Never Always Sometimes - Adi Alsaid Page 0,57
sad eyes that reminded
her of Dave’s. She looked over at Dave peering into the dog’s cage and
felt the urge to throw her arms around his neck, which was silly.
190 NEVER ALWAYS SOMETIMES
An employee came by, a tall and lanky guy with a slouch and a
pronounced Adam’s apple. Gretchen asked him if she could pet a dog.
The guy shrugged, probably bored, his mind rotting away inside the
depressing pet store all day.
“This one!” Julia said, pointing at the scruffy brown puppy,
desperate for the dog’s warmth, for something to touch. “If I’d known
puppy-holding was involved in mall-ratting I might have been more
receptive,” she said, taking the dog in her arms.
“Just you wait,” Gretchen said, stepping up to Julia. “This might feel
weird at first. Just trust me.” She reached out and dipped the ice-cream cone against Julia’s nose.
“What the hell?” Julia forced a laugh. Dave stood behind Gretchen,
his head tilted.
Gretchen just smiled, and within a second or two the mutt had
sniffed out the ice cream and was licking Julia’s nose enthusiastically.
Julia laughed, which resulted in the dog trying to slip her some tongue, so she turned her head to the side a little to avoid the kisses but keep the whole nose-licking thing going. “I’m so happy right now,” Julia said, feeling better, though there was nothing she should have been feeling
better from.
“Just looking at what’s happening is making me happier than I’ve
been in years,” Dave said. “Seriously, years.”
Even the lanky employee cracked a smile. The three of them took
turns passing the dog to each other, then touching the increasingly
melting ice-cream cone to their noses. To keep the dog from getting
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sick from all the ice cream, and because the other locked-up dogs
seemed to be in ravenous fits of jealousy, the employee took away
the Dave-looking mutt and brought a few other ones: twin golden
retrievers, a spotted pit bull, something that looked less like a dog and more like a gremlin. They kept going until the ice cream was nothing
but a puddle dripping through the bottom of the soggy cone.
They left the pet store mildly dazed, smiles still plastered on their
faces. “Touché,” Julia said. “I’m going to do that from now on. Always.
Every day of my life.”
Dave, standing close to Gretchen, gave her a little shoulder bump.
“What else you got?”
“Cue the montage,” Julia said, a bit too sarcastically, that unexpected
jealousy almost giving rise to anger.
Gretchen laughed. “You’re so right. That would have definitely been
the movie cue for a montage.”
They went to the department store and made Dave try on clothes,
simply because that was exactly what would happen in the montage.
They sat by the dressing room on a bench as the clerk gave them
strange looks. “You are the slowest dresser on the planet,” Julia called out, trying to hide the annoyance in her voice, or transfer it over to
something she should have been annoyed by. “You’re slowing down
our montage. Did you notice the happy pop music stopped playing?
That’s your fault.”
“I don’t understand vests,” he called out from the dressing room.
“They go on your chest,” Gretchen called back.
192 NEVER ALWAYS SOMETIMES
“Har har. And do I really have to wear the hat?”
“Yes!” they said in unison.
He stepped out of the dressing room, looking uncomfortable in
his clothes, but undoubtedly handsome. Julia paused, swirling that
thought around her head like a beverage she was savoring. Dave was
handsome. That wasn’t new information to her; she’d always thought
it strange that a great guy like him with his looks had never pursued
anyone, had never even accidentally stumbled into a fleeting romance.
But had Julia ever thought it in those terms before?
“You look so cute,” Gretchen said, and almost immediately Julia felt
like punching her.
Julia had a quick flash of what this could turn into: her and
Gretchen becoming friends, Dave and Gretchen touching more and
more, little stolen glances between them that Julia wouldn’t be able to
avoid intercepting. Julia would be the third wheel in a friendship that
had never needed more than two people.
Suddenly flushed, Julia went off to find a bathroom to calm herself
down. What the fuck was going on? Ridiculing others was her usual
coping mechanism, not this mad jealousy. If anything, Julia had
expected to make fun of Gretchen today. She thought back to the
night of the party, how it had felt when she’d started tearing apart her house. She’d been lying on the grass, telling herself she was in love with Dave. And drunk as she may have been, maybe it was true. Maybe she
was in love with Dave.
Julia found the department store’s bathroom, which was small and
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clean with a large plant in the corner,