“Of course. Here.” He picked up his phone, touched the screen a few times, and passed it to Paige. There was indeed a photo of Josh and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. “That was my home screen for the rest of law school.”
“So cool. We get celebrities in the Cat Café every now and then, but this is much more impressive than that.” She handed his phone back.
“Who is the coolest person to come into the Cat Café?”
Paige had to think about it, but the first answer that came to mind was the shockingly handsome star of a popular TV show about an ex-con who led a dubiously straight and narrow life now. When she mentioned the actor’s name, Josh scrunched up his face as if to say,Really? That guy?
“Look, I can’t help it. He’s even more gorgeous in real life. I also saw him in a play on Broadway last year. The play was very good and had something important to say about gay life in the twenty-first century, but, I’m not gonna lie, the most exciting part for me was that he was naked on stage for like five seconds, and while there was a screen that prevented the audience from seeing all the goods, what we could see was pretty impressive.”
“Is this the kind of thing you should be telling to the man you’re maybe pursuing romantically?”
She shrugged. “I’m a woman with a healthy sex drive, and if handsome actors get naked on stage, I’m allowed to appreciate them.”
He smiled but shook his head. “I won’t ask how I compare.”
“Well, he’s basically a Ken doll. I mean, he’s hot, but he’s also gay and doesn’t know me from Eve. You are a heterosexual man who is right here in the same room with me, and you like me and know my name. So no contest.”
“Well that’s good to know.”
“Don’t be jealous.”
“Perish the thought. Is there any of that carbonara left?”
Paige was so overfull that the presence of the big slice of tiramisu still in the takeout bag was making her feel a little nauseous, but she slid the carbonara container closer to Josh. He twirled some spaghetti around his fork and shoved it in his mouth.
As they continued to chat, Paige had to admit that there was definitely something between them. She also thought even that phrase was something of a sitcom cliché, but it seemed to fit here. It was a gut instinct, she supposed, a feeling like the person you were with was the person you weresupposedto be with. She’d dated plenty and had even dated the same man most of the year she lived in London, but she had never really fallen in love. She’d definitelylikeda lot of the men she’d been with, but she’d never had that feeling of rightness, of being able to see the future with someone. She didn’t have that gut feeling that what she was doing was what sheshouldbe doing.
But she had an inkling of that with Josh.
Here they were pigging out on Italian food in his office and talking about nonsense, just casual getting to know each other without the romantic pretense that would have surrounded them in the actual restaurant. Josh had kept one eye on his computer monitor as they ate, occasionally stopping to answer an email, which made Paige aware that he was supposed to be working. But every time she volunteered to leave him alone to get back to his work, he said no, that he wanted her to stay.
And maybe that was the whole problem here. They liked each other a lot. Was that enough to override the risk?
“You ever date one of your sister’s friends before?” she asked.
He paused with a fork halfway to his mouth. “Uh. Well, no. She’s two years older than me, so when we were both still living at home, by the time I developed pants feelings for girls, her friends were all, you know, high school seniors, and I was an awkward acne-prone sophomore. And right now is the first time we’ve both lived in the same city since she graduated from high school.”
“Let’s stick a pin in that because I’m now for some reason very curious about how many of those high school seniors you had crushes on.”
“Ah, no. Well, she had this one friend named Jasmine who was, like, eight feet tall. Probably actually a normal human height, but I was a short, scrawny teen, so she seemed impossibly tall to me. I couldn’t even speak to her she made me so tongue-tied.”
“Aw.”
“I don’t think Lauren and Jasmine are even really in touch anymore except on Facebook. Jasmine comments on Lauren’s posts sometimes. My internet sleuthing reveals that she has a husband and two kids now and lives just outside Cincinnati.”
“Sure.”
“I mean, Lauren intended to introduce me to a lot of her friends when I moved here as a way to help me find a social circle. I think she had this vision of us being the Ross and Monica of our friend group. But I get to be the Monica, because Ross is the worst.”
Paige laughed. “It’s funny you should say that. Our friend Evan has been usingFriendsas his pop culture frame for everything lately. I, uh, mentioned to him that I’d met you. After he swore not to tell Lauren, he suggested that you and I might be Chandler and Monica, but I guess I worried we’d be Ross and Rachel.”
“Ah, but Ross and Rachel ended up together.”
“Yeah, eventually. After ten years of drama. And I don’t know if I see Lauren as being as forgiving.”
“But, see, that was kind of my point. Lauren had to know that if she integrated me into her friend group, I might end up dating someone in her circle.”
That seemed so unlikely to Paige. But then, she was an only child and didn’t have much firsthand experience of how sibling relationships worked. She thought she should probably talk to Lauren about this, but she didn’t feel ready for that yet. At this point, if things didn’t work out, then she and Josh could go back to being people who maybe might run into each other at a party.
