“Hey, Jane. You okay?”
I turn on the sidewalk to face Alex, his lovely face setting off an explosion of warm fuzzies in my stomach.
He’s clearly nervous. Now since I know everything that happens on this day, it’s so obvious. I was always the most anxious one in the room and it made me blind to everything else.
As soon as he’s within hearing distance, I decide to proposition him. “I’m playing hooky. Wanna come?”
His head tilts and one corner of his mouth ticks up in an adorably confused half smile. “What?”
“I’m going to explore the city. Want to come with me?”
He looks back at the building, then at me. “You’re leaving?”
I was fired. Again. But now, I’ve really given up caring about it. Like for reals this time. I don’t like this job. I don’t know why I keep trying, except it feels like I have to.
I left Hugo the costume outside his door with a note this morning, and even though the fog is heavy and things haven’t really changed for this day, I feel . . . better.
“Yeah. I’m leaving. I’m going to play tourist.”
“You know, it’s funny you mention that. My parents sent me tickets to the double-decker tour, and I haven’t had a chance to use them. I think they expire next week.”
I smile. “It’s kismet. And I could use a break. Maybe you could too.” I nudge him with an elbow.
He pauses, eyes searching for a moment before he grins. “Yeah. That sounds like fun. And on the way to get the tickets out of my glove box, you can explain to me why you’re leaving work early on a day you had an important meeting.”
I smile. “Tickets first.”
He lifts both hands. “Okay, fair enough.”
I follow him down the block to his Bronco and stop on the sidewalk, tilting my head back to gaze up at the heavy gray sky while I wait for him.
His head pops out from the passenger side of the truck. “Should we drive?”
“Let’s walk. It’s a beautiful day. There’s a stop up at the civic center.”
He shuts his door and jogs around the front to meet me on the sidewalk.
“Okay, first of all, you want to walk uphill?” He gestures in front of us. “Voluntarily?”
I laugh. “Sure. Exercise is good for you.”
He shakes his head, but he walks with me when I stride up the sidewalk. “Second of all, Karl isn’t pretty. Karl is an old gray-haired man with bushy whiskers who yells at kids to get off his lawn.”
I squint up at the gray mist all around us. “I think that’s actually an accurate description.”
“So, tell me what happened. With the meeting.”
“Oh. Yeah. I got fired.” The words fall out without effort. Huh. I remember when that was difficult to admit. Many, many Mondays ago.
He stops walking. “What?”
I stop a few paces away, turn around to face him, and shrug. “It’s fine.” I’ll be back tomorrow, anyway. If I want.
“You’re really blasé about this.” His eyes search mine and he takes a step closer. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
I laugh. “I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”
His eyes narrow. “Did you stop by the edibles place on Mission and eat some gummies before work today? Is that why they fired you?”
I roll my eyes and grab his arm, tugging him along the sidewalk toward the bus stop, moving faster than the morning traffic lurching along the street next to us. “Am I really that different today?”
“Yes. Not that you’re, you know, uptight or anything normally. It’s just, most of the time you seem sort of stressed.”
I open my mouth to respond but he rushes to explain.
“Which makes sense, since I usually see you at work. Everyone is stressed at work. I mean, it’s work.” He shoves his hands into his pockets and tosses me a lopsided smile. The gesture is familiar. He always puts his hands in his pockets when he’s nervous.
I blow out a breath. “I’m not offended. You’re right. I’m normally a wound-up ball of tension. But I guess today I just decided to . . . let go for a minute. You know? Come on, there’s a hop stop up here.”
We stand at the curb, waiting for the red double-decker bus to appear. Tourists stream around us, a family of four waiting a few feet away, a tour group of elderly people lining up behind us.
“Have you done this before?” he asks.
“Once. With my sister.”
It’s a tour bus, but with tickets, you can hop off at any of the stops to look around and then get on the next bus that comes by.
He opens his mouth to ask something but stops when the bus pulls up to the curb.
We let the family and the elderly brigade go ahead of us, and then I take the narrow steps that lead to the top of the bus.
“The top? Are you sure? It’s a little cold.” But he follows me anyway.
“Oh c’mon, Karl can keep us warm with his bushy beard.” I gesture to the air.
I pick a seat near the front and he plops down next to me, sitting close enough that our shoulders press together. The only other people brave enough to withstand the chill are an elderly couple from the tour group, but they sit near the middle, huddling with each other and giggling, holding hands.
It makes me grin.
Alex glances around and then hunches down, pressing closer to me. “This is not a warm beard, it’s like a frozen cold beard.”
“It’s not that bad,” I insist. Then the bus lurches into motion and the frigid wind whips around us. “Okay, maybe it is.”
He laughs and, after a slight hesitation, wraps an arm around my shoulders. “We should share warmth.”
