Page 7

7

SCARLETT

T hese shoes were a mistake.

So was not checking the weather forecast before I went outside today.

I try to distract myself from the sharp pelting of heavy falling rain, impossibly cold for the month of July, by debating which of the two choices was a worse mistake.

It’s easy to lean in favor of the latter while I’m scurrying down the sidewalk, getting wetter and wetter. But when I finally find an open bar to slink into and get out of the downpour, I realize that wetness is temporary, but pinched feet are forever.

Okay, not forever, but at least until I get back home. The shoes were definitely the worse mistake.

A couple days ago Demi and I went to a vintage store. I found the coolest pair of red kitten heel shoes that I couldn’t resist buying. They were a little tight, but they were in pristine condition and looked like no one had even owned them before, so I figured they’d break in.

Demi’s friends with an art student who had a gallery showing in the Loop. She invited me to tag along with her to see it, and I thought the occasion was perfect to wear my cute new shoes.

It didn’t take long to be repaid for my hubris in the form of foot pain.

After the showing, Demi had to head to work. I was walking to the train when the downpour started.

Rain lashes swiftly against the street and sidewalk outside, filling the air with a rapid beat. It doesn’t look like it’ll be stopping anytime soon, and a peek at the weather app on my phone confirms that suspicion.

Stuck here for who knows how long with nothing to do, I text Lane.

I’m soaked.

He replies with a wide-eyed blushing emoji that makes my stomach clench with a laugh.

Not that way.

Lane

Way to get my hopes up.

I roll my eyes.

LANE

Caught in the rain?

Yep. Insult to injury, my feet are killing me.

LANE

Why? What happened?

Wrong choice of shoes. At least I’m off my feet. Holed up at a bar in the Loop to get out of the rain.

LANE

I’m in the Loop too. What bar? I’ll meet you.

I tell him the name of the place and order a soda. While I wait for Lane, I rasp my fingertips against the cold glass of my drink, trying to come to terms with the giddy feeling that makes my chest feel like I’m bouncing on a trampoline and has the sides of my lips tugging up into a big, stupid grin.

I’ve never felt this way, not with any of the guys I’ve dated before.

Not that Lane and I are dating. We haven’t even kissed.

But even though I’ve still held back from crossing that line, he doesn’t seem to have lost any interest.

I can’t help but compare him with Caleb. My ex, who would be pouty and annoyed any time I didn’t want to do anything physical. Who never made me feel bubbly lightness in my chest. Who I just dated because he was there, convenient, and I guess because it felt nice to be wanted for once.

What a foundation to rest two years of my young life on, right?

I marvel at how fast the time slipped away. Just two years ago, I was graduating high school with a pretty good GPA and almost perfect SAT scores. My life might have been pretty shitty, but at least I was about to go to college.

Then I met Caleb, and he convinced me to take a gap year.

Then, after a year went by, he was so dismissive every time I talked about taking some classes at the local community college to prepare to transfer to a four-year school to get a degree, that I shifted the whole idea to the backburner for a while.

I worked crappy jobs, lived in Caleb’s apartment, and stagnated. Like he did. I think he liked it that way.

I gather the effort to push those thoughts out of my head. This trip is supposed to be a reset, a prelude to a new beginning. Not about dwelling on the past.

When Lane shows up, he’s utterly soaked from head to toe. My jaw drops, and a laugh pops out of my mouth as he walks toward where I’m sitting, so wet that I can see the hard lines of his muscles underneath the soaked-throat shirt clinging to his body. So wet that I can hear the squishing of his shoes as he strides over.

“Lane! Why didn’t you get an umbrella?”

He shrugs, so wet that the motion has rivulets sluicing down his frame and falling to his damp feet. “I was in a hurry to get here.”

A warm, snug feeling curls in my chest at his answer, even while I’m rolling my eyes at him.

“I brought you something.” He holds a big, lumpy bag up in his right hand.

“What?” I ask.

He holds it open by the handles. “Shoes.”

I lose the ability to speak for a minute when I look inside the bag and confirm that it’s full of multiple pairs of comfy-looking women’s sneakers.

My gaze bounces between Lane’s face and the interior of the bag. I’m trying to say something, but my tongue can’t form the words.

“I didn’t know what size you were, so I kind of guessed and bought a couple pairs. Figure one of them has to fit. There was a shoe store on the way, and you said your feet hurt, so …” he shrugs.

Oh my gosh.

My heart feels pierced, but somehow not in a painful way. It’s a paradox. My expression is frozen as I process this, until I feel a hot prickling at the edges of my eyes and a burning at the bridge of my nose.

Finally, my brain reconnects with my tongue. “You bought me …” I do a quick mental count. “Four pairs of shoes?”

His grin is warm, and the way his eyes hold mine makes me feel like he’s reaching through them.

“Hopefully one pair fits.”

I suck in a big breath through my nose, blinking away the sting in my eyes because I don’t need to turn into a big, mushy mess in this bar over a guy I haven’t even kissed yet.

I actually don’t think anyone’s ever done something this nice for me in my life.

I distract myself from the swell of emotion thrumming in my chest by rustling through the bag and finding my size.

“Perfect,” I tell Lane. “And thank you. Really. This is …”

He just shrugs again. “No big deal.” He pulls out the stool next to mine and takes a seat, playfully nudging his foot against mine. “Can’t have these feet suffering any more damage than they already have.”

I moan in relief when I finally pull the shoes off and sink my feet into the roomy sneakers. “Fuck, that feels good,” I sigh.

Probably not the best choice of words judging by how the lines in Lane’s face go taut and his jaw clenches so tight that the muscles on the sides of his face twitch.

I told myself that I wanted to hold back from giving into the physical chemistry that Lane and I have because I wanted to see if he’d still have any interest in me if I didn’t make it easy.

Maybe I don’t need to worry about that anymore.