This went on so long, Mag called, “Evie?”
“What does ‘disappeared’ mean?” I whispered.
It was Mag’s turn to be silent.
Oh boy.
“Do I not want to know?” I asked.
“No, you don’t want to know,” he answered.
Oh boy!
Moving on.
“We’re almost done here,” I shared. “I gotta purchase my sex shoes and then we’re going to Fortnum’s. Can you get a break and come over? I’ll order you a coffee so it’ll be all ready for you.”
Mag was again silent.
Therefore, I called, “Danny?”
“What are sex shoes?”
Did I add the word “sex” to “shoes”?
I did.
“You’ll find out,” I muttered.
It was Mag sounding happy, very happy, when he replied, “Pleased as fuck you’re not on at Smithie’s tonight.”
I was too.
What I was not pleased about was that I was down with Mag’s plan to get me where I wanted to be with work and education and life, but this meant I would soon be putting in notice.
I’d taken off the second shoe and was replacing them in their box when the sales assistant, sniffing out a commission, materialized out of thin air.
I handed the box to the assistant and he floated off as I hastily pulled on my footies, shoved my feet into my Chucks and tied them.
All this I did, still connected to Mag, but I did it silently, deep in thought and with the phone pressed to my ear and shoulder.
“Evie, you there?” I heard in my ear.
I grabbed my bag, got up, and just in case any of the girls, who had at this point dispersed widely to peruse the wares, could hear, whispered, “I was just thinking of the impending task of putting in notice at the club.”
“You’re not gonna lose them, not any of them, honey. You just won’t have to be naked when you’re around them anymore,” Mag replied.
One could say that would be good.
I was walking to the register as I shared, “I wish I’d made friends with them before I was imminently going to quit. I mean, we were friends. But, you know, now we’re shopping friends which means we’re friends friends.”
“I know, baby,” he murmured soothingly.
“It probably would have been more fun to be naked around them if we’d gotten to the point of friends friends.”
“Gonna have to share some truths with my girl,” he muttered.
“Sorry?”
“Evie, baby, honey…”
Oh no.
It was the double-barreled endearment, but this one didn’t sound like it was gonna go all that well.
“…you know I’m into you,” he continued. “Way into you. And I’m a one-woman kind of man. You being that one woman, you get that?”
“I get it,” I said, pulling my credit card out of my wallet awkwardly since I was doing it one handed, at the same time wondering why he was telling me this, at the same time kinda fretting that he was telling me this at all because I already sorta assumed it.
“But your friends are hot.”
I suddenly needed to choke down a giggle.
Mag kept talking.
“So, just sayin’, words like ‘would have been fun to be naked around them,’ especially about a minute after you told me you’re buyin’ sex shoes, uh…that’s a no-go.”
I couldn’t hold my giggle back and thus let it loose at the same time I asked curiously, “Which one would be your first choice?”
“You actually asking that shit?”
“Axl, Auggie, Boone, and that’s a tough call and I reserve the right to switch the order and do it frequently, depending on who’s currently being sweet to me and/or keeping me alive.”
He burst out laughing.
I shoved my card in the reader, smiling and listening to him do it, and when he was done, I prompted, “Well?”
“Hattie, Pepper, Ryn,” he answered.
Surprising.
“Really?”
“I guess I got a thing for the shy ones,” he said.
“I’m not shy,” I declared, pulling my card out of the reader.
“Baby,” he said in a voice that made me want to strap on my sex shoes right then, beam wherever he was, and make him jump me, “you gave yourself a concussion slamming your head in the counter going after some runaway lip gloss the first night you met me.”
“I’m klutzy, not shy.”
“You’re klutzy because you’re shy. Or at least you were then. And, just in case you intend to twist that, being that landed you a commando.”
“My heart’s desire,” I teased.
“Yeah, it landed that same thing for me too.”
I quit moving.
Entirely.
Because he’d just called me his heart’s desire.
Worth a repeat.
Daniel Magnusson just called me his heart’s desire!
And I knew, to my bones, that had very little (okay, maybe a wee bit) to do with me making him hamburgers.
I was frozen, but Mag’s mouth could move, and it did to speak.
“Though I’m down with thinning out my tees, minimally, and my socks, maximally, to give you space for your shit, we’re not moving the spices.”
Sneak attack!
“Don’t say something so sweet it knocks the wind out of me and then get in a dinger about the spices, Danny,” I returned. “Everyone knows you keep the dishes by the dishwasher.”