“I’m not complaining.” I snuggle in closer.
His brows lift in surprise, mouth popping open. “Um. Do you want to talk about what happened this morning?”
“Not really.” I shrug. “Not because I’m upset or anything. I’m not.”
“I can see that.”
“I guess I’m not upset because I never really fit in there anyway.”
“That’s not true. You were great on my team. We worked so well together.”
I hesitate, watching him. “We did, but then you had me moved from your team.”
He blows out a breath. “Speaking of that, I wanted to talk to you about—”
“Alex, no. Let me save you some time. I know why you did it and I understand. It’s fine. I get it. There was an imbalance of power and you were right to set me aside. It wasn’t fair to either of us to start something if we worked together and with you being a client. You were protecting me. But after that . . .” I shake my head. “Well, so we’re on the same page about everything, Mark and I were never together. He just said that because he’s . . . he has some issues.”
He stares, mouth agape.
I laugh at his dumbstruck expression. “Let’s not talk about any of that now. Let’s talk about something else.” I’ve already had this conversation hundreds of times.
He shakes his head, still processing my avalanche of words and then he swallows. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Have you ever been fired from a job?”
He chuckles. “Actually, I have.”
I widen my eyes. “Tell me everything.”
“I was working in an ice cream store.”
“What? Where was this? And when? I need details.”
“I was in high school. It was my first job. I didn’t show up one day and,” he makes a slashing motion across his neck, “fired.”
“Why did you miss work?”
“Um.” He scratches his chin. “It’s not something I share often, but I had some medical issues when I was a kid.”
I take the opportunity to put my hand on his knee. I might be growing as a person, but I’m still human. And insanely attracted to Alex. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m fine now. Wow your hand is cold. I can feel it through my jeans.”
“Oh, sorry.” I remove my hand.
“No. It’s fine.” He reaches for me, taking my fingers in his.
He has one arm around my shoulders and the other hand holding mine, our sides pressed together. I’m still cold, but I could stay here forever. Flutters fill my belly—proper butterflies this time, not crows or crabs or pterodactyls. I love being close to him. I inhale his scent: clean soap, detergent, and Alex. “I’m glad you’re healthy now. But that still changes a person.”
“It did. But I think for the better. And getting fired was good for me. You know how I feel about failure.”
The bus stops and some people down below exit and more passengers get on. A trio of teenagers braves the top, sitting behind the elderly couple.
I grin at Alex. “You love failure. You want to marry it.”
He nods. “Failure is awesome.”
I laugh. “Right. So you’ve said.”
“It is. My failures are a part of me. They are me.” He shrugs. “Besides, I’ve always learned more from failure than from success. Success isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be.”
“Oh yeah, Mr. Millionaire? Tell me how hard it is while you’re crying into your crisp fifty-dollar bills.”
He laughs. “It’s true. Success can be worse than failure in some ways.”
“That does not feel accurate.”
“When we launched our first app and had initial success, I really thought I had made it. But then it stopped selling and my next three ideas were complete flops. The failures forced me to step back and take a harder look at things, something I wouldn’t have done if they had all done well. Success can be scary. Once you have notoriety, you have critics. You have something to live up to. Failure can force you to learn. There’s a certain measure of freedom when you’re a nobody and no one else is watching.”
“That’s true.” I’m free. No job, no responsibilities. Not really. I tilt my head back as the bus starts up again, the wind whipping my hair around my face.
“Are you really okay with what happened this morning?”
I shrug. “It’s fine.” And it won’t matter tomorrow. “I didn’t fit in there anyway. I have a hard time talking to people.” And I’m always terrified. Scared of rejection, scared my parents are right and I’m nothing but mediocre and everyone can tell. Alex loves his failures because they’re a part of him. I hate my failures . . . for the same reason?
I don’t have time to contemplate that line of thought.
“You seem like you’re doing fine with me.”
I smile. “That’s different.” The bus stops and I glance around. We’re in the shopping district on Fillmore. “Are you hungry?”
He smiles. “I could eat. And I know exactly where we should go.”
“Ta da!” He holds two hands up to the sign above the sidewalk, a black painted metal placard that has letters cut out in all caps. Jane, it reads.
I laugh. “Perfect.”
We eat sandwiches. I get turkey with brie and Alex gets a club with avocado aioli and we split them, each taking half.
“You love stealing my food, even when you aren’t hungry.”
His expression turns quizzical. “How did you know that about me? I’m a terrible food thief. It’s not one of my finer qualities.”
I shrug. “Must be intuition.”
After lunch, we walk up Fillmore, passing seafood restaurants and peering in the windows of upscale boutiques with displays of headless white mannequins in sleek European styles. The street is lined with trees, the breeze tickling the leaves above us. I shiver and Alex steps closer. We have to stop at one point when we find a bathroom because I’ve been holding it for three blocks.
