“It can’t wait until I’m dressed and clean?”
“No.” They say it in unison.
“Then what?” I’m really getting sick of the invasion of privacy.
“It’s Steve.”
“What’s he doing?”
“Texting us both,” Amy says. “And Mom. He even texted Dad.”
“What?” That’s the 2014 equivalent of standing outside my bedroom window with a giant boombox over his head playing some old Peter Gabriel song. “He texted Dad?”
“Dad forwarded it to me,” Amy says, reluctance in her voice. “You need to hear this.”
“Go ahead.”
“Dear Jason,” she reads aloud. “How’s the handicap? I miss you and Marie and our dinners out. Shannon and I had a big misunderstanding but I’m hopeful we can sort this out. I would love to catch nine holes with you this week.”
“Oh, barf,” I sputter.
Silence.
“What else?” I’m distracted, so I accidentally rub conditioner in my armpits instead of shower gel. Yuck.
“He texted me and Amanda and told us we needed to help you get over this unrealistic dream you seemed to have about Declan, and that he saw you desperately throwing yourself at him.”
My stomach actually goes concave. It feels that real, like he’s kicked me in the gut. “He said that?”
“Snake,” Amy mutters.
“It’s not true, Shannon,” Amanda snaps, angry at the very idea. “Don’t you dare get down because that ass**le is trying to play this to his advantage.”
She knows me so well.
Both of them hover around me, their presence both helpful and overbearing. I know they’re right. I know it. I do. Really.
So why is it that one cutting comment can undo hundreds of positive ones? Declan just told me he wants to see me. Likes me. Desires time with me. He flirted, he joked, he was casual and loose and we talked like people exploring each other. Testing the waters and the edges of who we are, where we intersect.
That’s a known. His kiss. His caress. His attraction to me. Whether this goes anywhere beyond Friday, no one can take away the touch of his lips against mine. The slant of his mouth as he eagerly kissed me. The feel of his hands sliding against my skin. The power of his body crushing mine in a fevered embrace.
That’s all fact.
Steve’s conjecture has a kind of power, though. It’s the sneaky power of doubt. And damn if that isn’t strong enough to drive out fact, even when it’s irrational.
Amanda and Amy look at me like they’re dealing with a fragile psych patient.
They kind of are.
Both of them have hive mind and just exit the bathroom as if they telepathically decided it. I finish my shower, dry off, and walk out into the bedroom.
My phone buzzes.
Amanda reaches for it and—
“Snake!” she shouts.
“I can’t ignore him forever,” I say with a sigh. Something inside tugs at me, a pull I don’t like. But it’s familiar. Maybe he really has seen the light…?
I think of a door slamming shut. Some self-help book I read last year recommends that when an intrusive thought tries to suck your soul out of you.
In my vision, the door slams.
On Steve’s neck.
Ah. That’s so much better.
I hit “Talk” and then “End.” Closest thing to slamming that door.
Chapter Four
Work turns out to be nothing more than a series of details, forms, and paperwork that need to be dealt with, a ten-minute weekly meeting that mostly consists of Greg giggling with excitement and saying, “Three point seven million dollars,” over and over, the sum total of the account we now have with Anterdec, and Josh complaining about office network protocols in so much detail that I start to think he’s part robot.
We’re sitting around the cheap plastic monstrosity that Greg calls a “conference table,” on mismatched office chairs that look like something from the set of The Andy Griffith Show. I’m slumped as low as you can go, my mind fixated on reliving every possible moment where my skin touched any part of Declan’s body. This kind of looping I could get used to—it was so much better than panicked repeat thoughts about whether I remembered to turn off the stove or freakouts that maybe I’d already been wearing a tampon when I put that new one in.
Near-OCD is a bit like being friends with a sociopath. When it’s on your side, the world is your oyster.
When it’s not, everything smells like rotten fish.
“Two words,” Greg says as he closes the weekly business meeting. All four of us are crammed into his tiny little office. It’s 2:13 in the afternoon and all I can think about is getting home so I can veg out and cyber-stalk Declan. I’ve only made it to page twenty-three of my Google search. Three more days before our date, and I feel unprepared.
Greg is standing behind his desk with a look on his face like the cat that got the canary. He’s so happy he is scaring us a little. Greg doesn’t do happy like this.
Something bad is about to happen. The last time he was this happy he landed a bunch of prostate exam stool kit evaluations and poor Josh…well, we had to sign a non-disclosure agreement about that set of shops, but let’s just say that stool samples and the public health department made Josh constipated from pure performance anxiety for over a week.
Josh freezes in place and his entire body clenches. “What did you do, Greg? Because I am not pooping on a card and taking it to a doctor downtown ever again. EVER. You can’t even pay me triple or—”
“How about company cars?” Greg turns around and looks out his window (he has a window…) and points to a shiny red sports car with a racing logo spray-wrapped all over the entire car, advertising a special tire.
Josh’s eyes go wide and his hand instinctively touches the top of one butt cheek. “A company car? For real?”
“For all of you!” Greg morphs into Oprah. “A car for you!” he says as he points to me. “And a car for you!” he says as he points to Amanda. The room explodes into excited shouts and lots of squealing and jumping up and down.
“HOW?” Amanda screams.
Greg takes a deep breath, beaming like a proud dad. He hasn’t been this happy since Amanda texted him last night and told him we landed the Anterdec account, and he texted us all a selfie this morning showing him turning the heat up to sixty.
“Consolidated has been chosen as one of only four marketing eval companies to test drive these ‘wrapped’ ad cars for certain markets. Boston is one of them. We got four cars!”