Chasing the Dream: Dream Series, Book 3 (4 page)

Hmmm,
I thought.
He’s talking about me! He’s totally talking about me! How do I let him know that it’s a
FINE
time!
I turned on my best flirting charms, biting my lower lip, and running the heart pendant back and forth over the chain, hopefully drawing his attention to my
womanly
curves.

“What makes you think it’s not the best time for her? Sometimes you just need to go for it.”
Ask me out! Just do it!

“She’s just a really independent kind of woman. Seems to like her freedom.”

Yeah, but for you, I’d make an exception…

“She’s quite guarded about herself, kind of tough to get to know. But everything about her seems to call to me. I’ve been trying to build up the courage to ask her out for the past couple of weeks, but it’s like she senses I’m about to ask her out, and she changes the subject or runs away.”

Um, what? I’ve never done any of that!

He sighed and sat back. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be talking to you about this. A grown man’s pathetic love life, or lack thereof, and him pining away for someone.”

Well, ‘shit on a shingle,’ as my Aunt Suzie always said. He’s talking about someone else. The upside to this little conversation was that he felt comfortable enough to mention it, and it confirmed that he was unattached. The down side…he was hung up on someone else.

Kevin glanced at my plate, which was just half finished. My stomach was turning a bit. Maybe it was because of that chicken skewer I ate at Times Square, not to mention that my favorite pink capris weren’t fitting me this spring like they had last spring. “It’s delicious, but I couldn’t eat another bite. Besides, it’ll make good left overs for tomorrow.”

“Good thinking,” he agreed, waving the waitress to the table and then saying something in Spanish to her.

“I could listen to you speak Spanish all day long. Your students are very lucky,” I said, part honest truth and part flirting. I wasn’t going to give up the ghost just yet. The way he rolled the
Rs
and watching his lips move sent my mind into over drive wondering if he spoke Spanish in the throes of passion. He just chuckled and shook his head. “Hey, tomorrow, if you’re free, want to show me the running path at Central Park? Mom told me about it, but I want to make sure I have it right.”

“Sure,” he smiled. “I was planning on going for a run about six?”

“As in six in the morning?” I groaned.

“Yes,” he laughed. “Too early? I have a full afternoon of grading, and plans for tomorrow night, so I have to get my run in early. How about eight? Is that late enough?”

“Okay. Eight it is,” I agreed, excited that I had arranged another date with Kevin.

P
hoebe reminded me so much of her mother, Elizabeth.
Lizzie.
She had the same zest for life, and easygoing nature. It was sad to hear about the guy she dated her freshman year breaking her heart. I knew how it felt. I could tell there were more details than she was willing to share. I would love to teach that bastard a lesson. Ultimately, I admired that Phoebe had the courage to pick up and leave her first university, even if it was a little like running away from the problem. But it was also clear that Phoebe wasn’t a small town kind of girl. I seemed that New York would be a perfect place for her, though.

Liz had asked me to look out for Phoebe, which of course I agreed to. Phoebe was a good girl and we’d gotten to know each other a bit last month when she visited. Last minute, I had bought tickets to take her mom to a Luke Bryan concert, but Liz passed because her daughter was in town,
and
she had to work. Liz suggested I take Phoebe, who had been a long time fan of country music. We had a fun time, and we got along really well. The odd part right now was pretending that Liz wasn’t living in New York or in the middle of a divorce from her husband, Greg, Phoebe’s dad. Liz’s soon to be ex wanted to keep things quiet until the divorce was final, and also to not worry Phoebe while she starts her internship.

And yeah, I knew that right now Phoebe was flirting with me, but I also knew that she was too young for me. Back in the day, she would have been right up my alley, or close to. I wasn’t
exactly
comfortable with her age. Blame it on all the seminars I had sit in on about sexual relationships with students. True, she wasn’t my student, and she was of legal age—but we wouldn’t be able to go to bars for another two years.

I had to chuckle at the irony. Last month I had—um, dated?—Phoebe’s mother. Liz broke up with me because I was too young for
her.
Her reasoning was sound, and yes, I did want children. It would have been a huge sacrifice for me to give up the dream of being a dad one day. I also knew I was up against stiff competition by the name of Jack Stevens…wealthy…successful…very handsome. But having seen the two together at Ed Scott’s many times since then, they were really a good fit for one another. I was happy that she was happy.

I actually learned a lot about myself while dating Liz. I realized why my relationships with the girls I’d dated hadn’t been a good match for me. They had all been much younger than me. Turned out, dating Elizabeth, I liked the confidence of an
older
woman, a woman who knew who she was, or was willing to explore. My past relationships were with girls and it was clear that they let their relationship status dictate who they were. It was a lot of pressure.

My eyes had been opened… and they settled on one Shelby O’Sullivan, the bartender at Ed Scott’s.

T
he weekend, my first whole weekend in New York on my own, wasn’t as exciting as I had hoped it would be. Saturday, Kevin took me for a run in Central Park. I loved that all the female, and even several male, runners were checking him out, but he was running with
me
. Saturday afternoon was spent “vegging out” watching TV, a John Hughes movie marathon.
Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink,
and
Some Kind of Wonderful.
Out of nostalgia, my mother bought me the whole collection for my sixteenth birthday, and despite my wanting to not love the old movies, I adored every one of them. It didn’t matter that the movies were made some twenty or thirty years ago, the message was the same as today. Every time I saw them airing on TV, I watched.

