“And you guys don’t?” I grinned at him, wiping the tears from my eyes, feeling light all of a sudden.
“Oh, we talk, but not about the same crap you girls talk about.” He grinned at me. “I talk about sports, beer, work, movies, and you girls talk about feelings and all that crap. You’d better believe TJ and I don’t talk about that shit.”
“But you’re willing to talk about that with me? Aww, aren’t I lucky?”
“Well, I want to be a good friend.” He looked at me sincerely. “I’ll try my best.”
“Thanks, Cody,” I said and then nodded. “Sure. Let’s move to the bedroom, though I get to choose which side of the bed I want.”
“Of course, my dear,” he said and grabbed my hand as we jumped off of the couch. We settled into his bed a few minutes later, laden with popcorn, potato chips, wine, beer and some chocolate, and settled into watching the movie, sitting side-by-side and leaning back against the wall. And when the movie was done, we lay down and stared at each other and just talked and talked. We talked about everything: Kant’s philosophies, our views on Israel and Palestine, his favorite football team, politics, my favorite movies, we talked about our favorite books, and at the end of the night as we both started getting sleepy and our eyes were drooping, he leaned forward and gave me a firm kiss on the lips and whispered. “You’re fast becoming one of my favorite people, Sally, one of my absolute favorites.” And I closed my eyes then and smiled to myself. I drifted off to sleep the happiest I’d been in months. That was when I knew that I’d wormed my way into Cody’s heart in some way. Even if it wasn’t exactly in the way I’d hoped for.
* * *
I'm going to give you some advice. Don't play games with guys. Even if you don't think you're playing a game, think about what you're doing very carefully — very, very carefully. Guys aren't like girls. They don't analyze. They certainly don't overanalyze and they take what we say and think that's exactly what we mean. Even if the dumbest pig in Siberia knew that we were being ironic or sarcastic, a man would take us at our word. Like Cody, he took me at my word when I told him I thought we should be best friends. I knew and Mila knew and anyone with half a brain knew that I meant best friends that were also in love, but no — not Cody. He took my words literally. He really thought that I wanted to be best friends and everything else that went along with that. And now, well now, here I am, surrounded by the man of my dreams day and night and hating my life. All because I decided to tell a porky pie to get closer to him. That's all I wanted. Just to spend time with him. I just wanted him to get to know me better. I wanted him to fall in love with me. I wanted him to see how perfect I was for him.
But no, that's not what happened. Sure, he thinks I'm 'awesome' and we're closer now than we've ever been, but not in the way that I want. Not in the way that makes my heart thud. My heart does thud still. But generally in a sad way now. And I cry myself to sleep many nights because I realize that I'm further away from him than I've ever been. Now that we're better friends, I realize that, one, I'm not his type, two, we don't have much in common and, three, he hasn't been, as I'd secretly hoped, been harboring a secret crush on me for years. At least I don’t think he has.
I could hear Cody banging around in the kitchen as I sat and waited for him to finish what he was doing. We had spent the afternoon doing a crossword puzzle together and now I was on his laptop looking up movie times. And of course, I just happened to click around and boom, up came his OkCupid account. It wasn’t that I didn’t know he was online dating. Of course, I knew. We’d talked about dating casually. And how we’d joined online dating sites and we’d laughed about all the odd people we’d seen online. That hadn’t made me feel bad because that wasn’t real and there had been no faces to put to mind. And no actual dates were talked about. Yes, I’d helped him write a profile, but that had made me feel closer to him because we had laughed and joked around about what he was looking for and his interests. But now that I had his profile up on the screen and I could see that he was actively on the site and messaging and talking to people, it was another story. Heat rose through my face as my stomach grumbled in emptiness. I could feel my head starting to spin as I swallowed, my heart feeling empty, the pain wallowing through me almost too much to bear as I read some of the messages on the screen. I knew I was invading his privacy and I knew that I deserved the pain I was experiencing for being so nosey, but I just couldn’t stop myself.