Love Interest

“What?” She steps up beside me and tracks my line of sight. “Oh. That’s pretty.”

Sitting there, among perennials, roses, and tulips, is a potted planter of deep jewel-toned red chocolate cosmos flowers with petals like raindrops. The Mexican flower was nearly made extinct, but it’s been repopulated in recent years, though it’s still considered a rarity. I’ve only ever seen them in botanical gardens.

The moment of this moment strikes me as something bigger than an overpriced flower in a Manhattan farmer’s market. I pull out my phone and snap a pic for Jerry. He replies seconds later: In New York City????

Casey: Right?

Jerry: You have to buy that.

In the end, I do buy the chocolate cosmos, but not for me—for Alex. I promised him I would, and his apartment is close enough to our brunch spot that we can drop it right off afterward.

We’ve been texting all weekend.

It started when Alex asked for an itemized list of my shellfish allergies, which led to a shirtless photo of him and Freddy on the beach shucking clams. After that, there was some argumentative back-and-forth about whether it’s recommended to remove your shirt in the northeastern October weather (I argued no, Alex argued that he would not be body-shamed under any circumstance). But then he sent me another photo, this time wearing a shirt and a curmudgeonly frown, a trail of sand stuck to one cheek, and it did precisely nothing to improve the fluttering in my belly, so really, I played myself.

The kicker, though, was when he called me last night. I picked up the phone halfway convinced something horrible had happened—like an internet troll photoshopping our talking heads onto naked bodies, or Alex telling me he found out I applied for his job—but instead, he said, “Hey, so I’m at the Cape Cod Target—”

“With your credit or debit card? It’s an important distinction.”

“And I was hoping you could tell me your favorite brand of laundry detergent?”

I was alone in Prospect Park, reading a paperback from Books Are Magic like I always do when I want to romanticize my life. (In London, I plan on frequenting the Spitalfields Libreria and taking my book to Kensington Gardens, where I will sit against a tree and look enigmatic while I read about magical teenagers.) “Um. I use Tide Free & Gentle?”

“Perfect.”

“Is this a hostess gift for Freddy’s mom?”

He laughed at that. “No, I got her a bottle of wine.”

“Did you … Alex, did you take your dirty laundry to Cape Cod with you?”

There was a pause, and then he said, “They’re like family, okay?”

“Were they out of detergent or something?”

“No, I just wanted—” He stopped talking then, and I froze, and across two hundred miles of rocky American coastline, past Providence, past New Haven, all the way to Brooklyn, whatever it was that Alex just wanted left him in an exorcism and slammed into me like a freight train. “To keep you in mind,” he finished lamely.

“Thanks,” I whispered.

He gulped. “Thanks for the recommendation.”

“You’re welcome.” After a stiff silence I added, “Okay, bye.”

“Okay. Bye.”

And then I went back to reading, absorbing precisely zero words, thinking about Alex thinking about me in the Cape Cod Target.

After a vibey, old-school French brunch where the pot of cosmos sits in the third chair at our outdoor table, Miriam and I head to the alley behind Alex’s place.

“Are you finally going to tell me about last weekend?” she asks as I climb up the fire escape to the second-story balconies. “You know, especially considering you guys now co-own a plant?”

I grunt as I heave myself over the flimsy rail. “Toss it up.”

Miriam grabs the ruby-red flowers by the base of the plastic pot. She lowers the planter between her thighs, then granny-shots them up to me. A light dusting of soil rains down on her, and she squeaks and dodges out of the way. I set the flowers against one corner of the balcony.

Miriam holds up a hand as I make to lift myself back over the edge. “You can’t come back down until you spill.” Her voice echoes in the empty alley.

My elbows push against the rail as I glare down at her. Being this close to the mattress where I stayed safe and warm in his arms all night is certainly making me feel warm again, but no longer safe. “There’s nothing to tell. It was late, I didn’t want to chance the subway, and Alex’s place was close. All we did was—”

“Snuggle all night like a pair of lovesick teenagers?” Miriam shifts her weight to her other hip. “Yeah, got that part. I want to know what it means to you, buttercup.”

What it means to me? What the eleven-dollar bar tab at Sleight of Hand and the Tide Free & Gentle in a Cape Cod Target and the BYO pizza at Eataly means to me? What it means when Alex calls me pretty, says he’d be lost without me? What it means to me that he could have—he really could have—lorded I told you so over my head when I discovered how wrong I was about him, and instead he gave me the comforter to his bed and an old T-shirt?

It means everything, I finally admit, the truth breaking free from a cage in my mind. But I don’t know if it means everything to him, and if it means even a single drop less than everything to him, the all-or-nothing heart on my sleeve won’t be able to take it.

I breathe out a sigh, shaking my head. “Nothing.”

“Liar.”

For the second time today, Miriam and I stare each other down.

“I’m attracted to him,” I say, picturing the line of sand stuck to his cheek. “Is that what you want me to admit?”

“We already established that,” Miriam says.

“We did?”

“Yes, Case, Jesus.” Miriam makes an exasperated grunt. “I want to know if you like him. If you want to cuddle him again. If you want to kiss him.”

“I…” How do I admit that I want to see Alex Harrison in his glasses, that I want to know what kind of couch he ordered, that I could sit for hours and listen to him talk about foreign exchange rates or, like, fuck, even sailboat anatomy without getting bored?

“I’m waiting, Juliet.” She’s enjoying this way too much.

My fingers clench around the rusty metal. “It’s not a no.”

Miriam narrows her eyes. “It’s not … a no.”

“Yes.”

“Yes?” she repeats.

“Yes,” I say again. “It’s not a no.”

She makes a disbelieving face. “That’s it? He was public enemy number one two weeks ago! You didn’t just decide to start ignoring all the things you hated about him for a sexually PG good time, I know you didn’t.”

“He’s different than I told you at first.” I explain to Miriam about Alex getting the job on his own merit, but I leave out the stuff about his father he asked me not to share. “He’s good at his job, too. It’s weird.” My head shakes gently as I haul myself back onto the fire escape. “In some ways he’s a total trust fund kid, and in other ways he’s not like that at all.”

“Look. Cool if he’s got family money, cool if he doesn’t. All I’m saying is, statistically, one of you is going to catch feelings.”

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