“Joe?” I asked. Joe stared at me in the elevator? Something about knowing that felt really … nice.
Parker had no idea she’d just made me feel nice. She snapped her fingers at me. “I need his number.”
All I could think to say was “Why?”
“Because I’ve decided he’s my future husband.”
Hey. That was my thing. I was the person with a future husband.
“Future husband?” My body was suddenly filled with tiny firecrackers: a flash of jealousy; a flash of protectiveness; and then a final flash of Hell, no.
Now, I didn’t know Joe all that well. And it’s fair to say I’d had a lot of conflicting feelings about him since that red-and-white bowling jacket of his came onto my radar. And my jury was still out on whether he was a good guy or the full opposite.
But I would never in a million years sic Parker on him.
That was just basic human decency.
“I think he’s dating someone,” I said.
“So?”
“So, I think he’s taken.”
“So?”
“So…” The fact that I had to explain this was the exact reason why she was never getting his info. “It would be morally wrong of you to pursue a man who’s already seeing someone else.”
Parker did not take kindly to my obstructionism. “Are you the cheating police?”
“I’m just not going to help you with anything, Parker. Ever. For any reason.”
I could feel more than see Parker narrowing her face in suspicion. “You like him, don’t you?”
What? “No.”
“The way you say no is a clear yes.”
“I am protecting that guy from you the way I would protect any random stranger off the street.”
“Any random stranger you had a thing for.”
“No.”
“Oh my god!” she said then with a thrilled gasp. “Is he the one who stood you up?”
“No one stood me up,” I said.
“You’re a hilariously bad liar.”
Why was I even talking to her? I should have left the second I sensed who she was. “Just—fuck off, Parker. Okay? Can you do that?”
“Not until you give me his number.”
And that’s when we both heard a ding coming from my little purse, which had been hanging mutely from my shoulder this entire time, with the zipper unzipped and my cell phone sticking partly out. And the screen now lit up for us all to see.
There was a text on the screen: This is the front desk at Petopia Vet Clinic.
Then another quick ding: An emergency case came in just as Dr. Addison was leaving.
Then a final: He asked us to let you know.
This was the text I’d been waiting for the entire eternity of the last hour—but I didn’t even have time to respond before Parker reached out to try to snatch my phone. Like it might be a message from Joe.
Just as I realized what she was doing, I spun away.
Without even skipping a beat, as if she were perhaps a person who stole other people’s cell phones all the time, Parker lunged again in a one-two—this time around my other side, and with a lot more force.
It might even have worked—how hard is it to overpower someone in a coffee shop, after all?—but in the end, it didn’t. Because just at that moment, a woman with very unfortunate timing was walking toward us, and when Parker lunged to my side, she slammed right into her hard enough to knock her to the ground.
I remember it in slo-mo. The oof the woman made as her bottom hit the floor. The sloosh of her cold brew spilling. The tintinnabulation of ice cubes hitting the tile. Her shocked, shallow breaths at the cold shower of it all.
In the aftermath, we both stared at the woman, her white linen outfit now saturated brown with iced coffee like a sopped-up paper towel—and then Parker did the most Parker-esque thing a person could possibly do.
“Hey!” Parker said, checking her clothes for coffee splatters, like she’d been the victim all along. “Watch it!”
And then, done with both of us, she sailed out.
Anyway, that’s when the woman in the white linen dress started to cry.
I bent down beside her. “Hey. Are you okay? Bet that was cold.”
“I’m okay,” she said.
“I’m so sorry about that,” I said then, helping her up. I glanced at the doorway Parker had just blown through. “She is the actual devil.”
Once she was vertical, the woman looked down to survey the damage—and started crying harder.
“Can I run up and grab you some sweatpants or something?” I asked. “I just live upstairs.”