"So, that's everything that happened," I say to Kit two hours later. "All five chapters of it."
We're sitting on the small, L-shaped couch in my living room that doubles as a guest bed, surrounded by empty pizza boxes. When I'd recovered from the shock of discovering that I'd spent the day with someone who wasn't Jack, I'd summoned her to an emergency summit at my apartment. She'd arrived with hot pizza and a tub of ice cream, and I felt like a fool when the sight of our special comfort food combo made me cry. She'd listened to my story without interruption even though I was sure that I'd given her way too much detail.
"So," Kit says, thoughtfully, "how do you think you made the mistake in the first place?"
"He was late. I was stressed that people in the restaurant were judging me. I guess that's why I latched onto the first guy that walked through the door who looked like Jack."
"How much did he look like him?"
"A lot at first, I thought. But when he sat down ... I mean, so many people have pictures that don't look like them, right?"
"For sure, but ..." Kit waves her ice cream spoon around, a dollop of vanilla looking precariously close to sliding off and onto my couch. "He sat down. He went along with it. Why?"
I explain again about how I'd sort of shamed him into it. That hug. The loud voice I'd used. "I guess he took pity on me."
"Okay sure, at the beginning. But why keep up the ruse afterwards?"
"I don't know."
She tilts her head to the side, her dark brown eyes considering me like a cat. "You think it's because he liked you."
Damn it. That's exactly what I was thinking. "Stop reading my mind."
"Stop being so obvious, then."
I made a face at her. "The thing is, I don't think I was making up us getting along. I mean, we spent the day together. He kissed me on a bridge. He bought me flowers—"
"Hmm, the kiss." Kit tucks a lock of her thick hair behind her ear. She has a row of studs that goes halfway up her earlobe—she'd almost passed out when she'd gotten them done when we were fifteen, but they look cool now. "Good kiss, bad kiss?"
"A great kiss."
"Like, tongue, teeth, hair pulling?"
"We were outside!"
"What's that got to do with it?"
"I've never had a hair-pulling kiss where someone else could see."
"You should try it sometime."
I start to laugh. "Sure, sure, I can just see Lian watching you now ..."
"Not in front of her, obviously. But come on, details. Give me the heat level at least."
My cheeks are flaming. "A nine, okay. At least." I hug myself, remembering the feel of his hands on the skin at my waist as we were kissing, the press of his lips. "Can you have heat like that with someone if you don't like them?"
"Totally."
"How would you know?"
"Come on. Remember Roger?"
"That gross British guy?"
"Yeah. He was gross, but also kind of hot. And the sex..." She put her fingers to her lips, then flicked them away. "Chef's kiss."
"You never told me you slept with him."
"I don't tell you everything."
"I'm very sad to hear that."
She digs her spoon into the ice cream again. I ate so much pizza, it doesn't even look appetizing. "The point is, heat doesn't mean anything."
I can't agree with her. "But it was more than that. We connected. We fit. I felt ... I know this is going to sound nuts, but I don't think I've ever felt that way with someone before."
"Sure you have. You're just forgetting."
"No, I ... Forget it."
She licks her spoon. "Question is, can you?"
"Don't know. I just wish I knew why he didn't tell me who he was." I think back over the day again. All those moments when he could have said something. But wait, maybe he did try to do that. At the lake? And then again after we kissed, when his dad called. "I think he was going to, but then his dad called and he had to go."
"He could have told you."
"It was an emergency. His mother's probably dying."
"Or it was some friend of his and he was using it as an excuse to ghost."
My stomach flips over. Is that possible? No, no. "That's not what happened. You didn't see his face.
"He should call you then."
"But he can't. He only knows my first name. We never traded numbers."
"Why not?"
"Because we were already supposed to have each other's numbers."
"Right. Hmmm. What's the real Jack say about all this?"
"The real Jack?"
"The guy you spent the day with is fake Jack, obvi. Real Jack is the guy I was trying to set you up with."
I grimace. "He said he wanted to make it up to me."
"Are you going to let him?"
"I don't know. Wouldn't that be weird?"
"How?"
