“I am. It’s a reality show — Tonic, named after the shop where we work. Real original, I know. We’re about to start filming season two.”
His head was still shaking. “That’s crazy. What’s that like?”
I shrugged. “It’s fun. Kind of weird having cameras in your face all the time, but I don’t mind. Last season was drama though — Annika was kind of a bitch. She lied to Joel before she made it up to him, and he ended up putting a ring on it. I wanted to rip her face off for doing him wrong, but she’s like nine feet tall and Russian, so I’m pretty sure she’d beat my ass. I’ve got a real big bark though.”
He slathered on the peanut butter and opened the jelly jar. “I remember that bark very well.”
I laughed. “Yeah, I guess the Rodney breakup wasn’t super private.”
“I’m pretty sure every parent and student in the audience heard what you had to say about him dumping you at graduation.”
I felt myself blush. “Well, he deserved every word.”
“No arguments here. You guys used to fight like crazy.”
“Because he drove me crazy. Like, on purpose. I swear, he kept me just close enough to keep me coming back for more and far enough away that I never felt like he was really mine.”
Bodie didn’t speak for a second as he spread strawberry jelly over the peanut butter, all the way to the edges, like a good boy.
“Think he’s why you don’t date?” he asked, his face still.
I chuffed. “I don’t think. I know.” I thought about it, feeling my willpower turn into steel at the thought of Rodney. “Here’s the thing, Bodie. When I love, I don’t do it halfway. I go all the way into the fire until it burns me up. It’s obsessive. I lost myself once to someone else, and I’m not doing it again.”
He nodded and closed one sandwich, then the other. “You sure it wasn’t just Rod?”
I shrugged. “Not really interested in finding out.”
“So you’ve never felt the urge to stick with a guy, even without commitment?” He sliced our dinner into triangles and plated them.
I squirmed, and he saw it.
“I’m not asking for myself, Penny. I’m just curious.”
I sighed. “If I’m being honest? No. I used to, and I’ve tried to, which only reinforced my belief that relationships aren’t for me. It’s just fun, and I don’t need any more commitment than that. I’m committed to my job. I have my girlfriends, and they wouldn’t hurt me. I don’t need a man to be happy. I just need a man for my vagina to be happy, but that bitch doesn’t run my life.”
He laughed at that and handed my plate over. “Want something to drink?”
“Just water, thanks.”
“I’ve really only done flings too,” he said as he made his way around the kitchen. “I mean, there were a few girls I dated for a while, but nothing serious. Just never turned into more. Know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I do. It’s so hard when you’re different people or you have different expectations. But sometimes there’s just no connection. Like when they don’t get your jokes — that’s the worst. Or they just go straight to stage five clinger.”
He chuckled and set our glasses in front of us. “It was so weird when I first started dating because I had no idea what I was doing. Like, I had no experience, so I thought I was supposed to woo, date, and fall in love with every woman I was interested in, so I tried. But then I realized that chicks were like guys sometimes too. That dating is not about wooing and love. It’s all about expectations, you know? Like some girls really do want full commitment with a ring in the future, or it’s nothing. But that’s such a weird thing to expect when you’re nineteen.”
I picked up one triangle of my sandwich. “I mean, seriously. People don’t know how to live in the now. Why do we all have to have some five-year plan that won’t even be possible to follow? Life doesn’t work that way. Everything is fluid.”
I took a bite and moaned as my eyes rolled back in my head. “I don’t know if it’s because I haven’t had one of these in forever or because I’m starving, but this is incredible.”
He smiled at me as he chewed and swallowed. “It’s the peanut-butter-to-jelly ratio.”
“You and your math,” I said with a shake of my head and a smile on my lips, wondering why he had to be so funny and smart and hot and amazing. It wasn’t even fair. “The only time I love math is when it’s coming out of your mouth.”
His smile climbed on one side. “What’s sixty-nine plus sixty-nine?”
I narrowed my eyes, trying to sort it out.