Saskia scrounged up some plastic trash in her apartment, as well as one of the empty Gatorade bottles—Kareena’s preferred sick day beverage—lying around. She was ready when Milo called.
“Hi, Milo.” She hoped her smile was audible.
“Hi, Saskia,” he said. The way he pronounced her name, like he wanted to get each syllable precisely correct, gave her a thrill. “I’m glad you suggested this call. Thank you for not writing me off when I made unfair assumptions about you,” he added.
His assumptions weren’t entirely unfair! She was late all the time, and she resisted structure in her life as much as she possibly could. Maybe they were doomed, but if anyone was willing to take those million to one odds, it was Saskia.
“Thank you for telling me about ecobricking,” she said.
He narrated his process, cutting the plastic into smaller pieces with scissors and using a chopstick to cram the pieces down into a cold brew bottle. She located both scissors and a chopstick in her own apartment to follow along. Soon enough, the conversation drifted away from the process itself.
“I should have invited you over to do this with me,” Milo said.
“Maybe next time.”
“No,” he said, reconsidering. “This is too mundane. I want you to feel special. Plastic garbage is the opposite of special.”
“What if being with you makes me feel special, no matter what we’re doing?” Saskia asked. She could scarcely believe it, as someone who’d once been whisked away to Paris on a whim and another time joined an impromptu mid-Atlantic sailing voyage when invited by a beautiful and intriguing face. Milo’s particular brand of attention felt more special than showy gestures.
“That’s sweet of you to say, but I also see a Broadway show every week. I’d love to take you to one and maybe go for a drink after.”
Every week? About the only thing Saskia did reliably on a weekly basis was wash her hair. “Too bad you can’t take me to Jurassic Park: Life Finds a Way! I didn’t get to see it before it closed.”
“Hardly anyone did,” Milo said wistfully.
“I’ll have to survive with the cast recording.”
Milo broke into the most heartbreaking song of the show, “Clever Girl.” Saskia’s jaw dropped at his gorgeous voice. She let him serenade her through the first chorus before cutting him off.
“Milo!” she gushed. “Why are you doing the accounting for the theater instead of treading the boards yourself?”
“Deadly stage fright,” Milo said. “And I’m better at doing the books anyway.”
His humility was somehow much sexier than the flashiness she’d always thought she preferred.
“When are we going to see each other in person again?” Saskia asked.
“How about next Saturday?” Milo asked.
“Will you have a car?”
“Count on it.”
The confidence—the commitment—in those words settled low in her belly. She knew she craved confidence; the commitment threw her for a loop. “Perfect, let me cook something up for us.”
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