He sighed and saved it to his Drafts folder, which was filled with email drafts he knew he’d never send to a woman he’d ghosted and lied to. Sometimes he wished he could go back and stop himself from replying to Lily G.’s first email. But he’d been drawn to her earnestness. He hadn’t expected to want to know more about her, for them to form a real connection. He’d kept up with a shitty British accent for the first few months that they’d emailed, but somewhere along the way he’d dropped it and the real him had started to come through. He’d begun to look forward to her emails every day. But he knew that he was still lying to her about who he really was, and he’d lied to her so easily right from the beginning. Lying like that shouldn’t come so naturally to a person. It was just like something his dad would have done, and Nick hated that about himself. He wanted to back off from Lily, but he’d grown to care for her too much, and when the moment came to video chat, he knew he couldn’t show up. He wouldn’t be able to take how disappointed she might be to see who he really was, that he hadn’t been telling the truth entirely. And he was embarrassed for keeping up with the lie for as long as he had.
In his Drafts folder on his desktop, Nick told Lily the truth about why he used the pen name. How he’d been afraid of what she’d say when she realized he wasn’t anything like the person painted in N.R. Strickland’s bio.
He missed her more than he could say, and they’d never even met. That was the wild part. But it was best that he left her alone. These letters would never make it past his desktop.
His phone vibrated again, startling him. This time a text from Marcus.
See you soon for brunch. Hope you’re getting some writing done!
Nick groaned. Why couldn’t he just get his shit together and write the damn book?
He closed his laptop and went to stand at the window. He spotted his pretty neighbor from down the hall walking out of the bodega across the street. She was wearing a pink T-shirt and denim shorts with her hair pulled back in a bun. She always wore her hair in a bun, now that he thought about it. She carried a cup of coffee and a breakfast sandwich in either hand. She smiled politely as she moved to the side to make room for an older couple passing by. There was something so honest and open about her smile. It had intrigued Nick from the first time he saw her.
She was what Nick liked to call slim thick, petite yet curvy. He watched as she glanced over her shoulder, and the other woman from down the hall emerged from the bodega as well. She was wearing a black dress and some elaborate-looking platform boots. How did she even walk in those things? Nick figured they were sisters because they looked so much alike. He’d never spent much time talking to either of them, though, so he couldn’t confirm this. The one sister with the platform boots was always on her phone whenever he saw her, not sparing him, or anyone, for that matter, a second glance. But he ran into the other sister more frequently. Nick often tried to engage her in small talk for reasons he couldn’t understand, because he rarely did that with other people in their building. But he felt drawn to her. He wanted to get to know her better, and that desire increased every time they spoke, even though she always had an odd deer-in-headlights look on her face and usually just smiled and glanced away, leaving Nick to wonder if he’d said the wrong thing.
Maybe one day they’d have a real conversation. Or maybe she simply saw through his charm and wasn’t interested.
He watched her laugh at something her sister said, and the way her face lit up caused Nick’s chest to ache. He wanted to make her laugh like that, which made no sense because he didn’t know the first thing about her, not even her name. And she seemed like a good person, so he should probably stay away from her.
He’d spent a lifetime wishing for things he couldn’t have. Why dwell on that when he had so many other things to worry about? He’d rather try and forget about his problems at brunch.
* * *
? ? ?
He, in fact, could not forget about his problems at brunch.
“So I talked to Zara on Friday and she asked where you are on the draft,” Marcus said, cutting his pancakes in half. “Any updates for me?”
Zara was Nick’s editor. Nick suddenly became busy with gulping down his orange juice. Across the table, Marcus’s fiancé, Caleb, grinned and shook his head.
“You still haven’t written a word, have you?” Caleb asked.
“I’m outlining,” Nick said. He ate a forkful of grits. It was true that he was eating to avoid giving a real answer, but he was also starving. He’d learned that Sunday brunch in New York City was damn near a sport. You had to arrive at an ideal time or else you’d be stuck waiting an hour and a half for a table. That was what had happened to them today. They were currently seated outside at Peaches, Marcus and Caleb’s favorite soul food spot in Brooklyn.