Sunday I decided to lay low. I put in a call to Lucy. She said that Danny stopped by on Friday and wanted to say ‘good-bye’ to me. She said he seemed kinda remorseful that he’d been such a jerk. Apparently he wasn’t seeing anyone these days. I told her all about my past couple of days, and Kevin. She demanded that I send her a picture, and I promised I would in the next couple of days. I asked if she was ready for her trip to Africa, and she was. She said she’d started to look into opportunities to stay in Africa and take a year off her studies. She was thinking that two months wasn’t going to be nearly long enough to make a significant difference. She went on about immunization missions, and agri-science programs, and refugee missions that were available. She truly amazed me at her drive to ‘save the world’ and her perpetual ‘glass half full’ mentality.

After I got off the phone with Lucy, I decided to bake some ‘A-Z Muffins,’ which had everything from Applesauce to Zucchini. I loved baking; it was something that made sense to me. It was like science. Unfortunately, when I went to the store to buy all the ingredients, I forgot about baking powder. I rolled the dice and knocked on Mrs. Hanlon’s door to see if she had any, and thankfully she did, although it would “cost me” a few muffins for her, which of course I was happy to give.

Sunday night, Kevin texted me. Eagerly I opened the text.

6:42pm

I have a pizza and a movie.

Want to come down and

help me eat it? The movie

won an Oscar.

I dressed up probably a little more than I should have in a skirt and tank top that spelled out “dance” in sparkly rhinestones across the chest, but he’d invited me “out” and I was hopeful that it was a loaded invitation. Maybe we were getting along better than I’d hoped and maybe he’d changed his mind about this other woman. I even brought a couple of muffins over for dessert, showing off my talents as a homemaker.

However, what I hoped was an invitation to get closer, turned out to be just pizza and a movie.

“I don’t know why I always order a whole pie,” he said, opening the door. “I only eat half, then put the rest in the fridge, forget about it, then find fuzzy slices in the back.”

I laughed like a good flirt would do and made my way inside. His place was very masculine and tidy, with southern touches here and there, just like I would have expected. I made myself comfortable on his sofa where he had the pizza on the coffee table and a movie cued up on the screen.

“Help yourself to a slice,” he said, gesturing toward the box. “Can I get you water, sweet tea, or Coke?” he asked.

“Diet Coke?” I asked. He shook his head. “Water’s great, then,” I replied. “What movie did you get?” I asked. I pulled a slice of what looked like ‘everything’ pizza from the box and set it on a plate as Kevin handed me an ice-cold bottle of water. He took a seat in the recliner next to the sofa with his, what I assumed was, sweet tea, and grabbed his own slice.

“
Silver Linings Playbook
?” he said, half asking. “Seen it yet?”

I shook my head. “No, but I’ve heard it’s awesome,” I said. “What made you choose this one?”

“Well, it got a lot of nominations last year at the Oscars, and it’s this girl’s favorite movie. You know that woman I was mentioning last week? So, I thought I’d give it a go. Is that okay?” He picked up a stack of papers and a pen. “I always grade with the TV on. It alleviates the boredom of grading.”

“Sounds like good reasons to me,” I said, forcing a friendly smile as my heart sank. Here I thought he wanted to spend the evening curled up with a movie, but turned out he just didn’t want to deal with leftovers and watch a movie—sorta.

After the movie and two too many slices, I thanked Kevin for dinner and a movie and went back to my apartment. I had to get to bed because my first day of work was the next day. I sent my mom a quick text about my day and hit the pillow. I was still really tired from last week’s exams and move, and a little disappointed that it seemed like things with Kevin weren’t going to advance. It was okay, really.
I wasn’t going to date this summer anyway
, I tried convincing myself.

“And now, our last order of business—Newbies,” Alex, the older man who I interviewed with last month, said with a wink to the row of us sitting in the back. “Interns, please step forward and introduce yourselves. Tell us where you go to school, and what your focus is with regards to Film and TV.” The man who had been sucking all of the oxygen out of the room with his blathering on and on with everything from ratings to toilet paper, sat down and buried his nose in his iPhone.

Everyone else’s eyes in the room swung our way, thirty-some pair, looking us over. The eight of us looked at each other for support. One of the other interns, Jenny, and I looked at Ben, silently selecting him go first. After all, he was sitting at the end and really seemed to like himself.

This morning there was a quick orientation and a meet and greet with our department mentors, and we got to meet the other interns as well: Ben, Terri, Serena, Blake, Matt, Dan, and last, but most definitely not least, there was Jenny. She was super sweet with gorgeous, East Indian looks—caramel colored skin, thick black hair, and fantastic, exotic dark eyes. Jenny and I hit it off immediately. Ben and I…not so much. He thought an awful lot of himself. He reminded me a little too much of
Dickwad
. I hadn’t gotten a chance to meet the others yet.

“I’m Ben Collins. I’m a senior at UCLA where I’m focusing on cinematography. My folks live on the Island, so I’m a New York resident for the summers. I’m here to get a better understanding of single-camera on set cinematography,” he said smugly.

Jenny took the bullet next. “Hi, my name tag says I’m Janhavi Mahajan, but please, everyone calls me Jenny. I’m interested in directing, and I’m at Columbia getting my MF, and I’ll be working with Allison.”