Big Rock (Big Rock #1) - Lauren Blakely Page 0,57

other, even if it was just a prank, but I manage.

Thanks to my new obsession.

This photo. I can’t stop thinking about what Harper said about Charlotte, and I can’t stop looking at that picture on Page Six like it holds all the clues to the universe in it.

I stare at it as I head into the Columbus Circle station, having dropped my bat and glove at Nick’s apartment near the park. My head is bent over my phone as I trot down the stairs, then slip inside the downtown train. I wrap my hand around a pole while a hipster girl in green skinny pants shoves her way onto the car, sliding past the doors just before they close. She carries bags on each arm.

“Whew,” she says, relieved to have made it. But the edge of a cloth bag is caught in the door, so she yanks it free and turns in a tangle, spinning around.

Something whacks my funny bone, and I cringe. “Ow.”

Her hand flies to her mouth. “Are you okay? Is it my mayonnaise?”

“Mayonnaise?” I ask, as I rub my palm over my elbow while the train slaloms around a curve in the tunnel. What is it about funny bones that hurt so damn much?

“I have jars of pesto mayonnaise in this bag. I made it myself. I’m giving it to friends. Is it okay?” There’s terror in her eyes as she roots around in the straw bag on her shoulder.

Pain radiates through my lower arm while she ascertains the state of her condiments. “Don’t worry about me. Your mayo just attacked me, but I won’t file charges,” I mumble under my breath as I wince.

She looks up, realization dawning on her. “Are you okay?”

I nod. “Yes. Elbow matches my toe now.”

“You got hit with mayo on your toe?”

“No. A baseball bat attacked my foot earlier. Apparently, inanimate objects are out to get me today,” I say as the sharpness subsides. “Is your mayonnaise going to make it?”

She nods and beams as we chug into the next stop. “It will live. Sorry I hit you.”

“It’s okay. Hazard of big city living.”

She peers at my hand. I’m clutching my phone still. The picture is splashed across the screen. “Cute couple.”

“Oh. Right,” I say, raising my phone.

“They look really happy together,” Mayo Girl adds.

“Do they?”

She nods. “Definitely.”

“What do you think he should tell her?”

She cocks her head. “What do you mean?”

“So she knows how he feels?”

She shrugs and smiles wide. “He should just tell her how he feels. If he likes her as much as pesto mayo, he should let her know that.”

“I’ll tell him to consider that,” I say when the train reaches its midtown stop.

As I climb up the steps and exit into the early evening, I know this situation with Charlotte isn’t as simple as mayonnaise, and that’s not only because mayonnaise is my least favorite food.

* * *

The Lucky Spot is a zoo. There’s no time to think. No time to plan. And certainly no time to figure out what to do with the strange new notions that are implanting themselves in my head.

I need to strategize this, but I don’t even know what this is.

Being more than friends?

Feeling something real?

Finding out if she feels the same?

What is the word for this feeling? It’s like my chest is a trampoline, and my heart is doing backflips on it. Only, I’ve never practiced them before, and if I do them again I could land on my head.

Or my ass.

Or even my face.

So yeah. With a packed bar on a Friday night, I’m not so sure I can figure out what to do with the pesto mayo feelings.

During the evening rush, I alternate between catching up on purchase orders on my laptop, telling Charlotte about the train attack, and helping out behind the bar, while in the back office Charlotte works on ideas for a new marketing campaign.

“Out of Belvedere,” Jenny remarks from the counter as she waggles an empty bottle.

“I’ll grab one,” I say and head to the office, where Charlotte is perched on a reclining chair, wearing jeans, and a white strappy top. When I see her, I freeze-frame through images—the photo of us, the moment on the corner of Forty-third, the pesto mayo, the toothpaste, the words she said to Abe the other night. My heart slams against my rib cage, and I wonder if this crazy overtime beating is why there are books, movies, songs, poetry about people falling—

“Hey you,” she says, and the