I look down at the rug I found at a local flea market. It's a mix of blue and green geometric patterns that fits perfectly with the mid-century modern vibe I'm trying for. I know I can tell Kit anything, but how do I say out loud that I think it would be weird to date Jack because he's someone else in my mind?
"I can't explain it."
"Real Jack is great. Fake Jack sucks."
"Don't call him that."
Kit puts the ice cream container down on the coffee table. "What am I supposed to call him? I don't know his real name and neither do you."
"You don't have to rub it in."
She considers me as she pushes her oversized glasses up her nose. "This is just another way to hide, you know."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Don't take that tone with me, Chloe Baker."
"Sorry."
"Look, babes, I get it. You meet this seemingly great guy, and then he disappears like a magic trick. But you have to forget him. He lied to you. He took advantage of the situation in a way that's kind of gross, frankly. And you have a real guy, a good guy, who wants to take you out. So don't mess it up for some fantasy, okay?"
"I know you're right."
"I'm always right." She pulls me to her. I lay my head on her shoulder as her arms encircle me. "You'll forget all about him, I promise."
"You say so."
"I do."
I lift my head. "But don't you just think ..."
"Chloe, no. You've been reading too many rom coms. It's screwed up your thinking. This isn't the universe telling you that this is your guy. If it's talking, which is unlikely, it's telling you that he's the person you weren't meant to be. Move on."
"I'll try."
"At the very least eat some of this ice cream so I don't gain a million pounds."
"That I can do."
***
The next morning, I have trouble doing up my pants, and vow not to wallow anymore and to make sure I get my runs in instead of just thinking I'm going to do them. Then I stick my tongue out at myself in the mirror because I shouldn't be judging myself so harshly, and make a run for it so I'm not late.
I arrive at BookBox at nine. It's located in an old brownstone in lower Manhattan in the Bermuda triangle formed by the HarperCollins, Macmillan, and Fortune Magazine offices. On my first day in the office a year ago, my boss, Karen, told me to be careful about what I said outside the office when I was in the area.
"You never know who's listening," Karen said, looking around as she said it like even the fact that we needed to be careful needed to be kept a secret.
I'd wanted to ask if I'd accidentally signed up for some CIA operation that was infiltrating the publishing industry, but I quashed it. I learned soon enough what she meant. Turns out there are a lot of writers, or wannabe writers out there, all desperate (understandably) to get attention for their books. And if they find out that you work for BookBox—which has the ability to make your book into a bestseller if it's chosen—shit can get weird real fast.
The few times I told someone where I worked (before I learned my lesson), I'd been bombarded with unpublished or self-published manuscripts and emails begging me to consider them for inclusion in that month's box. Those emails had often been followed up numerous times, even when I said I couldn't consider it, demanding to know why. And it wasn't just the unpublished; publicists and marketing directors were also desperate to get our attention. It was an oddly powerful position to be in for someone who was twenty-seven and made a low five-figure income that barely supported me in my four hundred square feet of space.
I arrive at my desk and clear off that morning's deliveries. I love books, but this job could make me hate them. Every day is an avalanche of pastel illustrated covers with women's names in the titles or clever puns. I've had to set up a triaging system that any author would weep to know—if you don't get me with the first chapter, I'm not reading on. Worse than that, some books don't even get that consideration.
"Mondays, amiright?" Jameela says, looking up from her screen across our shared t-shaped desk. As usual, one of her screens is open to Twitter. She's obsessed with Bridgerton, Kate and Anthony Bridgerton more specifically, and her screen name is @MayfairIsJustAhead.
"What's up in the ton today?" I ask.
Jameela rolls her eyes. "Someone with ten followers was disrespecting Simone again." She means Simone Ashley, the actor who plays Kate. Anthony (pronounced Ant-o-ny, if you please) is played by Jonathan Bailey, i.e. Jonny (no h!) for those in the know. I've had to learn these names—and many others—to keep up with her rapid-fire commentary. She spends much of her day making screen caps and refreshing Getty images obsessively looking for any sighting of #Kanthony out in the real world. It's a miracle she gets any work done, but since she's in charge of our social media, she claims it's crucial to keeping plugged in with the fandom. Our BookBox twitter account has a massive following, so she's probably right.
"Well, I'm sure Iris and the gang will take care of her." Iris is one of #Kanthony's greatest defenders.
