smile,” Holly says. “I like him already.”
“How should I reply? And don’t,” I say, holding a hand up to Thomas’s mouth to stop his comment, “say the whole ‘I’ll show you mine’ thing.”
Thomas clamps his mouth shut after I take my hand away, like a toddler whose fun I’ve just spoiled.
I look down at my phone in my hand.
Me: I’m good, how about you?
Henry: Not bad. Could use a drink. You up for it?
“He wants to get a drink,” I announce to the table.
“Boring,” Thomas says.
I roll my eyes at him. “What should I do?”
“Go get a drink, of course,” says Bree.
“You think?” I look to her, wondering if she will go back to the “make him wait” position she took earlier.
She nods her head at me, her eyes bright. I look to Holly, who’s giving me the same response.
“You should go,” Thomas says. “I suppose your outfit will work.” He eyes me up and down. Holly and Bree both tell him to shut up in unison.
I look down at my a-line, V-neck maxi dress. It goes to the floor, emphasizing my upper body in all the right places and deemphasizing my lower body, which tends to be more pear-shaped. My hair is pulled back in a low bun at the base of my neck, large gold hoop earrings in my ears.
I let out a breath. “Okay, you guys. I’m going to do this.” I send out a text to Henry asking where he’d like to meet, and we set up a place only a couple of blocks down the street from Hester’s.
I say my goodbyes to my friends and then grab my purse and stand up, and then before I can take a step away, I sit back down.
“What’s wrong?” Holly asks, her face concerned.
I twist my lips to the side, trying to think of how to articulate what’s bothering me.
“I was just thinking that we’re going to meet, and this is our first time really meeting, and I don’t have powdered sugar all over me this time—which is good, but I don’t want to talk about work, and inevitably when I meet someone and they ask me what I do, I tell them, and then it becomes about that. And then they Google me. And then they see it. The . . . the video.” I don’t need to explain that one to my friends. They were all here for the video of me that went viral. And, I suspect, have added their own numbers to the views on YouTube. It hit eighteen million and slowed down, thankfully.
Thomas puts a hand out. “Please stop with the word vomit.”
“You guys,” I whine to my friends, dramatically plopping my purse in my lap. “What should I do?”
“Don’t tell him,” Thomas says, lifting a shoulder.
I cock my head to the side. “Don’t tell him?”
“About your job.”
“That’s like question number two after ‘How do you like the weather?’”
“You live in Orlando and it’s the summer. The weather sucks.”
I harrumph. “You know what I mean. I can’t exactly leave that out.”
“Make something up.”
“I can’t lie.”
He looks to the side for a beat. Then he snaps his fingers and points at me. “I’ve got it.”
Chapter 3
“So, Quinn, what do you do for work?”
Well, it wasn’t the second question out of his mouth. It was the third.
Sitting at a little round table in a dimly lit, swanky bar, I almost didn’t recognize him when I first arrived. He’s in a light-blue button-down dress shirt and dark blue jeans, his hair combed back and away from his face. He’s actually hotter than I remembered. Which is pretty crazy since my brain tends to overexaggerate things.
Not sweaty and covered in powdered sugar, I’m fairly confident that I look substantially better than when we first met. Also, upon arrival, Henry said I looked “lovely.” So there’s that.
So far we’ve discussed the weather, although briefly, and it was mostly about how Henry was adjusting after having moved here. He moved from London to Florida only eight months ago, and the humidity is still getting to him. I’ve spent thirteen years—half my life—getting used to it. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I’m still working on that.
Then he asked where I went to university. And I giggled at the way he said it, having only read it in books or heard it in movies. My alma mater—University of Florida—seemed to impress him. His school was prestigious sounding, and I immediately forgot the name as soon as he said