The ringing of the phone echoes the ringing in my ears as I wonder if I’m doing the wrong thing. Should I even be calling Nick? What am I doing? I’ve been clear—to him, and everyone, and myself—that I’m in no way interested in anything but a casual coworker relationship, but the soup and the hot toddy and the bed sharing—
“Chloe?”
The raggedness of his voice startles me so much that I gasp.
“Is . . . is everything okay?”
He sounds like he just woke up, and all of a sudden I’m picturing him waking up, imagining me next to him in his bed, sharing a quilt and smelling his morning breath. I wish it weren’t such a turn-on.
And then I realize why he sounds like he just woke up: because he probably did, because it’s 2 A.M.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t realize it was so late.”
“S’okay,” he says, then coughs and sounds more alert. “Is everything . . .”
“Everything’s fine. It’s good. I . . .” I exhale, then whisper, “I just wanted to talk to you.”
He doesn’t say anything for a second, and then I hear the creak of a bedspring. I imagine him rolling over in bed. “Yeah? Okay.”
I smile, then press my lips back into a neutral expression, as if anyone’s here to see me. “Yeah? I don’t have to work tomorrow, but don’t you have to be up, in like . . .”
“A few hours. Uh-huh. But go ahead. Talk. Tell me about your big wild night full of dicks.”
“Please don’t say it like that. That makes it sound creepy.”
“You’re the one who put a chocolate-covered fruit penis on a spike and then sent me a picture, like a threat.”
“For the last time, it’s not a spike! It’s a skewer!”
“I know you have a lot of creative ideas for the shop, but I do not think penis spikes are gonna be big sellers for us.”
“I swear, Nick.”
Neither of us speaks for a moment, and he asks, “Do you have yacht rock playing?”
“Arthur’s Theme” is still going (it’s a long song). “Perhaps.”
“Is this what you do at two in the morning, Chloe? Listen to yacht rock and call your coworkers?”
“Sure, but I usually call Tobin.”
“Really?”
I snort. “No.”
“So,” Nick says. “Why are you calling me instead of playing penis-themed party games?”
“Well . . .” Suddenly it seems silly to explain the entire ludicrous story to him, but why did I call him in the middle of the night? Because he makes me feel better. Because he’s my friend. Because I want to talk to him.
“Annie and I got in a fight,” I finally say. “About the movie.”
Nick pauses for a moment. The two of us don’t talk about the movie. In fact, we haven’t even discussed the premiere tomorrow; I don’t know if he’s planning on going. On the one hand, it would be unusual if he didn’t go, seeing as how the movie is kinda based on him, and Annie was his most loyal customer for years. But on the other hand, it would be a real Nick move to not care and stay home.
“What about the movie?” he asks.
“Uh,” I say. “The fact that it’s based on me and you?”
“Oh. That.”
“Yeah. Anyway, she started taking notes on what I was saying tonight, like my personal life is mere fodder for her creative genius, and it . . . I don’t know, it was too much for me. Like, I’m a person, not your story inspiration, and my life isn’t going to get a happily-ever-after in an hour and a half. It will keep on going after the credits roll, and it will keep on being hard.”
I don’t know what I expect Nick to ask, but it isn’t “Why don’t you get a happily-ever-after?”
I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “Because of my life? It’s a shitshow.”
“You keep saying that, but what makes it a shitshow, Chloe?”
“You’ve met my dad, Nick. Most days, he can’t even remember what he had for lunch, or if he had lunch, and eventually he’s going to forget me, too. He’s not going to get better. And no one’s coming along to save me, to make it easier to take care of him or pay for his place, and I have to get my degree on the Internet during whatever free time I have, which means I’ll have a bachelor’s degree maybe by the time I’m seventy-five, if I’m lucky. And all I want