“Maybe we should get in line.”
“Maybe we should get you to a methadone clinic,” he replied, but let me drag him into line, anyway.
We left the coffee shop twenty minutes later, sweet coffee in hand, as I gave my driver the signal to stay where he was. “I couldn’t help but notice that you weren’t wearing your ring,” Jesse said.
I yelped and quickly moved to cover my hand. “It’s being resized at the jeweler’s!”
“I don’t want to make it weird or anything!” he said, even though we were both laughing by now. “I just couldn’t help but notice!”
“It was sending me into diabetic shock just by wearing it!” I cried. “I didn’t do it for me, I did it for us!”
He playfully shoved me, then grabbed my elbow and saved me from plowing into a bunch of women with handheld shopping carts. “Sorry,” I said to them. “It’s the caffeine, makes me all wobbly.”
They looked unamused, and Jesse and I turned the corner, heading toward absolutely nowhere. “So …,” I said, wiping some stray coffee off the lid with my thumb.
“Sooooo …,” Jesse said.
“So that happened.”
“What did?”
“We kissed.”
“We did? I’m kidding!” he said when he saw my face. “You looked like you were about to cry! I’m only kidding, I swear.”
“I wasn’t going to cry; I was going to murder you.” Note to self: Hide emotions better.
“Oh, well, that’s more like it. And yes, we kissed.” He shot a sidelong glance at me. “Are we still cool with that or …?”
“Oh, we’re cool. We’re very cool. No worries there, my friend. We are A-OOOOOO-KAY.” Shut up, Maggie. Just stop talking right now. Right this very second. I mean it.
“So, we’re not going into some weird friends zone?”
“What? No! I mean, unless you want to. Do you want to?”
“No. Do you?”
“No. Okay, wait.” I reached out and grabbed his arm, pulling us under an awning and out of the way of the rest of the pedestrians. “Why are you being weird?”
“I’m not being weird. I just wanted to make sure that you were cool with everything.”
“I don’t know how I can say this any more clearly: I’m really glad you kissed me last night.”
“Yeah, but then you didn’t call me back right away this morning and I was just worried …”
“You were worried because it took me fifteen minutes to call you back?”
“Um, maybe?” Jesse smiled, but his eyes were nervous and he kept running his hand through his hair, making it curlier with every swipe. It was kind of adorable, but he seemed agonized.
“Can I ask you a question?” I said. “A quick one?”
“Of course.”
“Which girl screwed you over?”
His eyes widened even as his shoulders relaxed. “So Roux told you.”
“Roux didn’t tell me anything, amazingly enough.”
“Wow, that’s cool of her.”
“Names. I want names.”
“Claire Thomason.” He took another deep breath. “Last year, right around Christmas. Messed me up pretty bad.”
So not only was his mom MIA, but he had been emotionally crippled by an ex-girlfriend. Leave it to me to be assigned to the most wounded bird in all of Manhattan. “Tell you what,” I said, looping my arm through his. “Let’s walk and talk about Claire.”
And that’s what we did for a good hour, winding our way up and down the streets of Nolita in downtown Manhattan. He had dated Claire for six months and was head over heels for her, but she always gave him mixed signals, wouldn’t return his calls, and so on. “It was like we’d make out all night on Saturday and then on Sunday, nothing. No phone call, text, IM, nothing.”
“Which is why you’re trying to put me in the friend zone,” I said. “I’m not a therapist, but I think you might be transferring your feelings for Claire onto me.” I definitely wasn’t a therapist, just a kid who had spent way too many summers watching Oprah and Dr. Phil reruns.
“I know,” he said, rubbing his hand over his face and making a growly sound that was more cute than threatening. “You girls are confusing.”
“Well, guys are confusing, too. Look at Roux and her pothead Romeo. That looks like it was a huge disaster. Everyone sort of screws everything up all the time. It doesn’t mean they’re not trying their best.”
“Are you saying Claire was trying her best?” Jesse looked dubious.
“No, I’m saying that we should try our best. And that means talking about things like Claire and being honest with each other.” Even as I was saying the words, I could feel the lump forming in my throat. Here I was, talking about honesty while lying through my teeth. “Or, at least, as honest as we know how to be.”
He glanced down at me. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a conversation like this with a girl in my life.”
“Well, if we’re going to be honest, then I should tell you that I’m just trying to get you to kiss me again.”
“Really?”
“I’m losing patience, too.”
He bent down and kissed me. Softer this time, not like last night. “Thanks,” he whispered against my mouth. “I mean it.”