Page 56 of The Love Interest

ME: Yes it is! I’m fucking adorable and you like me!!!

EMMETT: True. But stop it anyway.

ME: Take me to your place.

EMMETT: No.

ME: Come back to my place.

EMMETT: Fiona. We can’t do this. What has gotten into you all of a sudden?

ME: NOT your penis!!!!!

EMMETT: Jesus. Pull it together.

ME: Fine. I am pulling it together and I am leaving.

ME: Happy a woman nice.

ME: Shit. Ducking autocorrect.

ME: Have a wonderful night.

“Ellen! May I have the check, please, Ellen? Thanks ever so much.” Ellen is with another customer ten feet away, ignoring me. “You know what? Never mind.” I pull on my coat and leave forty dollars on the table. “Leaving forty dollars on the table for you, Ellen!” I call out in a totally appropriate inside voice. “Keep the change!”

Emmett is rubbing his forehead and shaking his head. Gosh, I must be embarrassing him or something—which is so funny because we aren’t even here together and he’s pretending not to know me, so why should he care how I behave?!

I walk past Professor McFrownyface, very gracefully, and say, “I’m here all week—thank you, you’ve been a great audience.”

28

EMMETT

Goddammit.

I should not have come to the diner.

I had just gotten myself into a good headspace. Well—a better headspace. After seeing my dad on Thanksgiving, I had my priorities straight, and Fiona seemed to be pulling away, and I thought—if she can wait until May, then great. If she moves on, so be it. That would suck, but so be it.

And then I got that fucking letter.

And nowthis.

I leave a ten-dollar bill on the table, even though I haven’t ordered anything yet, and walk out the door.

Fiona is already half a block away, struggling to zip up her coat. She isn’t walking in a straight line. I shouldn’t follow her. She isn’t checking to see if I’m behind her—I should go back to the diner. I need to stay away from her. Completely.

But if she gets hit by a car or something, I’ll never be able to forgive myself.

“Fiona,” I grumble, “I’m walking you home.”

“Why, Professor Ford! That is so kind of you but absolutely unnecessary.” She barely looks both ways before jaywalking across Houston.

“Hey!” I jog ahead to keep up with her. There’s no oncoming traffic for a few blocks, but still. “You need to cross at the crosswalks, especially at night, Fiona.”

“Oh, isthathow it works? Will you help me figure out which train to take to Rockefeller Center?”

“Why?”