Chapter 22: Saturday

I woke up on the couch.

This is a fact I am going to lead with because I am a grown woman who fell asleep in a little black dress on a Friday night and did not go to bed. I did not change. I did not wash my face. I did not take off my heels, which I will regret on Sunday morning when my feet are angry at me, but right now, Saturday, eleven a.m., I am a person who is waking up on a couch with mascara on my cheeks and a small crinkly pillow imprint on the left side of my face.

The dress is the dress from last night. The little black dress. It is slightly hiked up at the hem. The small silver necklace Sophie lent me is still on. The heels are still on. I am a person who fell asleep like this, because I walked in the door, and I sat down on the couch, and I put my head back, and I thought I just kissed Aiden Black in the hallway, and the next thing I knew it was Saturday.

The apartment is quiet. Koreatown quiet. The cello neighbour is silent. The fridge is doing its fridge hum. The candle on the counter is still unlit. The paper bag from the bakery on Beverly is on the kitchen counter, still closed, still a small surprise I have not opened.

I sit up. I wince. My neck is angry. My heels are on. My mascara is on my face in a way that is not artistic.

I look at my phone.

Three texts.

The first is from Sophie.

DID YOU KISS???

EMMA.

I HAVE BEEN AWAKE SINCE 7AM.

I AM GOING TO LOSE MY MIND.

DID. YOU. KISS.

I smile at the phone. I do not answer her. I am going to make her wait. I am going to make her wait until I am ready to be a person who has answers to those questions.

The second is from an unknown number. Aiden. Sent at 11:14 p.m.

Got home safe. -A

I read it. I read it again. Got home safe. As if he had not driven me home twenty minutes earlier. As if he had not kissed me in the hallway. As if the act of getting home safe, after a date, was a thing he needed to tell me. As if, somewhere on the drive back to his own apartment, on whatever street he lives on, in whatever quiet part of Los Angeles he goes home to, he had pulled over, or he had parked, and he had picked up his phone, and he had texted me, to tell me he was home.

I do not know what to do with a man who texts me when he gets home safe. I do not know what to do with any of this. I do not know what to do with the small paper bag on the counter, which is still closed, which is still a surprise, which is the most Aiden Black thing I have ever seen in my life, which is a man who shows up with a paper bag and does not tell you what is in it.

The third text is from the Silverlake Clinic.

Reminder: PT with Carlos Monday 10 am.

I stare at it. Carlos. Not Aiden. Carlos. The man with the kind face. The man who had caught me when Aiden had not. The man who is now my actual, official, on-file physical therapist, because Aiden Black is no longer my physical therapist, because Aiden Black quit me as a patient in a small room in Silverlake, in jeans, with his forehead on my forehead, three days ago.

I put the phone down. I pick it up. I put it down. I stare at the ceiling.

I replay the kiss.

I replay say you want me to.

I replay I want to kiss you so bad right now.

I replay his hand on my waist. His other hand on my jaw. His mouth on mine. The careful, slow, six-weeks-in-the-making way he kissed me, the way that was not desperate and not angry and not rushed, the way that was a man kissing a woman he had been thinking about for six weeks, the way that was a man kissing a woman he had been missing for two weeks, the way that was a man kissing a woman he had been thinking about every day for forty-seven days.

I put my hand on my mouth. I do not know why. I do not know what I am doing. I am a person on a couch in a little black dress with her hand on her mouth.

I am a person who has a boyfriend.

I do not have a boyfriend. I have a man who kissed me in a hallway. I have a man who sent me a text at 11:14 p.m. I have a man who is no longer my doctor. I have a man who has a small grey rescue dog named Lincoln.

Wait.

I sit up.

I do not know the dog's name. I learned it last night, at dinner, in Echo Park, at the small place with the chalkboard menu. Lincoln. I did not meet Lincoln. I did not get to pet Lincoln. I did not get to see Lincoln. I know that Lincoln is small. I know that Lincoln is grey. I know that Lincoln is a rescue. I do not know anything else about Lincoln.

I am thinking about Lincoln.

This is what my life has become. I am sitting on a couch in a little black dress at eleven a.m. on a Saturday, thinking about a dog I have never met, who belongs to a man I have just kissed for the first time.

It is two p.m.

