“I’ll walk you.”
“Okay.” I could protest. I barely know Henry. But I have this feeling—like, I don’t want the night to end. On paper, it wouldn’t appear to be the most magical of dates, but it felt magical even so. There’s something here between Henry and me. And it’s been a long time since I’ve felt a spark like that. Maybe I’ve never felt it.
“Do you live downtown, too?” I ask after I start walking toward my place. I figure he does, but then I realize that is a lot of assumption on my part.
“I’m staying at a hotel down here.”
My head swings toward him, and I stop walking. Henry stops, too. “You don’t live here?”
He shakes his head as if I should know the answer to this. “I’m in Miami right now. Been there for the past eight months.”
I shake my head. How do I not know this? “I thought you lived here . . . in Orlando.”
“Well . . . I hope to. I mean, that’s the plan.”
My craftsman house dims before my eyes. Of course this is how it would go. Of course I’d finally meet someone who gives me a spark I haven’t felt in a long time—if ever—and of course he doesn’t even live here. Of freaking course. That is my life. It’s how my story goes: Meet hot man, hot man lives in Miami. Quinn goes back to boring old life. The end.
“Right,” I say, starting the walk again. Henry walks with me.
“I’m here for a week, though.” He lets out a breath. “I’d love to see you again.”
Flutterings in my heart, nearly dead from all the disappointment, spark up again.
“I’d like that,” I say, even as I wonder if it’s a bad idea. My heart immediately goes into protective mode. But then I tell my heart to shut up. It’s only a week. How could I possibly fall so hard in a week? And there’s always the possibility that he’ll move here. Even though, as I think that, I know that won’t happen. I don’t have that kind of luck.
“This is me,” I say as we get to my building, the lobby brightly lit up. I love it here. It costs me way too much, and the actual apartment is fairly small, but it’s my own place, and I’ve always wanted a place of my own.
“All right, well, good night,” Henry says, his hands in his pockets. He leans in and kisses me lightly on the cheek. He smells of sandalwood with a hint of hops from his drink.
A warmth spreads from where his lips touched, and tingles spread from the spot, extending over my entire cheek.
“Good night,” I say as I reach up and touch my face, the place where his lips just were. Realizing I probably look ridiculous, I quickly reach into my purse and pull out my keys. I turn and unlock my door with my key fob, and then, opening the door, I look over my shoulder to see Henry still standing there, his hands still in his pockets, a small smile on his face. The dimple is there again. Maybe it wanted to say good night too.
He waves at me and then walks back toward where we came from.
I don’t let out a scream as I get into the elevator and take it up to the seventeenth floor—my floor. But I do smile to myself and take a big breath. I won’t let myself get too excited about this. I won’t. But even as I think it, I know it’s too late.
Chapter 4
“You’re in a blooper reel,” Jerry, my producer, says from behind me.
“What?” I ask, confused. My head has been so in the clouds since last night, I almost forget where I am. Work. I’m at work. I look up from my computer at the open newsroom; low-partition cubicles fill the space, most heads looking down at their screens, the soft sound of clicking coming from keyboards. To my left I can hear a tense discussion happening between two interns, and behind me—just ten feet from me—lighting and cameras are being adjusted in the studio.
My mind has been so distracted by Henry, even reading the four emails that were sent over the weekend to declare how fat I looked on last Friday’s newscast don’t bother me. Well, not as much as they usually do. There’s even an extra lovely one from Grace Is Amazing.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Your Hair
Why do you insist on wearing your hair like that? You need better highlights. It’s honestly hideous on camera.
Only trying to help,
Grace
She signs off that way every time. Only trying to help, my rear. Also, I just had my highlights done. I pull up yesterday’s news recording, and, I mean, I guess my hair did look sort of dull. But still. Who does she think she is? Grace Is Amazing . . . hardly. More like Grace Is Not So Amazing. I need a better insult than that.
In my head, Grace is a little old lady who’s lived a sad life and hates everything. I picture her sitting on her porch, her hair in rollers, a net shower cap barely holding them in. She’s wearing a floral-patterned housecoat and is surrounded by cats. She also smells. Really bad. I suppose this is what I hope this Grace person is like.
I never write her back, except in my mind. I dish out clever and biting jabs and tell her things like where she can shove her dinosaur (I’m assuming) computer. But I don’t need any screenshots of mean emails I’ve written out there on the internet. I have enough about me out there already.
“So, have you seen it?” Jerry asks. I click out of the email from dear, sweet, thoughtful Grace and turn just slightly in my chair to see my producer. His wrinkled button-up shirt is half–tucked in. His comb-over looks extra comb-overy today.
“No,” I say, shaking my head at Jerry. “What are you talking about?” I give him my blow-off tone. Jerry is high-freaking-out energy, and I don’t need any of that in my space today. He’s ruining my chakras. Well, Grace probably has a bit to do with it, too.
Jerry reaches up and rubs his brow. “I don’t need this today.” He throws a curse word out for good measure.
“Potty mouth, Jer,” I say, my voice a reprimand. I don’t do colorful words.
“I can cuss all I want,” he says, and then lets out a few more, just because. “I’m not the one who got caught on the news dropping an f-bomb.” He purses his lips, his eyes going squinty.
And that would be why I don’t do colorful words. Ever. Well, since last October. Up until a couple of weeks ago, my friends and I were cussing with just initials, but even that was making me nervous, just having the almost words in my head felt too close to the real thing. I felt like I was on the precipice of saying one again, of making another mistake—one that could, this time, cost me my job. So I shut it all down. No one is allowed to cuss around me. Except everyone still does.
“Jerry, what do you want?” I ask, going back to my computer.
He rolls my chair to the side and wedges himself into my space. Leaning over my desk, he starts typing furiously on my computer, his stubby fingers pressing on the keys much harder than necessary.
He pulls up YouTube, types “biggest news gaffes,” and then clicks on the top result of the populated list. Bright colors fill the screen, and then the words “Top News Gaffes of the Year” appear.