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“The Tonight Dough?”
“No again. You’re missing an important ingredient.”
“Chocolate Fudge Brownie?”
“Getting warmer,” I say, taking off the top.
He peers over, eyes widening. “I should’ve guessed. Chocolate Therapy. That bad, huh?”
I stifle the comment I want to make and instead ask, “You buy your sister Ben & Jerry’s?”
“I know the way to a female heart.”
I tug off the plastic covering and look up at him. “Right now, you’re only teasing me.”
His brows pull together, then he realizes I don’t have a spoon and zips off to the kitchen with the ice cream, returning with a utensil in record time.
“Thank you.” I take it from him and dig in. The chocolate goodness practically melts on my tongue. I don’t care that all I had for breakfast was half a bagel before I decided to go to the newsroom and that this will probably wreck my stomach. Worth it.
My phone dings, and I leave the spoon in my mouth to reach for my bag. Zaiah picks it up and throws it on the bed while I take out the device. It lights up with a message from Flora.
Are you okay? He was out of line.
I roll my eyes, throwing it onto the bed next to me without responding.
“You want to talk about it?”
“Not really.”
Especially not with perfect Isaiah James. What would he know about being below average and having people look over or through you as if you’re not even there? It’s embarrassing.
Instead of leaving, Zaiah physically pushes me toward the wall and gets into bed next to me, pulling the comforter back up over my waist. I eye him.He doesn’t listen very well, does he?But despite my thoughts, his presence feels better than beingalone. His large body blocks out some of the numb that would be very easy to catch with this pint of Ben & Jerry’s in my hand.
“The Notebook, huh?”
“Don’t like it?”
“Didn’t say that.”
I shove a whole spoonful of ice cream into my mouth, letting the chocolate work its magic while the movie plays. It’s at the part where they’re in the ocean and Rachel McAdams is asking Ryan Gosling to say she’s a bird.
As soon as he says, “If you’re a bird, I’m a bird,” my tears run over again.
Why is that line everything? It packs so much meaning.
“My sister cries at that part, too. I don’t get it.”
I blink at him, my vision blurred. He stares at the TV, forehead cinched in confusion, and I sit up straighter, gesturing toward the scene with my ice cream spoon. “He wants to be what she is. If she wants to be a bird, he’ll be a bird too. It’s so romantic.”
“Being a bird is romantic?”
“No!Ugh,” I groan. “It means he’ll follow her. He’ll be next to her through all her craziness, even her wanting to be a bird, and he’ll do that forever and ever. Meanwhile, I can’t even get a guy to look at me. It’s like that part inPride and Prejudicewhen Lizzie’s father says: ‘Mr. Darcy, who never looks at any woman but to see a blemish, and who probably never looked at you in his life.’”
My eyes widen.I’m a blemish. Is there anything worse than to be a blemish?
“You’re not a blemish,” Zaiah states.
“Ugh, why do I keep saying things out loud that I mean to say inside my head?”