Page 32 of Keep It Together

Isaac: What a coincidence. Me too.

Holy cow, I’d missed this. Why had I waited for him to text me first? Friends didn’t do things like that.

Carmen: It wasn’t you bringing in flowers today.

Isaac: I can see you whenever I want. I don’t have to invent reasons anymore.

My jaw dropped at his admission. Not that I hadn’t suspected he’d brought flowers in here on purpose before. But what an Isaac answer. Friendly, bordering on impertinent. Outrageously honest. Bold, but also cute.

Not knowing what else to do, I sent him a line of hearts followed by vomit emojis. It just felt appropriate.

Isaac: Okay, I might have deserved that.

Dang skippy. We’d never been mushy, and we sure as heck weren’t starting now.

Isaac: Let me try this again. Are you interested in eating dinner in the same vicinity as me?

Carmen: How close are we talking?

Isaac: We could share a couch or a kitchen table. I have both of those. Or we could go somewhere. Maybe show up at the same time? Or we could stagger it. Wave in passing?

Eek. I needed to stop smiling so big. And while I was dying to know what Isaac’s place looked like and sit on his couch eating whatever he had in mind, I already had plans. While Isaac and I had been texting back and forth, Ally and Kimber had already said yes to food truck night.

Carmen: So, I wasn’t lying when I said I have people who go with me to check out places. How do you feel about crashing girls’ night tonight?

Isaac: I feel good about it.

Carmen: Good. Because we’re talking multiple food trucks. Where do you live?

He sent me his address, and I wasn’t proud of it, but I totally Google-Earthed it. Isaac lived in a tiny 1950s era house with a carport and a little, well-kept front yard. He had a kidney-shaped pool in the backyard with a hot tub next to it. I could even see where he parked his trash and recycle cans. He was in a cul-de-sac at the end of a street in what looked like a gentrified area of Phoenix, behind a hospital and a Starbucks. And now I was reaching stalker level. Wow. All I’d needed to know was the distance from his house to mine.

The food truck hotspot I wanted to check out had a Thank-Goodness-It’s-Monday-Night event, with coupons for a free dessert. I loved snarky marketing. Isaac would have to drive past my house to get to it, though. It would make more sense to drive together. Then I wouldn’t be wandering around trying to find him and the girls on my own.

Carmen: Do you want to meet at my place at seven?

I’d have to cut my online felting group short tonight, but sometimes these things couldn’t be helped.

Isaac: Will do.

I put my phone away and finished up work. Every Monday afternoon when the reports updated, I checked the Maricopa County restaurant inspection database to make sure we weren’t sending people to unsafe restaurants. The food trucks were no exception.

Once home, I looked in on Papá, but he was asleep after ankle surgery, and Mamá assured me it had gone well. That hadn’t stopped her from cooking everything in the fridge to keep her hands and mind busy. She had enough food made to feed an army and no one to eat it, despite having her meals and mine planned for the week. By the time Gia and I got dinner delivered to all the people in the neighborhood who wanted it, I was twenty minutes late for my felting meeting I’d already be cutting short, and definitely ready to stab something repeatedly with needles. It always amazed me that something so violent ended in the cutest creations on earth.

I signed on just in time to catch the tail end of an argument that, of course, had nothing to do with felting.

Belinda saw me on screen and waved before getting back to grilling Tawny. “Let me get this straight. Tom Cruise was in line behind you at the Kum & Go gas station?”

“It was him!” Tawny insisted. “I swear it. He even gave me a little salute when I turned around, and then,and then…” She paused dramatically, completely ignoring all the eye rolls from the rest of us. “He put his finger up to his lips. Like this. I about died.”

I got up and grabbed Isaac’s jacket off the hook and put it on before settling back in my chair with my needle and a tuft of white material. This was exactly the mind candy I’d been needing—felting and ridiculous conversation. Tonight, I was adding little white stars to a navy cardigan. The pins I wore sometimes left holes in my sweaters. But that was okay, because it gave me an excuse to give them a makeover.

Tawny spotting celebrities was nothing new, even though she lived in a tiny town in Oklahoma where people took pictures if a tumbleweed blew by.

“What was he buying?” Belinda asked. “And more importantly, what was he wearing?”

“He was buying a box of Junior Mints and one of those fancy Voss waters. And as for what he was wearing?” Tawny giggled. “Aviator sunglasses. Tight jeans. A black v-neck T-shirt under a brown leather jacket. His dimples. Those little smile lines around his eyes.” She dropped her felting project and clapped her hands together. “And brown loafers without socks. Very expensive-looking ones. You know, where they’re so ugly you know they cost a pretty penny.”

“I’m sold,” I admitted. “Maybe he owns land there.”