Chapter 3
ALICE
Minka pulls up outside my parents’ house in her new white Prius. She looks directly at me and honks her car horn, knowing how much I hate the sound. Twenty-nine years living in New York City and the sound still feels like nails on a chalkboard to me.
I slide into her front seat. “I could have gotten a professional Lyft driver, but instead I got you.”
“Girl, you can’t afford a Lyft. Stop frontin’.”
“I know,” I say, giggling as I tuck my purse under my feet on the floor. But it only takes a moment for the reality of her words to hit me smack in the face, and my smile disappears, “Why?” I plead more with the universe than with my best friend. “Why does this have to be my only job offer in six months?”
She shakes her head as she pulls away from the curb outside the Strand Book Store, where I’ve been mulling over the interview. “Are you forgetting that totally legit photographer on the Gram who offered you $3,000 an hour to pose nude?” Minka reminds me.
I tilt my head as I recall the greasy guy who DM’d me on Instagram last month. “Maybe I should unblock him…”
She shoots me a severe look.
“Maybe my dad can get a raise, and then I won’t have to start paying him rent next month,” I suggest.
“Are you listening to yourself?” Minka says as she flicks on her turn signal. “You can’t keep depending on Daddy to bail you out. Do you want to live with your parents for the rest of your life?”
“I’ve only lived with them for six months,” I reply, rolling my eyes to hide the sting of my internal shame. “And you were only able to move out of your parents’ house because you got a second job. I wouldn’t exactly call that freedom.”
Just as I say this, her phone lights up with a notification.
“A pickup?” I ask.
She nods. “Chelsea.”
I groan. “Ugh. Avoid driving by the restaurant. I don’t want them to see me.”
She cocks an eyebrow as she examines the directions to the address where she has to pick up her next rider. “Are you ashamed of my girl?” she says, stroking the dashboard of the Prius.
“Prissy’s beautiful. I just don’t want to catch sight of that self-absorbed, cocky, little tattooed clone of Edward.”
“Hmm… At least you have job prospects. A lot of people in the unemployment line these days.”
My body tenses. “Why are you attacking me with facts today?”
She pulls up in front of a dark-gray gentrified apartment building on 21st Street, where a young guy stands with an enormous hiking backpack propped against his leg. “You need to hear the truth. This may be your only chance to get a sous chef job for months. Maybe years!”
I bite my lip to keep from admitting to her that the job offer is for a hostess position.
The guy with the backpack perks up when he sees the Prius and rushes to the curb to meet us. “Minka?” he asks, glancing at me as he pokes his head into the back seat.
“Yup,” she replies, tapping her phone. “David?”
He nods as he tosses his backpack onto the seat and slides in after it. “Do you have another stop before me?” he asks, glancing at me again.
Minka pulls out onto 21st. “Nope. She’s my trainee.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m Alice. Nice to meet you, Dave.”
“It’s David,” he corrects me.
And that’s our cue to change the subject to something less personal, as we usually do on ride-alongs. But as we approach 8th Avenue, I realize Minka has forgotten my request for her to avoid the restaurant. I decide not to say anything. The odds any of the restaurant employees who witnessed my embarrassing interview a couple hours ago being outside at this exact moment are next to none.
Minka prepares to turn onto 8th Avenue. Just as I’m about to unlock my phone to email her a link to my latest Spotify playlist, I spot Ethan walking out of the entrance doors of Forked. We’re going to pass right by him.
Ethan’s gaze bounces off the Prius, then he does a double-take, his dark eyes locking on mine. A smile spreads across his handsome face and my stomach flips the way it did when Edward used to smile at me in the early days of our relationship.
Then Ethan does something strange. He nods his head at me like I’m one of his buddies. The gesture both enrages me and makes me feel special; like a nerdy girl whose beauty is suddenly acknowledged by the captain of the football team.
Gag!
I slide down in my seat from embarrassment at my own pathetic thoughts. “Keep driving,” I whisper to Minka.
She looks at me with confusion. “What are you doing?”
“Just keep driving!” I hiss.
“There’s traffic! I’m going as fast as I can.”
I stare up at her, my eyes pleading as I realize how pitiful I must look right now. “Just pretend I’m not here.”
“What?”
“Pretend I’m not here and maybe he’ll question whether or not he actually saw me.”
“Who saw—” She stops short as her eyes seem to find him. “That piece of—Wait… Wait a minute. That’s not Ed—No, it’s… Oh, my God. Is that him?”
I let out a sigh.
She looks perplexed. “Why is he hotter than Edward if they’re twins?”
Someone behind us honks their car horn and Minka pulls forward a few feet to close the distance between her and the car in front of us. If we didn’t have a Lyft passenger in the car, she would have cursed at the jerk behind us for being impatient. But I can sympathize with him. Why did we have to get stuck in traffic right here, right now?
Minka is still staring in Ethan’s direction as her mouth forms a slow grin. Curious as to what could possibly be so interesting, I peek my head up to see Ethan very clearly flirting with a woman on the sidewalk. They seem to be discussing the window signage.
The woman runs her fingers through her light-brown hair, a coquettish smile on her full lips, as she points back and forth between the window and the tablet tucked into the crook of her arm. He smiles and tilts his head as his gaze travels up and down the length of her body. The woman reaches up as if to rub a stitch in her chest just above her left breast, like she’s having a damn heart attack.
Minka shakes her head and pulls the Prius forward a few more feet. “Looks like he’s got his hands full with the restaurant opening,” she remarks. “I can see why you’re on the fence.”
The car comes to a complete standstill and I close my eyes to block out the sounds of the city, but the voice in my head is just as harsh. I wish I could figure out why Ethan seems so intent to give me a chance.
After the interview with the potential boss from hell, I went to the Strand bookstore, where I pretended to read a book while I googled Ethan Thorne. When we were together, I never googled Edward. I’ve never even googled myself. But something felt wrong about my interview with Ethan. And the fact Edward never mentioned he and Ethan were twins—who worked in the same industry—was too intriguing to ignore.
When the google search results for “Ethan Thorne” appeared on my phone’s browser, I nearly died. If I thought Edward was an overbearing overachiever, it was only because I had yet to meet his brother.