I start to tell her to Google it like a normal person, or just run down to the bodega and get some freaking cornstarch, but I try to keep my expression pleasant. Who knows, maybe I really will need the proverbial cup of sugar from her someday.
“Are you using it as a thickening agent? You could use flour,” I say. Lindy would be so freaking proud.
“A thickening agent?”
I smile, trying to keep it friendly. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but maybe you should just order takeout.”
“Yeah, maybe you’re right.”
“Okay then,” I mutter, already starting to close the door.
Her face gets in mine. “Did you see the new neighbor? He’s yummy.”
“Yeah, I saw him. Beefy and lecherous isn’t really my thing.”
“Not mine either, seeing as I like the ladies, but anyway, that’s not the new guy, that’s the mover. His name is Bruce.”
“The mover or the new guy?” I asked, wondering why the hell I’m still having this conversation.
“The mover, obviously. He’s a creep.”
My head is spinning.
“The new guy could totally turn me,” Maria whispers, leaning in.
“Good luck with that,” I say, glancing over my shoulder in a deliberate, well-I-should-really-be-going kind of way.
“Well, thanks but no thanks on the cornstarch,” she says, giving me a little wave. “Guess Tasty Thai is where it’s at again tonight. Oh, and before I forget…I’m performing at a little place on 96th and Lex tomorrow, if you want to come. Don’t know that it’s your scene, though,” she says, giving my work dress pants and pink cardigan a once-over.
“Yeah, maybe not. Thanks anyway, though.”
She puts a hand on the door before I can shut it, and I stifle a scream of irritation. Maybe this is why Paul goes out of his way to avoid neighbors. They’re annoying.
“You could ask the new guy to take you.”
“Yeah!” I make my eyes go wide and eager. “I’ll think about it!”
Not.
“He asked about you,” she says, her face coming in the door before I can shut it.
I frown. “Who?”
“The new guy.”
My heart gives a little thump, and not in a good way. That a new neighbor is asking about her is one thing a girl living alone doesn’t want to hear, ever.
“That’s…disturbing.”
She shrugs. “You wouldn’t think that if you saw him. Well, half of him anyway. One side of his face is Hollywood gorgeous, and the other is…well, something happened. No judgment here, though. I think it’s sexy. If I liked men. But—”
“Hold on.” My heart’s kicked into overdrive. “Hold on just a second. Half of his face is scarred?”
“Totally.” She holds up three fingers like a claw and makes a swiping motion. “Wicked scars. Sexy wicked.”
Without a word, I shut the door in her face. Rude? Yes. Necessary? Definitely. Because I feel like I’m going to throw up.
“Hey!” she shouts through the door. “Don’t tell him I told you about him. He told me not to!”
I close my eyes and slump to the ground, leaning my head back against the door as I try to get it together.
Paul is here. No, Paul’s living here. In my building.
The question is, how do I feel about it?
Stunned? Check. Elated? Maybe. A little pissed that he didn’t just pick up the phone and call first? For sure.
But none of that matters, because while my brain is registering all of those reactions, my heart clings to only one: wariness.
See, not so long ago, I was a bona fide romantic. I believed in true love and happy endings.
And then I grew up.
I kissed my boyfriend’s best friend, and then went and tried to steal my ex back from his new girlfriend.
And then I thought I could make amends for all of that by fixing some poor fool who never really wanted to be fixed in the first place.
I single-handedly messed it all up.
In other words, romance? Disney and the romantic comedies can keep it. If it even exists.
Self-preservation feels infinitely safer. Self-preservation doesn’t allow you to go bounding down the hallway to throw yourself into the arms of a guy you love more than anything.