Jameela scrunches her button nose. "You know it. Don't come for Simone. Do. Not. Come. For. Her."
"Never." I pry open the first package and pull out a novel with a pink cover called Love at First Sight. There's an illustrated couple standing inside a heart, looking at each other lovingly. "Do you believe in this?"
I tip the cover toward Jameela. She's taken to wearing her thick dark brown hair in an updo with two small braids woven into it, a look Kate sports in season two. They do bear a passing resemblance to one another, though Jameela is on the shorter side and doesn't have a glam team.
"Chloe, come on. Of course I believe in true love."
"Are you quoting?"
"Duh."
I smother a laugh. I probably know half the dialogue from season two just from Jameela. I watched the show once, and though Jonathan Bailey is super hot, it didn't infect my brain the way it did hers. "But for real. Like do you think it's possible to just know someone's right for you when you meet them? Or is that, like, our memories playing tricks on us if it actually works out later?"
"Romance books are bullshit," Addison says, arriving with her bike helmet firmly attached under her chin, and her fold up bike under her arm. She's our third desk mate, in charge of subscriptions, and this is not the first time I've heard her express that sentiment. Pretty sure she has an entire set of coffee cups with that exact phrase imprinted on it. Why she works here, I'll never know, though it might have something to do with whatever she's writing on Wattpad. I haven't been able to get her to tell me anything about it, but one day I'll crack her screen name and then I'll know.
"This isn't a romance," I say. "It's a rom-com."
"Same, same." Addison peels of her helmet, shaking out her braids. She's wearing this cool hooded top in a deep purple that suits her. Addison always looks effortlessly cool, even with bike clips on her pants.
"I know about two hundred people on Twitter that would kill you for saying that," Jameela says.
"Twitter is also bullshit."
Jameela narrows her eyes and turns back to her screen. She starts typing something and I don't have to see it to know that it's what Addison just said. Jameela loves stirring up drama on Twitter. I'm convinced half of the "so someone's saying such and such about Simone" posts are made up by her to create content. But her tweets routinely get thousands of likes, so who am I to judge?
"Keep or toss?" I say to Addison, shaking the book at her.
"We already had a book with that same title two years ago. So it's a no-go off the bat."
"That memory of yours."
She sighs. "You could check the database."
"And deprive you of the opportunity to show off? Never."
Addison smiles. She's a hard core cynic, and part of my daily work goals are making her laugh. I give myself half a point for this effort.
"How did that date go?" she asks as she sits at her desk. She has two screens, too, something that was offered to me but I declined. Since I spend most of my day reading physical books, I don't see the need.
Jameela's head pops up. "Ooh, spill."
So much for putting him out of my mind. "Eh. He was a no show."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah."
"I can't believe it," Jameela says, "isn't he friends with Kit?"
"Work colleagues, but yeah. I mean, it's more complicated than that. Their servers crashed, he works in IT, it was a whole thing." I don't feel like going through it all again with them. I'm supposed to be forgetting about Fake Jack, anyway. Ugh. I need to come up with a better name for him.
I pull the next package to me and open it. It's a book with a bright yellow cover this time called Second Chance Around. I flash it at Addison. "What about this one?"
"Clever," she says.
"Original?"
"I think so."
I flip it over and read the back. Sometimes love takes more than a meet cute. When Tanner and Jacob met for the first time, the stars didn't align. But now they have a second chance to make it work. Can they find love this time around?
"Worth pursuing?" Jameela asks.
"Hmm?"
"The book."
"Oh, right. Yeah, I think I'll give it a read."
I tip the book against my lips, like it might impart its secrets through osmosis. The kiss with Fake Jack (goddamn you, Kit) flashes through my mind. It was a great kiss, maybe the best first kiss I've ever had.
And, okay so, yeah, he should've told me who he was. But maybe, right now, he's regretting that. Maybe he wishes he had a way to contact me. Maybe it's worth it for me to put a little bit of effort into finding him so I can see whether we have something real, or whether I should've left well enough alone.
Because if I don't do it, I know myself well enough to know that I'll always regret it. I'll always wonder if I gave us a second chance, whether we could make it.
And I have enough regrets in my life to know I don't need to add to them.