“Not the knives, Mikey,” I say, trying and failing to keep the annoyance out of my voice. “Us.”
“Us?” Mikey asks, confusion in his beautiful, ridiculous eyes. “But you’re so chill, Chloe.”
“Yeah, that’s the thing,” I say. “I’m not. Like, at all. No one in the history of ever has called me chill. I came out of the womb and the doctor was like, ‘Whoa, get this newborn into a baby yoga class, she’s stressed.’”
Mikey’s eyes wander, and I realize he’s thinking about those tomatoes, so I keep it brief.
“You’re nice, Mikey,” I say, meaning it. “But I don’t think we should waste any more time together.”
Mikey nods. “I respect that. But damn, Chlo. I’m gonna miss you.”
I shrug. “Yeah, well. My brother lives here, so you’ll probably see me around.”
We smile at each other for a moment, and then I remember. “Oh! I brought you a pie!” I pull the dish towel off the blueberry basil pie with an oat crumb topping. It looks objectively beautiful, like something that should be in a bakery case. I know we could sell the hell out of this pie at Nick’s.
Mikey waves me off. “I’ll save it for Fred and Milo. I don’t like pie.”
“You don’t . . .” I trail off, willing my mouth to form words. “You don’t like pie?”
Mikey shakes his head.
“But there are so many different kinds of pie,” I say. “Saying you don’t like pie doesn’t even make sense. I could understand, theoretically if not personally, how someone could dislike fruit pies. Or custard pies. But all pies? A pecan pie is a fundamentally different beast than an apple pie, and a key lime pie is in its own category. How can you not like pie?”
Mikey shrugs and shakes his head, unconcerned.
I lean forward, studying those beautiful eyes, trying to find a real human in there. “What is it you don’t like? Do you not like crust?”
“I just . . .” Mikey appears to think for a moment, although there’s no telling what’s going on inside that head. “The filling is all, you know, gooey. And the crust is always hard.”
“My crusts,” I say in a measured tone, “are never hard.”
“Not your pies specifically,” Mikey clarifies. “But, like, all pie.”
I inhale and exhale a few times, attempting to calm myself. “My crusts are flaky and crisp. And . . . you know what? I think I should go.”
“You sure?” Mikey asks. “Milo’s gonna be back any minute with a butternut squash.”
I pause, tempted for a moment. “Those are so hard to cut.”
“I know, right?” Mikey says.
But I know I should leave. Mikey and I don’t have anything more to say to each other.
“Chloe.” Mikey tilts his gorgeous head and holds open his arms. “You’re the best.”
“Yeah, okay.” I step into the hug, which feels nothing like one of Nick’s. “Good luck chopping random vegetables.”
“Thank you,” Mikey says.
I’m about to leave when I turn around and pick up the pie. It doesn’t deserve to be treated this way. “I’m gonna take this.”
“See ya.” Mikey waves with his knife, then goes back to the tomato.
Chapter Twenty
Annie’s bachelorette party is the night before the premiere. Or maybe I should refer to it as her “bachelorette party,” because she’s refused to let me do any of the fun things I want to do. Example: she threatened to end our friendship if I hired a stripper who was pretending to be a pizza delivery man. I did convince Uncle Don to help me decorate the living room: we strung up a garland of multicolored penises over the dark wood fireplace mantel, I put penis cutouts all over the floral-wallpaper-covered walls, and there are streamers everywhere. I’m not saying Don loved it, but he was remarkably helpful, and he even had some great ideas, like ordering a life-size cardboard cutout of Drew from when he was shirtless in an action movie. Every time I see him standing in the corner by the decorative fake palm frond, I jump, thinking he’s a shirtless, ripped robber who showed up to steal all of our phallic decorations.
Arms crossed, I survey our handiwork. “You know, Don, I’d say this looks pretty great.”
Don nods. “The penis confetti is gonna be a pain to clean up, but that’s what the vacuum is for, I guess.”
“Thanks for helping me, and for agreeing to turn your living room into a den of iniquity.” I pat him on the back. “Do you want a fruit skewer for your troubles?”