“Oh, when I said I’m not—”
“Nice seeing you,” I interrupted her, pulling Lola into the store on her skates by an elbow. She turned awkwardly to wave over her shoulder, so I moved behind her and grabbed her by the hips to make sure she didn’t eat it again.
“Bye, Simone.”
“Oh, my God,” Lola cried when the automatic door closed safely behind us. “Far be it for me to give you credit for anything, but that was amazing.”
“What?” I asked innocently, grabbing a basket and hooking it on my arm. I didn’t need anything. I hadn’t been intending to shop at all, but I figured that was the reason Lola was here.
“Using your evil to do good. I swear Simone is the vapidest, fakest, most annoying human being on the planet, and you just schooled her at her own game.”
“And yet,” I mocked, a finger to my chin in question, “you seem to be friends with her.”
She rolled her eyes. “We can’t just ditch her. We’ve been friends for years.”
“Sure you can. It’s easy. People I don’t like in my life? Zero.”
“Well, even if I get rid of Simone, I still have a very persistent one,” she said pointedly, and I laughed, guiding her into one of the aisles. She just hung on for the ride with two hands clamped around my elbow.
“You only fake-hate me. That’s different.”
“No, no. The hate is very real.”
I waved her off and grabbed a box of tampons from the shelf, throwing it into the basket. “No. You hate that my opinion is different from yours on many topics, but you don’t hate me. You like me. You enjoy me. You’re entertained right this very second.”
“I’m not. I’m trying to get away from you,” she protested, skating six inches away and releasing my arm all at once. “In fact, what are you even doing here? Are you fucking stalking me? Because that’s creepy on a whole new level.”
I moved her easily with a hand at the small of her back, the skates aiding my quest, and pushed her until she could see out the glass windows at the front of the store.
“See that?” I pointed to the building across the street. “That’s the office for the Journal. You know, where I work?”
I noticed she was silent then.
“But it’s interesting that you would accuse me of stalking you.”
“Why?” she asked warily.
“Because the easiest deflections come from a place of truth within yourself.”
“Are you saying I’m stalking you?” she scoffed as I grabbed a couple of packs of cookies and threw them in the basket.
“If it quacks like a duck,” I confirmed.
“As if!”
“Well, that sure looks like my office across the street. What’s a man supposed to think? That you just like this grocery store?” I pursed my lips and shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
“I do like this store! They stock my favorite coffee creamer.”
I nodded as though considering it and steered her in the direction of the refrigerator section.
“Okay. Wow. I guess you’re right. A situation actually can look like one thing and be another. Kind of like how a guy could not call and the reason could be something other than him just not seeing how awesome his date was the whole time?”
“Oh, you are an asshole.”
“Thank you. That’s pretty much the nicest thing anyone has said to me all day.” And quite frankly, that was true. Rhonda’s dislike for me made Lola’s fake hate look amateurish.
“Are you always this—”
“Likeable? Yes.”
“That wasn’t what I was going to say, and you know it.”
I pulled open the refrigerator and asked, “What kind of coffee creamer did you say was your favorite?”
“The Willow Hill Mocha…”
Finally, she started paying attention to more than the way I made her heart beat faster.
What? It doesn’t hurt to hope.
“What are you doing? Are you buying my creamer?” she questioned, rapid fire. “Are you trying to be like me? Jesus, next thing you’ll be cross-dressing.”
“Only on the weekends,” I muttered and she froze.
“What?”
I raised my eyebrow.
“God, you are such a liar.”
“Thank you.”
“That was not a compliment.”
“It was to me. And no, I’m not buying your creamer. This basket is yours.”
“What?” she asked as I handed it off, and she took a minute to look through it. “What the…tampons? Jesus. I actually love these cookies. And this toothpaste is my brand. How the hell did you do this?”