Page 22 of Holding Out for a Gyro
I’m on my way to work. Can you meet me at the coffee shop?
To that I got a heart emoji.
Great. I’d be on edge all morning, thinking about him.
“Are you smiling?” Elizabeth asked.
I pressed my lips together. “Nope.”
“It figures you’d be the one to keep a guy’s interest. It’s like how cats always settle on the person who hates cats.”
I slid my phone into my bag, recalling how Evan had finally reached out to her, only to warn her he’d taken a job in town. “I honestly thought Evan was interested.”
“He was. Just not in me.” Her scowl made her look more irritated than hurt, but I could hear it in her voice, how her throat constricted as she swallowed down the rejection. “Apparently, he thought he’d gone home with the person I was pretending to be.”
I scoffed. “I call bullshit. You came clean about the prank as soon as we left the bar, and he seemed to roll with it. Was he willfully delusional? Or is this more reverse gaslighting?”
“I guess he heard what he wanted.” She let out a ragged breath.
“Wow.” I shook my head. I’d been so convinced he was in on the joke. “And he blames you?”
“He thinks he went home with a total stranger.” She looked both ways before stepping into the crosswalk. “I guess it’s weirding him out. Itoldyou that night it would be a bad idea.”
I hurried across the street after her. “So he doesn’t even want to see you? Maybe get to know you? That’s fucked up.”
She shrugged. “My theory is he wants to be free to play the field here, and that was an easy excuse to let me down.”
“Sounds like something I’d do,” I tried to joke. Elizabeth didn’t need to be mixed up with the male equivalent of me. “Maybe you dodged a bullet.”
“Doesn’t matter. He’s been here all week, and I haven’t heard from him or seen him, so it’s best I just put him out of my mind.”
Her bravado wasn’t the least bit convincing, and I was angry with Evan for writing her off without finding out what a gem of a human she was, but she could do so much better. “Well, it’s his loss.”
She paused and shot me a puppy-dog look. “I thought we’d had a real spark. More fool me.”
I laid a hand on her arm, pulling her in for a hug. “You didn’t imagine it. He was super into you. Who wouldn’t be? But he isn’t worth it if he can’t get past a misunderstanding.”
A trembling laugh shook her as she broke away. “At least his job must be at a different station. To think, last week, I’d sort of hoped we’d be working together.”
“Oh God, yeah. That would have been hella awkward.”
As we reached the coffee shop, Elizabeth hitched her computer bag up her shoulder and asked, “Can you spot me a coffee for my walk? I’ve got to wake up so I can turn the edits in on this book before I head back to the news station where I can find new and creative ways to fuck up.” She flowed into the shop ahead of me, still talking.
I clocked in, slipped on an apron, and squeezed behind the counter to begin a dreadfully boring eight-hour shift. Elizabeth hung out with me long enough for me to make her a freebie latte, grumbling about the job she’d only just started. I was tempted to ask if she’d like to trade places, but I sent her off with a Biscottiand an admonition to give the job a chance. “You’ve got this. You once convinced a stranger he knew you in high school.”
“Too soon, man.”
She pulled open the door right as Bas stepped through. He moved back, arm bracing the door open for Elizabeth, and exchanged a friendly greeting with her. Elizabeth glanced back at me with a wicked grin, and Bas’s eyes shot in my direction. I waved, eager to see what he’d surprise me with.
He waited in line, then plopped a plastic box on the counter, peeling back the lid as he narrated. “It’s a vegan pita—roasted red pepper falafel with tahini sauce.” He’d wrapped it in parchment paper.
I didn’t mean to, but I exclaimed, “Oh my God. I love you. You’re the best.”
I waved Natasha over to man the register and slid the box down the counter so I could investigate. It smelled freaking amazing. “Nom.”
It was hard to remember why I didn’t normally encourage this level of attention when he set another Tupperware bowl down. “And roasted potatoes in a ladolemono sauce.”
“Ladolemono?” I echoed, probably butchering it.