I have showered. I have changed. I have eaten toast. I have answered Sophie's texts with the single word yes, and Sophie has called me three times in a row, and I have not picked up, and I have texted i will call you later, and Sophie has replied "Emma if you do not call me in the next 12 hours i am calling 911."

I have not lit the candle. I have not opened the paper bag. I am a person who is standing in her kitchen in a clean shirt, waiting for a text I do not know is coming.

At two oh four p.m. my phone buzzes.

Can I come over? I have Lincoln. Thought you might want to meet him.

-A

I read it.

I read it again.

Can I come over? A man who has kissed me once, who has texted me when he got home safe, who has a small grey dog, is asking if he can come over, on a Saturday, at two p.m., to introduce me to his dog.

I have been asked out, and broken up with, and asked out, and broken up with, and asked out, and broken up with, by a series of men in Los Angeles, and not one of them has ever once asked to come over to meet me, the person, by way of meeting me, the dog.

I texted back.

Yes.

He shows up an hour later.

I hear them before I see them. Footsteps in the hallway. Two sets. One of them is the kind of soft thump that a man in actual shoes makes. The other is the kind of small clicking that a small dog with small nails makes on the stairs.

The doorbell rings.

I open the door.

He is in jeans. A grey t-shirt. Sneakers. The same dark grey jacket from last night, except unzipped, because it is two p.m. on a Saturday in October, and Los Angeles is being Los Angeles, and the sun is doing its level best. He is holding a small grey dog in his arms. The dog is mostly in his arms. The dog is also partially out of his arms. The dog has spotted me, and the dog has made a decision.

The dog jumps.

The dog lands on my chest. The dog is small but committed. The dog is licking my face. The dog is licking my chin. The dog is licking the place on my face where my makeup used to be, before I washed it off, before I had any idea I was going to have my face washed by a small grey dog on a Saturday afternoon.

Aiden looks mortified.

Lincoln. Lincoln, no. Lincoln" He is trying to pull the dog off me. The dog is very committed. The dog does not want to come off me. The dog is so excited and is making small, happy, high-pitched sounds against my face.

I am laughing. I am laughing in a way I have not laughed in six weeks, the kind of laughing that happens when a small grey dog is licking your face and a man who is a surgeon is standing in your hallway apologizing to you about it.

"Sorry. He likes you. He doesn't" He stops. He looks at me. He looks at me with the dog in my arms and the laugh on my face and the small, happy, very excited Lincoln pressed against my chest. "He does not usually do this. He is usually a very calm dog."

"He is not a calm dog."

"He is not a calm dog right now."

Lincoln has stopped licking me. Lincoln is looking at Aiden. Lincoln is looking at Aiden with the kind of look a small dog has when he has decided that the person holding the leash is not actually the person in charge. Lincoln climbs off me. Lincoln goes to the couch. Lincoln jumps on the couch. Lincoln sits between the two couch cushions and stares at both of us like a small, grey, opinionated chaperone.

We sit.

Aiden on one side. Me on the other. Lincoln in the middle, the size of a small throw pillow, the most relaxed creature in the room.

It is domestic. It is weird. It is good.

"So," he says. He is not looking at me. He is looking at Lincoln. He is scratching Lincoln behind the ears. "What are we doing."

"I don't know," I say. "Are we dating?"

"I think we are." He looks up. He looks at me. "Unless you don't want to."

"I do."

"Okay."

Long pause.

Lincoln sighs the way only small dogs can. He puts his head on his paws. He is asleep.

"I should tell you," Aiden says, "I am bad at this. I am bad at dating. I am bad at being normal."

"I don't need normal," I say. "I just need you to not disappear for two weeks."

"I won't."

He reaches over Lincoln. He takes my hand. He holds it. His thumb rubs over my knuckles, the way a person does when they are not used to holding hands, the way a person does when they have not held a hand in a long time, the way a person does when they are being careful with a small new thing.

I do not pull my hand away.

I am sitting on a couch, on a Saturday, with a small grey dog asleep between my feet and the feet of a man who kissed me last night, and his thumb is on my knuckles, and the dog is asleep, and the candle on the counter is unlit, and the paper bag from the bakery is still closed, and the cello neighbor is, somewhere, in his apartment, probably playing something, and I am thinking: this is what having a boyfriend feels like.

I am thinking: oh.

I am thinking: so this is what it is.

To be continued...