When I emerge a few moments later, I think I’ve lost Alex, because he’s not among the random people meandering the Fillmore early on a Monday morning. I start walking back toward the bus stop to see if he’s waiting there, but then halt in my tracks.
He’s walking out of Athleta.
“Here.” He hands me a black zip-up hoodie that probably cost more than my psychic reading. “For the ride back. So we don’t get chilly.”
“You didn’t have to,” I say, but I take the garment anyway. He bought me a sweater. I was cold and he bought me a sweater. I guess I shouldn’t have expected any less from Alex.
His smile is lopsided. “I wanted to.”
I meet his eyes. “Thank you.”
His smile grows. “Shall we?” he asks, motioning toward the bus stop.
We stay on the bus all the way over the Golden Gate Bridge, the air colder and more aggressive than it was within the city. I lean my head back, gazing up at the burnished red arches, the fog threading its way through the cables, the tower disappearing into the mist above us. We sail underneath the monolithic structure and Alex leans his head next to mine.
On the other side, the bus veers off the main road and eventually stops to turn around at Vista Point.
We have about twenty minutes to look around before the bus leaves again, so we get off to stretch our legs.
“You said you’ve done this before? With your sister? When was that?” he asks. We’re leaning against a rock wall facing the Golden Gate Bridge. Tourists roam around us taking pictures of the bridge and the bay and the cloud-covered vista.
I stare out over the choppy, slate-colored water, the waves a reflection of the ashen sky, the wind biting my cheeks. “It was when we first moved out here from Virginia. It was like, oh, five years ago now. So it’s been a while.”
“Does she still live here? You’ve never talked about her.”
I hesitate. Alex and I have had this conversation before, but of course, he doesn’t remember. “My sister is Eloise Stewart.”
“Eloise Stewart.” His expression clears. “Wait, the actress?”
“Yep.” I sigh. “She lives in Palo Alto right now. She’s taking a break from acting to go to Stanford.” I blow out a breath, looking up into the fog and hugging the new sweater around me like a shield. “We haven’t talked in a while. I’ve been avoiding her. Like I do with most things that make me uncomfortable, not realizing avoiding it makes it worse.” I shake my head. “But that’s not entirely true. I do know I need to confront the issue, I just choose not to because I think staying in a little bubble will keep me safe.”
He watches me as I talk, listening intently, considering my words, doing that Alex thing of rolling with my thoughts no matter how strange or random they seem.
“That’s the thing with bubbles. They’re easy to pop.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
Eloise and I fought, months ago, because she told me the truth and I became defensive. She saw that I was miserable, and she was trying to help me, but I wasn’t ready to hear it. So I yelled at her. And she left. And we haven’t spoken since. “I’m going to talk to her though. Soon. I need to just do it. I’m going to do it.”
This invisible wall between Eloise and me is one of my own making. Eloise can’t help who she is any more than I can make time move forward.
And still, I’ve been holding it against her.
His hand reaches over, covering my hand. “You will. You always impress me with your ability to do things even if you’re scared of them.”
I smile. He’s told me this already.
And he’s not wrong, exactly. There have been plenty of times in the past I’ve wanted to run away and avoid everything and yet I didn’t. But only with the little things. The easier things. Presenting at work when there’s no other choice, forcing myself to make small talk with acquaintances I can’t otherwise avoid, overcoming fear of a crowded train. But when it comes to the larger, more important confrontations, I still do everything in my power to run away. I haven’t spoken with Eloise or my parents, and I’m still evading the truth about myself. I’m not brave. Not really. Not as Alex sees me. I wish I were.
My heart wrenches in my chest, the organ pressing relentlessly at my breast bone.
“You aren’t nervous around me, are you?” He tosses me a sly grin.
Well, we have spent basically months together and I know what your lips feel like and I’ve memorized the gold flecks in your eyes and the feel of your hands. But I can’t tell him that.
“I’ve always liked you, Alex.”
His smile spreads across his face, and the heat of it melts my insides as if he’s the sun shining through the fog. “Hey listen, I’m in a band. We have a gig tonight. I mean, it’s not a big thing, we’re the opening act and it’s at the Saloon, but you should come.” He straightens and his expression clouds. “Wait. Is this weird? Since we’ve spent most of the day together already, I don’t want to make it weird.”
I smile. “It’s not weird. I had fun today.”
I want to spend every day with him. Every night. I want to share all the bits and pieces of myself, good, bad, indifferent. It doesn’t matter. He sees the best possible version of me.
What a notion, to be understood and accepted, exactly as I am.
And then the ground drops out from under me.
Holy shit.
I love him.