“Um, I have no idea.” I didn’t know what Mike did on the weekends. Other than our occasional, Thursday night, after-work get-togethers, I didn’t hang out with him. I hung out with Lana and her crew, which usually meant sorority and fraternity people. Mike was GDI—Goddamn Independent.
“You’ve had a crush on a guy you’ve worked with for the past year and you don’t know his phone number or how he spends his R&R time?” Noah looked at me skeptically. I shrank back into my side of the booth. I promised myself that I would never lie again. I wanted to throw up my hands in surrender and confess all.
“He might be at the library,” I said. I didn’t know Mike’s work schedule, but he was often at the library either working or hanging out.
“On a Saturday morning?” Noah looked at his watch. “At eleven o’clock?”
“Why do you care?”
“I’m your friend,” Noah replied and placed his forearms on the table, leaning closer to me. “I want to help you out. Isn’t that what friends do?”
“I’ve never had a male friend before,” I admitted. “I don’t know.”
“Just pretend I’m one of your girlfriends, then.”
“Riiight.” Because that would be so easy to do.
“Let’s go to the library.”
“Right now?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you have anything to do today?” I tried to think of an excuse to get out of this, but saying you had to study two weeks into the new year wasn’t ever believable. Laundry, though, was a good excuse. Everyone had to do laundry. But before I could trot out my excuse, Noah was standing up ignoring my question.
I dug in my pocket and pulled out my debit card. I placed it on top of the wallet carrier that the waitress had dropped off earlier when she cleared our plates. Noah took out his wallet and threw down a couple of bills to cover the total plus a big tip. He stuck my card in his pocket.
“Hey, that’s my card.”
“Don’t make me hurt you, Grace.” He fended off my attempts to grab my card back. “I’ll return your card when we get to the library.”
“But I wanted to pay,” I said. “That’s what friends do. They pay their share.”
“You can buy next time,” Noah said and pushed me forward and out the door.
The library was on the south end of the campus, near the diner. It was a quick walk over, and I didn’t have time to think up any other plausible reason we should go back to the apartment. Noah’s long legs were eating up the pavement, and I felt like a tiny Chihuahua trying to keep up.
“Are we racing?” I asked.
“Sorry.” Noah slowed down. “Not used to walking with anyone as short as you.”
“I’m not short. I’m above average height for a female.” For some reason, Noah’s lack of experience walking around with shorter people was kind of pleasant. It fit in with his earlier confession that he hadn’t dated any one seriously since high school. Or maybe it just meant he dated really tall women.
We walked into the library, and a girl I didn’t know too well was manning the desk. I thought her name was Molly or Marie or Maria or something.
“Hi, Grace,” she said. I winced inwardly, feeling like a tool for not knowing her name when she knew mine. Faces, I could remember. Names, not so much.
“Hi. Is Mike around today?”
“Actually, yeah, he just came in and was going down toward Periodicals.”
“Great,” I said. I was batting negative one thousand today.
I walked slowly down the stairs but didn’t dawdle at the door. I knew I should’ve introduced Noah, but since I didn’t remember her name, I left one embarrassment to head to another.
“Not going to introduce me?” Noah whispered.
“I don’t remember her name,” I admitted.
“Ouch,” he laughed.
“Next time I pause, introduce yourself,” I instructed.
“Yes ma’am,” he said, trying to sound obedient but failing. I could practically hear his smile through the words.
We walked downstairs, turning left toward Periodicals, and sure enough Mike was there, leaning on the desk, flirting with some girl wearing a sorority T-shirt. Her Greek letters were appliquéd in white on the back of her pink tee.
“That’s Mike,” I pointed out.
Noah stopped and turned toward me. Then looked back at Mike, disbelieving. Mike tossed his hair out of his eyes. Once and then again. “Mike.” It was a disbelieving sound.
“What’s wrong with Mike?” I asked, faking my indignation. Mike was decent-looking, but he had long bangs and was constantly flipping them out of his face. You couldn’t talk with him for more than five minutes without a head toss.