the season. It won’t start up again until next spring.
“Dammit!” I cry out and slap the steering wheel. Liv’s timing sucks. If she hadn’t come over at that particular moment, maybe I would have harnessed the courage to believe, to be sure of what I was feeling, to make some kind of move to see Devon again. But why didn’t he ask for my number? The old man told him I was “a keeper.” Liv really shattered the moment.
This is her fault, not mine. Liv can be so controlling. Waltzing into my life like she knows how to fix it. How would she even know? We haven’t seen each other in what feels like years. She acts like all I need to do is wear a push-up bra, go on Tinder, and voilà! I’ll find my dream man.
I shouldn’t have expected it to be any different though. Liv’s always been this way. A Fixer. A fixer who loves to focus on other people but not on herself. She’ll even try to fix things that don’t need to be fixed. Like that time she fixed my perfectly good haircut, which then looked so bad I had to spend another seventy-five dollars at the salon to fix her fix!
I’m starting to wonder what it is that’s wrong with her. We’ve both been so isolated in our own worlds that I have no idea what’s going on in her life. All I know is that she came out here on a whim. Meanwhile, she’s hardly even said three words about Ethan or her life in London. I know about that dalliance with Francois, but she hasn’t said anything about it since our phone call. We should be spending time reconnecting with each other, not on this crazy dating scavenger hunt that’s giving me bad flashbacks to wondering whether or not someone’s going to ask me to prom.
Tears burn down my cheeks. I look into the rearview mirror to make sure I don’t have mascara smeared all over my face, to see that I don’t look like the hot mess that I feel like I am. I let out a big sigh, resigned to the truth of the matter. It wasn’t Liv who messed things up. It was me. Self-sabotaging again. I could have told Liv to just give me a minute. I could have been confident enough to ask Devon for his number. I could have mentioned to Devon that I meant to match with him on Tinder, and that this real-life encounter feels like a second chance. I’m a grown woman, dammit. If I didn’t make a move on Devon, it’s because I chickened out, nobody’s fault but my own.
Even so, I don’t want to say sorry to Liv. That would mean explaining the connection with Devon. How could I even begin to explain the unexplainable? Recounting the whole thing will just make me feel like even more of a failure. If I hear Liv’s Just Say Yes and You Gotta Get Out There lecture again, I might lose it once and for all. As much as I love Liv, she doesn’t have life figured out any better than I do. Hell, nobody does.
I wipe away my tears and accept the reality of the situation. This mission for love isn’t about me. It’s about her. Something serious must be going on and she’s not letting me in on it. Fine, I’ll play along until she wakes up to it herself. In the meantime, why not go on a few dates? I’m probably crazy to be obsessing about Devon after only one coffee. We weren’t even together for more than half an hour, max. But I can’t deny that it felt like we’d been talking for hours.
Feeling lighter with this newfound clarity—I always feel better after a cry—I turn on the radio. I gaze at the Pasadena hills rising in the distance, squinting my eyes in the direction of Sierra Madre. Despite myself, I can’t help but wonder what Devon’s house is like. He probably has a perfectly restored Craftsman house, with a garage that’s been converted into a wood shop.
I can just picture it…
“Sunday Kind of Love” comes on the radio right as I walk into the sunlit garage. Devon is leaning onto a sideboard, moving his arms back and forth in a strong, steady motion as he sands down its surface. Sweat drips from his forehead and he’s so intent on his work that he hasn’t noticed me in the doorway.