this woman. And shit, but have I actually met her? She told me that she knew my name, and I told her that I knew hers. But have we been pleasant enough to say nice to meet you?
I’m not sure.
Finally, like I’m Joshua Jackson from the kingdom of tweed, after a minute and a half of silence, she releases the locks and cracks the door open. Her makeup is gone, her hair is wet. She lost the two or so inches of height her heels gave her.
But her eyes… ten minutes ago, they were exhausted, sure. But they weren’t terrified.
“Can you step back?” she whispers. “Go all the way back away from my door.”
“Sure.” I skip back half a dozen steps. Lifting my hands, I swallow and study the two inches of her body through the gap in the door. “I’m sorry for scaring you.”
“Didn’t scare me,” she croaks out. “You just…” She swallows. “You’re putting my routine out of whack. What’s up?”
Smiling – at first, it’s fake, but then the real thing comes – I turn to my door and open it all the way up. I push it until it bounces off the wall, then I step aside and show her the TV I’ve set up just six feet away.
Clueless remains paused at the opening credits, the remote sitting by the pizza box. And though Nora only watches me with a frown, I slide back down to the position I was in when she got here. I rest my back against the doorframe, my leg bent against the opposite side, and though I know my ass will be painfully sore twenty minutes from now, I settle in and hit play.
“What are you doing?”
I pick up a slice of cold pizza and take a bite. “So, I was gonna watch this movie tonight. This mindless, mind-numbing chick flick. And hell, then my neighbor said she was digging a movie just like it. So here we are, and do you want a slice of pizza?” I pick up the box and set it on the floor in the hall.
Galileo’s ears perk up. His eyes widen.
I merely stare into his eyes and shake my head.
“Tucker, I…” She remains standing in the gap of the door. Pouty lips, a tiny sliver of bare skin between the pyjama pants she changed into – pink tartan – and the cream tank top. She wears fuzzy socks on her feet, and water droplets fall to her tank and leave behind dark stains.
“You can sit in your apartment.” I take another bite and grin. “I’ll stay in mine. There’s a little pizza left if you want it, but be careful, because Galileo is three seconds from swiping it.”
“He won’t take it,” she murmurs. “How’d you know I like this movie?”
“I didn’t.” I turn to her with a smile, victorious when her door inches open. “But I know now. Every girl in the history of the world likes this movie. It’s exactly what you ordered.” I pat the floor. “Sit. Hang out.”
“I’m not coming over there.”
“It’s okay.” I bring my hand back to my lap and pretend I don’t see her inching her door wider and wider. It’s slow, discreet – scared – but she does it anyway.
Eventually, she slides along her doorframe and drops to her ass, but unlike me, with my legs splayed out and relaxed, she hugs her knees and pulls Galileo in close.
“So…” I hedge. “Who keeps setting you up with these dudes?”
Her eyes flicker from the TV to me in surprise. “Hm?”
“I’ve lived here for five or six weeks now. Every single Friday night so far, you’ve left on a date, then come home again not long after. You take Galileo, then you stomp back upstairs rarely more than an hour later. An hour means the date flopped, which means whoever is setting you up has shitty taste.”
“Evie.” Smiling, she lays her head against Galileo’s, who lays his head on her knees. “You know Evie Kincaid, right?”
I nod. “Evie Conner now, no?”
She breathes out a soft laugh. “Touché. Conner. It’s still so new, I forget she changed her name. So, Evie and I have… history, I guess you could say. In high school, she and I didn’t get along.”
“You didn’t like her?”
She scrunches her nose and shakes her head. “Not really. She was loud and crazy and everything I wasn’t. Ben was my friend…” She frowns. “My best friend, I guess. And when we hung out, it was quiet and peaceful and