf by the TV. They’ve long since been put away in the attic to make room for Uncle Don’s Lord of the Rings collector’s edition DVDs (which, unsurprisingly, take up a lot of room), and I haven’t seen them in ages.
“I just think it might make me feel better to see the tapes,” I say, and Chloe nods encouragingly, even though I can tell she doesn’t get it.
If my mom were here, she could talk me through this. I could tell her all about what happened and she’d comfort me, like she did in second grade when Taylor McNaughton made fun of my multiple speech impediments (I ended up correcting them in speech therapy, and Taylor McNaughton got kicked off the volleyball team our senior year for drinking, so, you know . . . boom).