Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 100060 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100060 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
I wait until the deliveryman is out of view before sliding open the chain lock and bringing the bouquets into the apartment one by one. I set them down on the small coffee table in our common area and consider the cards peeking out among the blooms.
One is roses. Red. All cut the exact same length.
One is a mixture of sunflowers and daisies and big, orange lilies.
Somehow I know they’re from my men.
I’m referring to them as my men now? Ugh.
The question is, how did they get my address?
My head moves on a swivel, zeroing in on my purse where I left it, hanging on top of my jacket. I’m on my feet, zipping across the apartment under the suspicious eye of Shayna, taking out my wallet to find my identification is missing. I haven’t needed it since yesterday, so I wouldn’t have noticed it was gone. They must have taken it when they ambushed me at the Times. Or one of them took it, rather. But they’re all accomplices, as far as I’m concerned.
“Gabe,” I say through my teeth. “I can’t believe I sent him a yoga pants selfie today. I am going to—”
The buzzer sounds off again.
Slowly, I turn to look at Shayna and I’m greeted by an arched eyebrow. “Maybe he forgot you needed to sign something?”
“Yeah, probably.” I hit the talk button. “Yes?”
“Delivery.”
“That’s not the same voice,” Shayna points out.
“I know.” I lean in toward the speaker again. “Delivery from where? For who?”
“Jesus, I don’t know. Uh…the slip says ‘Tobias’ something?” he says. “Is that you?”
With a headache starting to pound behind my eyes, I let the delivery man into the building. “I hope they are enjoying their last moments on earth right now, because tonight I’m going to kill them.”
Shayna clears her throat. “What was that?”
“Nothing,” I croak. Sliding the chain lock back into its groove, I open the door a couple of inches. I find a man holding a gigantic eggplant wrapped in a yellow bow. “Great. That’s just lovely,” I grumble, desperately searching my jacket pockets for more tip money, surprised when Shayna’s arm appears over my shoulder, two singles folded between her middle and forefingers. “Thanks,” I say a minute later when I’ve closed the door.
And now I’m standing here with an eggplant.
Shayna gestures to the purple vegetable, also known as the universal symbol for dick, and the bouquets on the coffee table. “What’s all this?”
“This? Nothing.” Quickly, I toss the eggplant into my bedroom where it bounces twice on the bed, before coming to a rest on my pillow, no doubt leaving the world’s biggest dick print. Tobias would be delighted. “Sorry about the interruption,” I say, collaring a vase under each arm and waddling them toward my bedroom. “Plans for tonight?” I call.
Shayna is silent for a few beats. “Yeah, meeting up with some school friends in the West Village.” She pauses. “You’re welcome to join.”
I pause inside my room where she can’t see me and pinch my eyes closed. Dang, I thought we’d reached the point where she’d given up on inviting me places. It’s not that I don’t want to go, but…the effort it would take to maintain a friendship with my roommate? All that work and then one day, she’ll just move out. Or I will. We’ll move on. We’ll lose touch and I will have nothing but memories to show for it. Memories that make me sad.
A series of faces flip through my mind. Rebecca from Florida. Josephine from Nevada. Evander from San Diego. Friends I made growing up as a military brat. Friends to whom I would sit in the dark and spill out my heart, only to wave goodbye a week or a month later, on to the next destination where I would have to start all over again. Again. Again. There were no shortcuts when it came to making friends, so eventually I just stopped trying.
I quit trying to do anything the full way.
“I have plans, actually. But thanks for the invite,” I call back to Shayna, backing up briefly into the doorway so she can see my smile. “Have fun.”
It takes her a moment to nod. She wants to poke around about the flowers. And the eggplant. But in the end, she backs toward her room and closes herself inside.
Ignoring the useless flare of guilt in my middle, I do the same. I set the flower arrangements on my nightstand and pluck out the cards, already dead certain which man sent each bouquet—and I’m right. The sunflower mix is from Gabe. His card reads, You’re saving me tonight, I won’t forget it. The card that came with Banks’s roses says, I’ll take everything you’ve got, even the thorns.
Wow. Nicely done, men.
Almost nice enough to forget one of them is in possession of my state ID.