news. My bosses never say anything, but some of the viewers are just rotten. I’ve had to go completely incognito on social media to get away from them. I can’t stop the emails that come in, though. And there are plenty.
The worst offender is this person who goes by “Grace Is Amazing.” She has something to say every day. Always some biting comment. “Your dress is too tight.” “Who wears white after Labor Day?” “Your hair was a disaster.” Somehow, without my realizing it, she’s become the voice in my head. I can even hear her now: “Are you sure you should have that much dressing on your salad?”
I take a few bites of my salad but mostly push it around with my fork. I’ll probably do what I normally do: eat some of the salad and then go home and make myself something I’d rather eat. It’s ridiculous because I know not one of my friends would judge me if I ordered a burger. They might fall off their chairs with surprise since there’s an ongoing joke about my salads. But they wouldn’t judge me. I don’t know why I can’t just eat what I want in front of them.
Seize the cupcake; don’t settle for the kale. Well, crap. I think there are actually pieces of kale in this salad.
“Why are you staring at your salad?” Thomas asks, pulling me out of the trance I had no idea I was in.
“Sorry,” I say, looking up at him. I don’t feel like telling him what I was just thinking about, so I point to the spot between his eyebrows and say, “Your elevens are getting deeper.” They’re not. I mean, at twenty-eight, he’s only a year older than me, and the two little wrinkles most people get in that spot from scowling are years away for us. But Thomas is vain and I enjoy razzing him.
This causes Thomas’s brows to shoot up, smoothing out the area. He reaches up and runs a finger over the skin above his nose. “How dare you,” he says.
“Nothing a little Botox won’t help,” I say, adding a smirk for emphasis.
“I don’t need Botox.”
“You will if you keep pulling that face.”
He keeps rubbing the spot as if he can massage away the Ghost of Wrinkles Future.
“Well, at least I can do something about it. What can you do about your man hands?”
“I don’t have man hands,” I say louder than I mean to. The rest of the table, who were engrossed in their food, look over at us.
“And the voice of a banshee,” Thomas says.
I twist my mouth to the side, trying not to laugh. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction.
“Should I send the text to Henry or what?”
“Stop trying to change the subject, and yes you should,” he says, abandoning the massage between his brows.
I grab my phone out of my purse, chuckling to myself.
“Everyone, stop what you’re doing—Quinn is about to send a very important text to the British gent,” Thomas says in a loud, terrible British accent.
“What should I say?” I set my phone down in front of me and stare at it. It’s opened to my messaging app, Henry’s name at the top of the screen.
Thomas rubs his jaw as he contemplates. “Hmm. How about, I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
“Gross,” Holly says. Bree snickers.
“What? Are you crazy?” I move the phone away from Thomas in case he has some grand idea of taking it out of my hands and texting Henry just that. Mortification runs through me at the thought. What would Henry think of me if he got a text like that? Worse, what if he thought that was a good idea and kicked it off with a picture of his junk. Oh, please no. I have a lot of possibilities riding on this imaginary relationship with him. I don’t need it ruined right from the start.
Thomas lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “Be boring, then.”
“Just tell him hi,” Holly says.
I force a breath out my mouth, letting my cheeks fill as I do. “Hi, Henry,” I say as I type the words into my phone.
“Boring,” Thomas says again.
“Well then, what do I say?”
Thomas contemplates with pointer finger on chin. “Ooh,” he says after a beat, his eyes wide. “Tell him that you’re covered completely in only powdered sugar and want him to come over.” He reaches for my phone in an attempt to take it from me.
“No way.”
“Come on, it’s making light of