Page 30 of The Plus-One Deal

I texted Sunny and lay waiting, tapping my nails on my thigh. She took almost two minutes to send her reply, a peach and an eggplant. An exploding heart. I shook my head, irked.

What’s with the eggplant?I wrote.

She texted backlol, then a laughing emoji, thensry, sry. u txted u up. thought u were Ben.

I snorted.Well, I’m not. And this isn’t a booty call. I’m in SERIOUS TROUBLE here, so tell me you’re sober!

Sunny ditched the emojis.jober as a sudge. tell me. what’s up?

You jinxed me,I wrote.You and your romcom crap. We’re stuck here, and don’t laugh, but we kissed. Twice. And I don’t know what he’s thinking or even what I’M thinking, except what if I’m making an awful mistake?? He’s one of my best friends, maybe THE best (besides you lol). What if it’s weird now? If we can’t go back??????

Sunny texted backAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, just a long line ofAs. I held my phone away from me like she’d screamed for real. She probablyhadscreamed, in her bed in New York. Her next texts were calmer.

don’t panic.

breathe deep.

ur asking the wrong questions.

I bit my thumb, waiting for her to say more. The little ellipses popped up. Blinked out. Popped up again. I breathed like she’d told me, slow in and out.

what you need to be asking is what do you want. not whats real or whats practical or what u think you can have. you need to slow down and ask yourself, what do you want with Conrad? how do you feel? you can’t start with the hard questions or you won’t start at all. and you WILL miss out on whatever this could be.

But it COULD be a disaster.

or it could be great. you’ll never find out if you chicken out now. then you’ll be old looking back on your life, and you’ll be like… but what if Conrad??????????????? but he’ll be dead by then and it’ll be too late.

I burst out laughing.Why would Conrad be dead?

b/c women live longer and you’ll be like 90. and you’ll never know if he was your one.

I told Sunny she was ridiculous, then I told her thanks. Then I dropped my phone on its face and stretched out on the sofa. She’d made some good points in a general sense — most relationshipsdidstart with a leap of faith — but she didn’t know Conrad’s life. She didn’t know mine. Well, shedidknow mine, but not every detail. She couldn’t know how hard I worked, or what it cost me. Or maybe she could, given her own work. When hadshelast dated long-term?

I grabbed a pillow and pulled it over my face. I was back to the hard questions, like what about work? When would we see each other? Would we find time? Sooner or later, we’d plan a date. He’d back out, our I would, and we’d say it was fine. But then it would keep happening, and… whatdidI want?

I lay and tried to imagine a future I’d want, but the picture was blurry, like an old TV. I saw a penthouse, then a brownstone, then a country McMansion. I saw kids, then no kids, then a gleaming new office. Conrad was there with me, and then he wasn’t. I was cooking him dinner, then he was ordering in. Then we had a chef, then a butler, a nanny, and I flung the pillow off. I didn’t wantthat.

If it were just the two of us, what would that look like?

One night together, how would we spend it?

I pictured us on the set of some family sitcom, me on the couch, Conrad rubbing my feet. But, no. We wouldn’t get many whole nights together. We’d want to make the most of them, go out. Do something. Go to the opera. Go out with friends. Fly to New Orleans for gumbo, then back the same night.

That soundedexhausting.I yawned into my shoulder. I was tired, was my problem, why I couldn’t do this. Why I couldn’t answer the simplest of questions. Tired and overthinking. Tomorrow, I’d do better.

Tomorrow, I’d figure out what I wanted with Conrad.

CHAPTER 12

CONRAD

Morning came with more bad news: we weren’t getting out by plane. Not today, anyway, or for a few days. Something to do with radar systems, air traffic control.

“It’s a safety issue,” said Joe, when I tried to push him. “They aren’t budging. Icouldsend a boat for you, but…”

“But what?”

We’d come under fire on socials, Joe explained, for me taking my private jet to go on vacation. For wasting jet fuel while people recycled their bathwater.