“I’m in love,” I say as I walk on the treadmill, Holly on the one next to me.
One of the tips at the camp was to have an accountability person for exercise, so I made Holly join my gym, and so far she’s been a pretty good accountability partner.
Logan, not so much. He happens to be on the treadmill next to her, earphones on, thank goodness. This is not how I envisioned this. It was supposed to be me and Holly and we’d be able to talk and figure out all of life’s secrets—or at least all of our own life secrets—just like old times.
But now it’s new times. With Logan. It’s hard to get a moment alone with Holly these days. It’s all new for them, this relationship thing. I get it—they’re a “we” now. I don’t have to like it, though. Well, I do like it; Holly has never been happier. And Logan . . . well, I think he’s smiled a couple of times. I’m pretty sure. You can never tell with Logan.
Holly’s also busy with her new start-up business after recently quitting her job where she worked in a bank call center. She’s started a professional organizing business, and thanks to her old boss at the bank, she’s already gotten referrals.
“In love?” Holly questions. “You might be getting a little ahead of yourself.” She pushes the up arrow on her treadmill, lifting the front so she can walk on an incline.
She knows me too well, my best friend of nearly half my life. We met the first day of middle school when we had both just moved to the area. Her from Charlotte, me from Boston. We bonded instantly even though Holly is a planner and a list maker and I’m . . . not any of those things. I don’t even make grocery lists. Which is why I currently have four boxes of Wheat Thins in my very tiny apartment pantry.
“Fine, not love. But definitely lust. I mean, he did kiss me last night.”
“What? Shut up,” Holly says, her eyes wide. “Tell me everything.”
I fill her in on the date, the walk home, and the kiss I keep replaying in my head over and over like the Taylor Swift breakup songs that I listened to on repeat when that jerk Tyler Cropper broke my heart in the seventh grade. But instead of eliciting sadness, memories of the kiss with Henry make stars explode in my chest.
“Nice,” she coos. “That does sound a bit like love.”
“I know, right?” I say, my voice going up, sounding a bit like an excited bird screech. I’m a seagull with heart eyes.
“And it’s Henry . . . what?”
“Henry, yes,” I say, not following.
“His last name, though?”
I give her a sheepish grin. “I still don’t know.”
“Maybe you should learn his full name first before deciding you’re in love. I mean, what if his last name is, say, Pin? Then you’d be Quinn Pin if you married him.”
“I’d keep my maiden name.”
“What if he’s super traditional and doesn’t want that?”
“Then I’d name my kids, Lynn, Vin, and Phin, and we’d all have to suffer.”
Holly snort laughs at that, and I mentally pat myself on the back for my very witty retort.
“You can’t ruin my dreams,” I say.
She lifts a shoulder. “I’m just being the voice of reason.”
“I hate your voice of reason.” I give her my best pout. “Besides, he doesn’t know my last name either. I’m not ready for Henry to know. I don’t want him to Google me.”
“Ah, yes. How goes the blooper reel?”
“Not great. Up to nearly two million views.” It’s moving at super speed, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
“That doesn’t bode well.”
“It does not,” I say. “Dwayne—my EP—had this crazy idea that I put it together. That it was me who leaked it. Me. Like I’d even know how to do that.”
Holly gives me a knowing look. She knows I’m not tech savvy. She’s the person I call when I can’t figure out my TV remote.
“True. Not sure it would be a great career move on your part,” she says.
“Right? And Jerry thinks I need to come up with another grand feature idea. Like I have a bunch of those sitting in my back pocket.”
“What? No more felons to send me on vacations with?” her tone oozes sarcasm.
I look at her, cocking my head to the side, pursing my lips. “You know that wasn’t my fault. It was cheap-butt Jerry who did that.” I feel a tinge of guilt rush over me just the same, my brain running off with a lot of what-if scenarios.
When Holly agreed to do the feature—to go on her honeymoon with a stranger that had the same name as her ex-fiancé—she was told there would be background checks. There weren’t. I didn’t know this; Jerry was behind the whole thing, in the name of saving money for the station. His corner cutting was how Holly ended up going on the trip with a felon. But once he got word of it, Logan flew out to London to rescue her, and look at them now. Walking on treadmills side by side. And to think, if I hadn’t sent her on a trip with a felon, would the two of them have happened? I want to point this out, but I’m still not sure it would be a good move on my part. The wound is clearly still too fresh. I’ll wait a few more weeks before bringing it up.
“Oh, wait—I might have an idea for you,” Holly says, her face thoughtful.
“You do?”
“I saw it a long time ago, back when we lived in Charlotte. They did this feature with one of the interns at the station—it was like a dating thing. ‘Date Our Intern,’ they called it. It was super cute, and I remember making my dad record the news so I could see what happened.”
“Date our intern . . .” I roll the words over my tongue, my brain starting to take off at the possibilities. “That could work, and we have this super cute intern that just started a couple of weeks ago. I can’t remember his name. Marco? It was something like that. I wonder if he’s single?” I say, realizing I’m talking to myself as I look over and see Logan and Holly having a conversation.
“I’m going to go do weights,” I hear Logan say to Holly as he slows his treadmill down and slides to the back of it, jumping off.
“Okay,” Holly says with a smile directed at Logan. The corner of his mouth hitches up, and I swear little heart bubbles float out of his head. He touches her on the arm and then saunters off to the weight section.
There was a lot said in that simple touch of his. Normally I’d watch this scene with eyes of longing, wishing I had what they have. But with a certain handsome Brit in my life, it only makes me hope for possibilities. Maybe one day Henry will be on the treadmill next to me touching me that same way . . . giving me a look of love like that.
Holly’s right. I do get ahead of myself. I mean, he hasn’t even officially gotten a job offer. For all I know, he could be moving back to Miami tomorrow. My stomach drops at the thought.
“That man is smitten,” I say to Holly after Logan is definitely out of earshot.
She looks over her shoulder, toward the direction Logan went, and then back at me. “Yeah.”
“And you?”
“I . . . don’t know,” Holly says as she lowers her treadmill and then begins to pick up the pace to a jog. I do the same.