“I will.” A screen door slams before the familiar chorus of summer cicadas hums in the background. “Now talk.”
I give her the details of what happened Friday. Being stood up, meeting Cillian's friends, the show... And of course, the wager he’d laid at my feet.
“He asked me where I was going next,” I say. Sighing, I trudge to the kitchen for iced coffee. “Which drove home that I don't have any idea. I'm thirty-three. I'm supposed to have an idea. Right? A plan? Something?”
Belle laughs sardonically. “If I've learned a damn thing these last few years, it’s that even if you do have a plan the universe is just as likely to set fire to it as not.” She pauses. “Honestly, if anything, maybe not having a plan is best. Less shit to bog you down when it fails.”
My heart aches for my friend. “If you feel bogged?—”
She makes a buzzer sound. “We aren't talking about me.”
“Fine.” I return to my nest on the couch. “So, yeah. That's where I'm at. Hot-nice-man is too hot and too nice. I'm?—”
“Also hot and nice.”
“The former, sometimes. The latter, debatable. Especially if I willingly bring all my bullshit to this hot-nice-man's nice life.”
“First off, 'hot-nice-man' cannot be his codename.”
“Got better ideas?” I ask.
“Hmm,” she strokes her chin. “Hung-and-handsome? Bearded-and-burly? All I've got is alliteration.” I laugh, nearly choking on my coffee. “Or we can just call him his actual name.”
“Ugh, and treat a man like a person? Fine.” I joke.
Belle shrugs. “I feel like Cillian has earned that, seeing as he's got you all stressed by following through with what he said he'd do.”
“I...” Damn her. “First off, I am not stressed.”
“Says the woman who just claimed she was suffering. But continue.”
I sigh, flipping the camera to sweep it around the troll cave that is my apartment. “This is the physical manifestation of what is going on in my skull and in my life. No one wants to deal with that. Especially someone who has clearly already sorted their shit out.”
“You don't get to decide what he wants to deal with.”
“Isabelle,” I grumble. “You're supposed to tell me this is a bad idea.”
“It is.”
“Thank you.”
“A bad idea to say no to him,” she adds.
“I hate you.”
She grins. “No, you don't.”
I make an annoyed noise.
“Look, I'm not flying all the way to Boston just so you can blindly take me around. Let him try to sell you on the place if for no other reason than you can be a better tour guide for me.”
“So what you're saying is, this is all about you?”
“Obviously.” Silence hangs for a beat before we both laugh.
Another call notification pops up, this time from my sister-in-law, of all people. “Weird, Dianne is calling me.”
“Find out what she needs. Keep me posted on what happens with Cillian?” She asks.
