She’s heading into her en suite bathroom now, presumably to put her clothes back on, but I could be wrong.
“I was just stopping by to introduce myself and make myself available should you need any help settling in.”
I sound nervous, and it’s because I am. What am I supposed to do with this damn juice? If I drink it, I’ll throw up. If I don’t drink it, I’ll run the risk of offending her. I’m contemplating whether I should just pour it out onto her potted plant, but what if I accidentally kill the thing?
“Ho-hum. Yes.” She sighs from inside the bathroom. “I suppose I’ll make use of you. Cassie was my old assistant, but she’s left me.”
“Did she stay at your old company?”
“No, of course not. She wanted to move to Tibet to live with the monks, and who was I to stop her? After all, I’m the one who first introduced her to Buddhism. Do you practice?”
I’m searching around for a trash can to stow my juice in when she pops her head out of the bathroom.
I jump a mile in the air.
“Practice?” I chirp. “Er…what exactly?”
“Buddhism.”
“Oh…I’ve never…”
“They call it practicing because the work is never-ending. You’ll start doing sunrise yoga with me on Tuesday mornings. It’s so good for the soul.”
“Wow. Yeah, that sounds fun.”
I have no idea what’s happening, so I just agree to everything she’s saying. Dirt juice? Great! Sunrise yoga? Count me in!
She seems to be a thousand steps ahead of me at any given moment.
“Now…where to begin,” she says, disappearing back into the bathroom. “I don’t want to ever see you wearing yellow. It’s my least favorite color.”
She returns from the bathroom in a vintage black Chanel shift dress she’s paired with leopard flats. Cartier bangles clink on her wrists. Thick black-framed glasses perch on her thin nose. She’s fabulous and terrifying. I want to run away as much as I want to find a seat and stay glued to it.
She breezes past me on the way to her standing-height desk. It’s then that I notice there is not a single chair in her entire office.
“My hours are erratic,” she says, starting to type on her keyboard. “I don’t believe in nine to five. I let my body dictate my schedule. Look at the walls—do you see a clock in here?” After I shake my head, she continues. “That’s because time is a social construct.”
I feel like I should be writing this down—no clocks, no yellow—but I don’t have a pen or paper, just the clunky poster boards I shift under my arms as Elise continues a rambling diatribe that seems to have no end in sight.
It’s going to be a long day.
“To Maddie and another day surviving the madness!” Mia says, holding up her beer.
“To Madison!” Blythe choruses.
“She’ll be picking up the tab tonight,” Mia says with a cheeky smile.
“No, she will not be,” I retort. “But nice try. Just because I have a new boss to take orders from doesn’t mean I get a raise.”
Since it’s Wednesday night, Flying Saucer is packed. My friends and I are in our usual booth, ready to defend our title of trivia champs three weeks running.
I sip my beer and glance up, fidgeting in my seat as I wait for Aiden to arrive. He usually beats me here, but not tonight. My eyes are trained on the door, and my breath catches in my chest when I spot him.
He holds the door open for two girls to walk in ahead of him, backlit by the yellow glow of the streetlights outside. The girls aim huge smiles his way, and one of them says something. She’s probably thanking him for holding the door, but then he nods his head in the direction of our table and her smile falls. So it was an invitation to join them then? For some reason, the thought irks me. With Aiden, it’s always like that. For him, the world is a perpetual bread basket of options.
I avert my attention to my beer as he heads over, pretending to be totally unaware of his arrival until he’s right at our booth.
“Sorry I’m late,” Aiden says, holding up a grocery bag I hadn’t noticed before. “I had to stop at the store on my way.”
“What’s in there?” Mia asks, peering inside.
“A gift for Maddie,” he says, aiming a cheeky smile my way before shoving the bag in front of me.
Inside, I find chocolates. Not just any chocolates—a Whitman’s Sampler. It’s my favorite guilty pleasure. Every Christmas when I was growing up, my grandmother would gift my parents a box. They’d share it with my sister and me, but we were only ever allowed to have one chocolate a day. Aiden knows that every now and then, when I pass the boxes in the grocery store, I’ll greedily shove one into my cart, knowing how much freedom comes from having the entire thing all to myself.
“What’s the gift for?” Blythe asks.
“Maddie and I got into a fight this morning,” Aiden says, waving his hand so Mia and I will shove over. He takes the seat beside me in the booth, crowding me so I’m forced to smell him. His scent is a combination of his deodorant and body wash and aftershave. It’s slightly spicy with a touch of pine that I can’t get enough of. I inhale deep.
“A lovers’ quarrel?” Blythe teases.
I stick my tongue out at her then make quick work of wrapping up the sampler in the grocery bag again so none of them try to steal a piece. My parents might have shared theirs, but there’s no way I will.
Aiden nudges me with his shoulder.
“Forgive me?” he says, staring down at me. His eyes are the lightest green. His hair is tousled from work, inky black and flopping over his forehead. His permanent dimples tease me into relenting.
“All’s forgiven.”
Blythe clears her throat, and I move away from him.
Everyone is glancing at one another, having silent conversations. They do this a lot with Aiden and me. We’ve been down this road before. Blythe and Mia love to corner me in the bathroom and ask point-blank if I have feelings for Aiden. I deny it. Always deny it. Feigning complete obliviousness like, Aiden is hot? What? You think I like him? Noooo.
I know they all talk about me behind my back. I know they think it’s pathetic that I’ve been silently in love with him for this long and haven’t done anything about it. My cheeks heat up and I reach for my beer. They don’t understand. Aiden and I walk a tightrope. He’s not just my best friend. He’s not just my roommate. He’s not just related through marriage. It’s all of those complicated strings tangled together to form the world’s tightest knot around my heart. Screw things up with him, bare my soul, and get rejected? Then what? Where do we go from there?
Chapter Four
Maddie
“So then I had to force her to try a dress that was a little more formfitting and guess what?!”
There’s a long pause as my sister stops talking.
Oh, shoot. She’s expecting me to actually guess.
“She loved it?” I venture tentatively.
“She loved it!” she confirms.
Phew. I was barely listening. That was a close one. I don’t normally make a habit of ignoring my sister; it’s just that she called during the worst time. I just left the salon after fitting in a quick haircut after work, and I’m walking home to the condo. City noise is a nightmare, and my brain is scrambled from trying to keep up with Elise and her wild ramblings all day.