* * *
Am I getting warmer?
* * *
Yours in you wish you read me like an open book,
Bellamy
Dear Bellamy,
* * *
Warm is not the adjective I’d ever use to describe you.
As for whether I want people to like me, I’ll just say this: Mark my words. I’ll win you over.
* * *
Yours in determination,
Easton
Dear Easton,
* * *
See above. That’s why you find me interesting. You love the chase.
* * *
Yours in you want what you can’t have,
Bellamy
Dear Bellamy,
* * *
So, you are saying you still can’t stand me.
Challenge accepted.
* * *
Easton
Dear Easton,
* * *
Did I say I didn’t like you?
* * *
Bellamy
Dear Bellamy,
* * *
No. I was able to figure that out loud and clear. Perhaps next time there’s a costume contest we’ll have to go as great archenemies throughout history.
* * *
My vote is for Batman and the Joker.
* * *
Easton
Dear Easton,
* * *
If you’d said Darth and Luke, or Harry and Voldemort, I’d have walked away.
* * *
Your archenemy, evidently,
Bellamy
Dear Archenemy,
* * *
As if I’d be that black and white.
* * *
Your favorite enemy ever,
Easton
Dear Easton,
* * *
There’s nothing black and white about you. You’re many shades of gray. And speaking of shades of gray, I call dibs on the Joker.
* * *
Yours in that’s no joke,
Bellamy
Dear Bellamy,
* * *
Amazing that the thought of you in a Joker costume still gets me hot. And that’s a better adjective for you than warm. On that note, I’ll see you in two days.
* * *
Yours,
Batman
Dear Easton,
* * *
Was that your attempt to get the last word?
* * *
Bellamy
Dear Bellamy,
* * *
Yes.
* * *
Easton
15
Sex-Positive Grandma
I’ll meet Bellamy this afternoon, and I’m not marking time till four and a half hours from now, though I am definitely looking forward to seeing the chocolate lover.
But first, family.
I meet Spencer on Central Park West outside a new gym that Coco’s been attending. We wait by the open doors for her to finish.
“Do you think she goes there to meet dudes?” Spencer asks, peering through the window at the over-fifty-five crowd working out in the morning. The fitness center caters to seniors, and when the place opened, Coco took to it like a bear to blackberries.
“This is Coco we’re talking about. She goes to the gym to look good for the dudes she might meet,” I say as our grandmother strides out, fit and trim in yoga pants and a matching zip-up jacket. Today’s eyeglass style? Cheetah print.
“You’re both wrong,” she says. “I go to Zumba because cardio keeps my brain sharp. And the brain is the most important sex organ.” She shakes her head in mock disgust. “I swear I taught you two better.”
I shrug at Spencer. “We’ll never learn.”
“Thanks, Coco, for always horrifying us with sex talk,” my cousin says.
She pats his cheek. “I believe you meant to say thank you, Coco, for giving us a sex-positive role model.”
“Yes, that,” I say.
She hooks one elbow with him and one with me as we walk. “A planning breakfast for my birthday. Who’d have thought it?”
“Um, you. You demanded it,” he points out.
“Because birthdays are fun to plan. And with the big five-o coming up,” she says, deadpan, “I’m dying to know what you two have planned for me.”
As we walk along the park, Spencer pitches her an idea I already nixed. “We were thinking maybe we could send you on a cruise,” Spencer offers.
“A cruise?” she asks, as if he’s speaking backward.
“Yes, that thing where boats go around the water?” he supplies.
She bops him on the head. “Darling, sometimes I think you forget who you’re talking to.” She tosses a look my way. “Please tell me this wasn’t your idea, Easton.”
“I told you she wouldn’t go for a cruise,” I chide Spencer.
“Cruises are for people who are willing to gamble on being stuck with other people. I am not one of those people who relishes being stuck,” she says, explaining her reluctance to Spencer.
“I told you so,” I add.
Spencer holds up his hands in surrender. “Fine, fine. How about a spa weekend?”
She sighs dramatically. “I have a driver, a wealth advisor, and my own brownstone. I’m not an exhausted, overworked, working mother of three young kids who needs to get away from it all. Next,” she says.
“I told him that was a bad idea too,” I say, in a stage whisper.
When we reach her favorite breakfast café, her eyes light up. “I have a brilliant idea. How about you two send me to Vegas for the weekend? I can take advantage of all the perks the city has to offer.”
I gird myself as we go inside and discuss perks.
It’s truly never a dull moment with Coco.
Plus, when we’re done, a full hour has flown by—which brings me sixty minutes closer to the woman I haven’t been able to get out of my head.
16
Monk Vows
Three and a half hours later, I take my monk vows as I head to the Village and turn onto the block of The Dating Pool.