“Why does it bother you that I was kissing Mike?” she repeats.

“Why would it bother me?”

“That’s what I’m asking.”

I sigh.

Am I really going to do this? Wrigley is a perfectly wonderful woman: totally out of her mind, but still, very much my type. Am I really willing to risk that for someone I hardly know?

Of course, I hardly know Wrigley, but that’s neither here nor there.

“I just didn’t know you were home,” I answer. “When I came in, I realized that I was probably intruding on something, but my phone rang before I could get out of here.”

“Oh,” she says. “So it didn’t bother you that I was kissing someone else?”

“Why would it?” I ask.

This is painful.

“I don’t know,” she says. “We almost, you and I, you know…”

She trails off; her newfound discomfiture is hardly helping things.

“What?”

“Okay, I didn’t black out that night,” she says. “After your friend came out of your room wearing—or not wearing…whatever—I kind of wished that I had, but—is this too weird?”

She’s talking really fast, and it’s a few seconds before I realize she’s just asked me a question.

“Is what too weird?”

“Talking about this,” she says. “I know you and that Wrigley chick have a thing and all that. I just don’t want to make things uncomfortable between us for the next couple weeks.”

That’s actually a pretty solid idea. She’ll move and I’m sure I’ll be over her in no time.

“I think I’m in love with you,” I blurt out.

That was stupid.

The remote falls from her hand and it looks like her jaw is trying to follow it.

“You’re what?” she asks.

“You know what? Never mind. I shouldn’t have said anything. You got some big news today, and I think that’s what we should be talking about.”

“You’re in love with me?” she asks.

“Well, I…”

I stammer a bit, but I have no words to follow the string of unintelligible noises.

“When did this happen?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” I say. “Look, can we just forget that I said anything?”

“I just got a new job, and I’m going to be moving,” she says, putting her hands to her temples.

“Yeah, let’s just forget I said anything. I’m thrilled to hear about your—”

“Are you sure it’s not just a proximity thing?” she asks. “I know sometimes people—”

“Oh, let’s just drop it.”

She peers at me and I can’t bring myself to return the gaze.

“You are—seriously, why didn’t you say something before? You know, maybe while I was drunk and throwing myself at you?”

“Well, I—”

“Wait,” she says, “that’s right. There was a naked woman in your room at the time.”

She starts laughing and I want to kill myself.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “This really isn’t funny.”

She’s still laughing.

“Okay, well, I’m going to go now, but yeah: congratulations on the job.”

“Dane, I’m so sorry for laughing. It’s a nervous thing. I’m really not trying to laugh at you.”

“Really, it’s fine,” I tell her and turn to go back to my room.

“I wish you had told me,” she says.

I stop.

“I have feelings for you, too, you know?”

“Yeah?” I ask.

I’m no good at this whole vulnerable thing.

“Yeah,” she says. “After that night, I realized that I’ve been really attracted to you for a while. I’m pretty sure that’s why I hated you for so long.”

“So you hated me because you like me?”

“I’m a girl,” she says. “That’s kind of how we roll. You guys do it, too, you know. That whole pushing girls down in the sandbox cliché; that’s the same thing.”

“Yeah, well, good talk.”

“I really wish you said something.”

She’s still talking.

Why are we dragging this out?

“I wish I said something, but I’ve got this new job and I don’t see any way this is going to work, Dane. I wish we just—”

“It’s okay,” I tell her. “You don’t owe me anything. I should have said something sooner and I didn’t. That’s the way it goes sometimes.”

I turn the knob on my door.

“Are you going to be all right?”

That has just become my least favorite question ever.

“Yeah,” I answer. “I’ll be fine. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

I’m half-expecting her to say something else, but she’s silent. So I push my door open and can’t get it closed behind me fast enough.

Well, at least I have something to tell Wrigley, although I can’t imagine this is going to be the best first day of a relationship she’s ever had.

Chapter Fifteen

Coming Down

Leila

Mrs. Weinstock didn’t fire me after everything that happened yesterday, so I guess I’m here until I give them some kind of notice. That’s not really what’s on my mind, though.

Work is a blurry mass of emotion, none of which stays in one place long enough to really sink in. I wanted to tell Dane that I felt the same way about him, and I guess I kind of did, but that doesn’t change anything.

On the bright side, I’m so distracted that I barely notice it when Kidman asks me if I’d like to grease up his paper tray, and before I know it, I’m done for the day.

I don’t want to go home, but I can’t stay here. Knowing Dane, little, though I do, I can only imagine that if he is home, he’s probably got company.

I’m just going to have to get over that, though.

I would call Mike, but I can see that only making things even less comfortable with Dane.

Why would he wait until the last possible minute to tell me that he has feelings for me?

By the time I get home, I’m too emotionally drained to worry about whether Dane’s in there or not.

I get into the apartment and, if he’s home, he’s in his room.

That’s fine by me.

Drained, though I am, there’s no doubt that seeing him right now would be enough to send me off some kind of edge.

I can’t think about that right now, though. I only have a couple of weeks before I start at my new job, and I need to find somewhere to live.

If worse comes to worse, I can commute for a while, but that’s going to be a long drive. Like most people in Manhattan, I don’t have my own car, so I’d have to rent one; it’ll be so much easier if I can find somewhere before then.

I pull out my phone. If there’s one thing Mike knows, it’s how to annoy the crap out of me. If there are two things he knows, they’re how to annoy the crap out of me and how to find a killer deal on an apartment.

“Hello?”

“I got the job.”

I go on to tell him the finer details and before I can even ask, he’s already installed himself as head of the apartment-finding committee.

Now Mike: Mike has a car. It’s a beat down hunk of junk, but it runs. Tomorrow is Saturday, so the planning section of the conversation goes by quickly enough.

It’s when he asks what I’m going to do about Dane that things start to unravel, or rather, that I start to unravel.

I make a quick excuse and hang up, but just hearing the name has me in a tailspin. I don’t know why I’m crying so hard.

*                    *                    *

It’s six in the morning when my phone rings.

I let it go to voicemail and have a brief, magnificent fantasy of falling back to sleep and not waking up again until I’m no longer tired, but that dream is cut short as the phone rings again.

“What?” I answer.

“Rise and shine,” Mike says. “It’s time to find you an apartment. I’m downstairs and ready to go.”

“It’s too early,” I tell him, but I know it’s not going to make any difference.

“I brought coffee and donuts,” he says. “If you’re really nice to me, I might even let you have some, now get your ass outta bed and let’s get going.”

I go on to make a very compelling argument about how nobody’s going to show us apartments this early in the morning, but he’s already hung up.