Just a Girl - Becky Monson Page 0,21
It’s all new for them, this relationship thing. I get it—they’re a “we” now. I don’t have to like it, though. Well, I do like it; Holly has never been happier. And Logan . . . well, I think he’s smiled a couple of times. I’m pretty sure. You can never tell with Logan.
Holly’s also busy with her new start-up business after recently quitting her job where she worked in a bank call center. She’s started a professional organizing business, and thanks to her old boss at the bank, she’s already gotten referrals.
“In love?” Holly questions. “You might be getting a little ahead of yourself.” She pushes the up arrow on her treadmill, lifting the front so she can walk on an incline.
She knows me too well, my best friend of nearly half my life. We met the first day of middle school when we had both just moved to the area. Her from Charlotte, me from Boston. We bonded instantly even though Holly is a planner and a list maker and I’m . . . not any of those things. I don’t even make grocery lists. Which is why I currently have four boxes of Wheat Thins in my very tiny apartment pantry.
“Fine, not love. But definitely lust. I mean, he did kiss me last night.”
“What? Shut up,” Holly says, her eyes wide. “Tell me everything.”
I fill her in on the date, the walk home, and the kiss I keep replaying in my head over and over like the Taylor Swift breakup songs that I listened to on repeat when that jerk Tyler Cropper broke my heart in the seventh grade. But instead of eliciting sadness, memories of the kiss with Henry make stars explode in my chest.
“Nice,” she coos. “That does sound a bit like love.”
“I know, right?” I say, my voice going up, sounding a bit like an excited bird screech. I’m a seagull with heart eyes.
“And it’s Henry . . . what?”
“Henry, yes,” I say, not following.
“His last name, though?”
I give her a sheepish grin. “I still don’t know.”
“Maybe you should learn his full name first before deciding you’re in love. I mean, what if his last name is, say, Pin? Then you’d be Quinn Pin if you married him.”
“I’d keep my maiden name.”
“What if he’s super traditional and doesn’t want that?”
“Then I’d name my kids, Lynn, Vin, and Phin, and we’d all have to suffer.”
Holly snort laughs at that, and I mentally pat myself on the back for my very witty retort.
“You can’t ruin my dreams,” I say.
She lifts a shoulder. “I’m just being the voice of reason.”
“I hate your voice of reason.” I give her my best pout. “Besides, he doesn’t know my last name either. I’m not ready for Henry to know. I don’t want him to Google me.”
“Ah, yes. How goes the blooper reel?”
“Not great. Up to nearly two million views.” It’s moving at super speed, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
“That doesn’t bode well.”
“It does not,” I say. “Dwayne—my EP—had this crazy idea that I put it together. That it was me who leaked it. Me. Like I’d even know how to do that.”
Holly gives me a knowing look. She knows I’m not tech savvy. She’s the person I call when I can’t figure out my TV remote.
“True. Not sure it would be a great career move on your part,” she says.
“Right? And Jerry thinks I need to come up with another grand feature idea. Like I have a bunch of those sitting in my back pocket.”
“What? No more felons to send me on vacations with?” her tone oozes sarcasm.
I look at her, cocking my head to the side, pursing my lips. “You know that wasn’t my fault. It was cheap-butt Jerry who did that.” I feel a tinge of guilt rush over me just the same, my brain running off with a lot of what-if scenarios.
When Holly agreed to do the feature—to go on her honeymoon with a stranger that had the same name as her ex-fiancé—she was told there would be background checks. There weren’t. I didn’t know this; Jerry was behind the whole thing, in the name of saving money for the station. His corner cutting was how Holly ended up going on the trip with a felon. But once he got word of it, Logan flew out to London to rescue her, and look at them now. Walking on treadmills side by side. And to think, if I hadn’t sent her on a trip with