“True,” Iris agreed.
Lily blinked. “Wait, what?”
Leave it to her sisters to find common ground with their desire to fix her life.
“What happened with Angel?” Violet asked.
Lily shrugged. “Iris needed help with Calla, so I walked away.”
Iris raised an eyebrow. “Who is Angel?”
“One of Eddy’s clients,” Violet explained. “A singer.”
“Ugh, no,” Iris said. “You don’t want to date someone in the entertainment industry, do you, Lily?”
“No,” Lily said. “I do not.”
“Okay, fine. We’ll just find you someone else,” Violet said. “You don’t want to show up to my wedding stag, Lily. If it happens that you meet someone else at the wedding, even better, but you need to have some fun. You haven’t gone out since you broke up with that guy a few months ago. You know, the one you never bothered to tell us about or introduce us to.”
Lily bit her lip. She hadn’t been completely honest with her sisters about what had happened with Strick. But how could she tell them the truth? That she was heartbroken after being catfished. They would pity her. And they would take that failure only as further proof that she needed their help. So she’d lied and said she’d been dating someone for a while and they’d broken up. She knew her sisters meant well, but she couldn’t go on any more of their orchestrated dates. Strick might have been a hoax, but she’d finally experienced how it felt to talk to someone she actually liked, and she didn’t want to settle for less now.
“I don’t need to meet anyone new,” Lily made herself say. She hated being combative or disagreeable, but she’d drawn a line in the sand and she wouldn’t go back.
“Don’t worry, we’ll take care of it,” Violet said. “I know this really cute sound engineer who works with one of Eddy’s clients. I’ll give you his number.”
“I think she’d be better off with my assistant’s cousin, Richard,” Iris countered. “He’s a law student at Cornell.”
Violet groaned. “Another law student? Boring. This model I worked with on an Elle shoot has a brother who’s a baseball player. She showed me pictures and he was fine. Wish I could remember the name of his team . . .”
“Lily doesn’t like baseball, though.” Iris frowned. In a careful attempt not to wake Calla, she reached for her purse. “Richard is sweet. I have his card here somewhere.”
“I’m not bringing a date,” Lily said, finally getting a word in edgewise. “You don’t have to talk around me like this.”
“Oh, we’re only trying to help,” Iris said.
“I don’t need your help!” Lily burst out, shocking her sisters and herself. They stared at her, and she breathed heavily, rubbing her sweaty palms against her dress.
“I don’t need your help,” she repeated, more quietly. “I’ll find my own date.”
“Really?” Violet asked, exchanging a glance with Iris.
Lily nodded, determined. She might have been a twenty-six-year-old who was stuck at a crappy job with no idea how to move forward, been a recent victim of a catfishing that she’d walked right into, and she might have been living on her sister’s couch because she’d had to escape her previous roommate’s evil dogs, but by God, she was going to find a date on her own and finally get her sisters off her back.
“And when I do get my date, I never want either of you to try to set me up ever again,” she said.
“And what if you don’t get a date?” Violet asked, raising an eyebrow.
Lily paused, considering Violet’s question. “Then I’ll go on your dates until the day I die or I’m an old maid with a million cats. Whichever comes first. Deal?”
Lily held out her hand, and Violet looked at it, skeptical. But then she grinned, grabbed Lily’s hand and shook. “Deal.”
They both turned to Iris, who sighed but reluctantly shook their hands as well. “For the record, I think this is childish,” she said.
But the bet wasn’t childish in Lily’s eyes. Because for once in her life, she was going to try her hardest not to lose.
* * *
? ? ?
Eddy and Violet decided to go to a bar, so Lily was alone as she walked into Violet’s fancy Union Square apartment building and got onto the elevator, pressing number 14 for their floor. It was a newer building with a housing lottery, so Violet had gotten lucky and scored a deal on the rent, and Lily was happy to temporarily live on Violet’s pull-out couch. She loved Union Square. It was one of her favorite parts of the city.
Lily remembered the granola bar in her tote bag, and she rummaged for it, gasping in delight once it was located. Hiding at the party meant she hadn’t had much time to eat. She took a large chomp, grateful and starving. Then she jumped when someone suddenly shouted, “Hold the elevator!”
A hand shot out, keeping the elevator doors from closing. And then Lily saw him.
Her neighbor who lived down the hall.
He was slightly out of breath as he stepped into the elevator, and he flashed a quick smile at Lily, so beautiful it was nearly blinding. She tried not to openly stare at him. But that was difficult. Because he was fine as hell.
Fine as Hell Neighbor was tall. At barely five three, Lily had to tilt her head back a little to look at his face. And look she did at his smooth, medium brown complexion and his full goatee that actually connected. He was wearing a plain white T-shirt and blue jeans with black Vans.
“Thanks,” he said, running a quick hand over his hair that was cut into a fade. “I appreciate you.”
“Um,” Lily uttered, her mouth full of granola. “You’re welcome, um, yeah.”
She did this every time she saw him, mumbled nonsensical replies. She was still looking at him now as he leaned back against the elevator wall, his posture indicating a slight aloofness about him. His limbs were long and muscular. Sometimes when she was lucky, she ran into him as he was leaving the gym on the ground floor of their building, and his skin would be damp and glistening with sweat. Her dignity was the only thing that kept her from drooling. She swallowed thickly at the thought now and glanced away. His presence always left her senses prickling with awareness. She felt like maybe they’d met before in passing but she couldn’t remember when or where. He’d definitely popped up in her dreams a few times, dressed as an old-school, sexy elevator operator with a double-breasted jacket and matching hat.
Her confusing infatuation with him was low-key embarrassing because, in reality, they’d never exchanged more than polite greetings.
The elevator door closed, and they were alone. Lily’s thoughts clambered over one another as she tried to think of something to say.