“It’s true!” she insists. “You swipe right when you think he is nice-looking. And if you don’t think he is nice-looking, you Snapchat him.”
“I don’t think that’s correct.”
“I am just telling you that you must stop thinking about Jo-el.” She fingers the pasta I’ve made, inspecting its consistency. “He is not so wonderful.”
I pick my phone up off the kitchen counter. Without thinking, I click on the WhereAmI app, which immediately locates Joel’s avatar.
I should delete the app. I should get rid of it for good in a way that I can’t get it back, even if I’m tempted.
I’m deleting it.
Now.
Chapter 13: The New Girl
“I can’t remember the last time I went to the zoo!” Cassie declares as she waits in line with Joel to buy tickets to get into the Central Park Zoo. It’s a beautiful day, the kind that makes you happy to be alive, even though the families in front and behind them in line both have shrieking kids, and one of those kids is holding a balloon that keeps smacking Cassie in the face.
“Me either.” He gives her hand a squeeze. “It’s going to be fun.”
Yes, they’re holding hands. They hold hands all the time now. Even when they’re just walking down the street, he reaches for her hand, and they lace their fingers together. She hates to admit how much she loves it. And Joel looks so good today, in his jeans and hoodie sweatshirt, with his chestnut hair adorably tousled by the wind.
The tickets for the zoo are obscenely expensive, which probably partially explains why Cassie can’t remember the last time she’s been to the zoo. She’s stopped offering to pay for things. He always waves her off, and she can’t afford any of the things they do together anyway.
“What animal do you want to see first?” Joel asks her.
She taps a finger against her chin as she inhales the distinctive odor of animals. “I’ve always been partial to the penguins. How about you?”
“I like the polar bear.”
She’s got a book on penguins at the store. It’s in the children’s section, and it just arrived a week earlier. She flipped through it, like she often does with new arrivals. The baby penguins were so cute. She wanted to scoop them up and keep one as a pet.
“Joel? Joel!”
Joel jerks his head around, and his eyes widen. A smile spreads across his lips, but she knows him well enough to know when his smile is forced.
She follows his gaze to the source of the voice. There are two couples striding toward them, flanking a blonde child of about five years old. One of the men waves enthusiastically at them, and Joel winces.
“Friends of yours?” Cassie murmurs.
“That’s Pete who called my name,” Joel murmurs back. “He’s my best friend, actually.”
Oh, lovely. She’s about to meet The Friends, without any preparation whatsoever. She looks down at her skinny jeans and sweatshirt. These aren’t the clothes she’d want to wear for a first impression, but there isn’t much to do about it now.
Joel handles introductions. The tall guy in the NYU hoodie with messy dirty blond hair is his best friend Pete, and the gorgeous blonde with the porcelain skin is his wife Lydia. The little girl is their daughter, Violet, who is wearing an impractical velvet dress and shiny black shoes that look like they cost as much as everything in Cassie’s closet put together. The other attractive couple is Anna and Con. Anna has a visible baby bump poking out of her stylish black-and-white striped top. Both women look like they’ve leapt out of the pages of a fashion magazine.
Cassie feels uneasy about the fact that Joel’s best friend has a daughter and his other close friend has a pregnant wife. He’s thirty-six—he must be thinking about marriage and children in the near future. The thought of being pregnant any time soon makes Cassie queasy. Her life isn’t in any kind of shape to bring a child into it. But then again, Joel hasn’t hinted at marriage yet or gone any faster than she’s comfortable with. So maybe she shouldn’t overreact.