“He told me to go away,” she grumbles. “So, Toby is a no. That’s okay. I didn’t much like him anyway. This next one—”
“I don’t want your next one!”
I slow at the open door for 4B, frown at the packing boxes stacked inside and outside of the doorway.
“Galileo, come.” I tap my dog’s ears and continue to my door.
“You took your dog on a date? Nora! You took your dog on a date with a new dude?”
“Of course I took him! He’s my family.”
“You have issues,” she growls. “You need help.”
“I have help. I see my therapist once a month.” I push the key into my front door and step into my apartment while the sounds of crashing crockery scream from across the hall.
I jump, an instinctual reaction that I can’t stop, but then I work on my breathing. On calming myself. The broken plates are not my problem. Not my mess to clean, so I keep moving.
“I like my life, Evie. I like living with my dog, I like taking him to dinner, I like being single.” I pause at a framed photograph of me and my older sister in the hall, drop my keys in the bowl that sits right beside it, and wait as Galileo races through our home in search of a possible intruder. “I don’t need a man to be happy, Evelyn.”
“Toby wasn’t the one,” she says. “That’s okay. I have another one for you to try.”
“Evie,” I sigh. “No.”
“His name is Garret,” she bulldozes over me. “He’s two years older than me.” Which makes him a year older than me. “He’s a fighter,” she continues. “But he’s neither a hotdog, nor a hothead that can’t control his temper. He’s sweet, he smiles a lot, and his roundhouse is amazing.”
I roll my eyes and head to my fridge when Galileo comes back into the living room. I know there’s no one else in my apartment. I know that no one entered while we were gone. And yet, I remained frozen in place until my dog came back to confirm everything was as it should be.
“I’m not shopping for men.” I press my phone between my ear and shoulder so I can take a frozen Mars bar from the freezer and tear it open. I turn away from the door, hip-bump it closed, then shake my head at Galileo when he licks his lips. “Go to bed.” I point, though he doesn’t need the direction. “Go.”
“It’s eight o’clock on a Friday night!” Evie blusters. “You are a twenty-seven-year-old, healthy, beautiful woman, and it’s Friday night! Why the hell are you going to bed?”
“I told Galileo to go to bed. I never said I was going.”
“Oh…” She exhales. “Oh, okay. That’s cool, then.”
“I’m gonna eat my candy bar first, maybe watch an episode of Friends, and then I’m going to bed.”
“Nora,” she moans. “Why are you such a pain in my ass?”
“I could ask you the same thing.” I drop onto my sofa and groan when I push my shoes off. I wore heels for Toby. I got fancy, wore something nice, even a cute bra. All so I could sit alone with a candy bar. “Leave me be, Evie.”
“Come over to the house.” It’s like she’s completely incapable of listening when people say no. “We’re playing cards. You should come over and hang.”
“No thanks. I don’t wanna hang out with you right now.”
“Nora!”
“Eve.” Ben’s deep, threatening voice makes me smile. “Leave her alone.”
“It’s eight o’clock, Sasquatch! It’s a Friday night, and she sent the electrician away without a kiss.”
“I told you she wouldn’t like him.” Ben’s voice comes closer. Closer. Until Evie’s breath comes out on a soft grunt. I imagine him now, standing behind her, wrapping his arms around her stomach, and resting his chin on her shoulder. “I told her you wouldn’t like him,” he repeats for me. “She wouldn’t listen.”
“I heard you,” she grumbles. “I just didn’t think you were right.”
“And was I?” His tone makes me smile. “Was I right, Eve? Or do you still think you know everything.”
“I’m setting her up with Garret. I’m setting you up with Garret!”
“Not interested.” I take a bite of my Mars, and sigh as the caramel and chocolate melt on my tongue. “I have everything I need right here.”
“You’re eating.” I hear Evie’s eyeroll. “You’re sitting at home alone, you’re about to turn the TV on, and you’re giving a candy bar the best BJ of its life.”