Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Chapter 2

Age 15:

To: lilypad10@gmail.com

From: shinyobjects@gmail.com

Hi Lily,

You scare me a little. In a good way, I think. My not-name is Shiny. My mom calls me Shiny cause she says I get easily distracted by shiny objects.

Anyway, here are my answers to your questions. Hope they’re good enough.

Thank you for going easy on me, I guess. Talk to you next week.

Your new friend,

Shiny

***

In a purely hypothetical sense, how many 5-Hour Energy shots can one take before it becomes a serious health problem? Because at this moment, I am technically 20-Hour-Energys in, and the room feels very zoomy.

Before I accepted this position, my predecessor, Chad, had lain around all day. He would delegate all—and I do mean all—his work to Luke and Layla and me. Those days, the three of us would work grueling hours, well into the night. I was always the third wheel, even before Luke and Layla finally got together. Sure, their glances back and forth and flirtatious banter sometimes got old, but now, as I scanned my empty office and my pages-long to-do list, I was starting to miss them.

I tapped my pencil on the desk in a rhythmic beat, overwhelmed by the thought of the work waiting for me. An email notification popped up in the corner of my desktop screen.

Janise: Chad needs you to run this for him. Please have it back to us tomorrow by 10 a.m.

I rolled my eyes and groaned. I was one bad email away from saying screw it and throwing the computer across my office. It was too hot in here. My pants felt a little too tight due to my recent stress eating. And the calming plinky-plunky background music that Spotify recommended for me was not helping any.

One hour. One more dang hour before I could run out of this place Road Runner–style and go to my nearly vacant apartment to drink red wine, I mean whiskey, out of a plastic Phillies cup.

Before my promotion, the days would fly by like nothing. I’d wake up on Friday morning, almost despondent that the weekend was coming. The days never felt long when I had friends here. Work never felt like work. Just like in high school, when sitting next to friends made Algebra II feel far less horrific. High school still sucked, but there was a small silver lining.

But the days of enjoying my time at West Oak Publishing were far behind me. Anymore, even my lunch break felt like work.

I needed something new. Something exciting. Like a cat falling out of the ceiling tile or a fire breaking out in the basement of this place. Lifting my chin to the light fixture dangling over my fancy wooden desk, I prayed for a distraction. Anything at all.

Just then, my phone vibrated against said desktop. Luke Wells. The one and only. The one who was mine before he was Layla’s. Something I liked to remind them both of often.

If anyone could distract me, it was him. He was probably calling with a last-minute invite to the bar, or maybe to tell me that Layla had hidden a frog in their toilet again and he needed me to come get it out.

“What’s up?” I leaned farther back, the chair creaking as it settled.

“Hey, are you by yourself?”

I paused and glanced through the glass doors into the open bullpen outside my office. “Uh, yeah. But if this is about anything illegal, let’s wait and talk about it when I see you next.”

He let out a laugh, but it sounded tight and strained. “Nah, nothing like that. I just need a really, really big favor.”

“You still owe me from the last favor.” I shivered at the memory of the worst date of my life. A night full of hot yoga and weird guinea pig stories from a coworker that I had no interest in seeing.

Luke groaned. “Gah, I forgot about that. But this is serious.” His voice was hushed, like he was in a coat closet hiding from his fiancée. “I need you to let my sister room with you for a while. Just till she gets on her feet again. She’s trying to find a job. She’s going to work here while she looks, but we can’t find anywhere safe and affordable for her to stay. It would really mean a lot to me, man.”

His sister. As in Calla Wells. As in the woman in front of whom I consistently tripped over myself. The woman who caused my body to tense up like I was about to get a shot in my backside. I wasn’t sure if it was because we’d had such an awkward first encounter, or if she was just the kind of person that made me nervous. Either way, when Calla got anywhere near me, regardless of how much I fought it, I turned into an alien trying to convince the rest of the world I was human. I stumbled over words, and my hands made weird gestures. Sometimes they even settled on my hips in an unfamiliar sassy pose that was not natural.

Bizarrely, my chest always felt sore around her, and my eyes were like heat-seeking missiles directed at her every time she walked into the room. What irritated me most was that she and my best friend were related. With all that in mind, I was instantly sure that having Calla Wells under my roof would be a disaster.

“Nope. Nuh-uh. No, no, no.”

He scoffed on the other end of the phone, the action making the line between us crackle. “Why not?”

“Sorry, I don’t do female roommates.” It wasn’t a lie. Living with a woman meant I’d have to put on this…act. Be someone I wasn’t. It would mean no longer walking around in my underwear, and I’d probably have to share my TV time, which was strictly baseball nowadays.

“Just for a few months? She’s really cool. You’ll love her. I promise she’ll leave you alone. She can even cook. And she’ll be up here so much you probably won’t even see her often at all.”

Luke was desperate. His tone reminded me of the old days at West Oak. When we’d have long late-night conversations about Layla. Or when I told him about Lily and how she was the only person—other than him—I could trust completely.

Luke was the definition of loyal. He was always there when I needed him. Minus that one time with Katie, which will go down in history as the single worst date of my life. Or anyone’s life. With that one exception, he answered when I called. When I needed him to listen to a new riff I’d been working on. If I had a tough day at work, he was there. Unfortunately, that meant my stupid heart always felt guilty for telling the guy no.

“Just for a few months?” I didn’t mean for it to come out that way, like it was a possibility, but I couldn’t take it back once the words were out.

“Just a few months.”

I groaned and leaned forward in my chair again. “Fine. But only if you name a drink after me. You opened the bar up with all that stuff for Layla. It’s my turn.”

Luke let out a laugh. “What do you want?”

“The Nathan-ator.”

I’d been thinking about it for a while. I had no idea what the drink would consist of, but it would have to be good enough to be a customer favorite.

“You’ve had that on your mind for a while, huh?”

I nodded despite his inability to see me. “Oh yeah, I want to hear it shouted across the bar in a frenzy because everyone loves it so much.”

He chuckled in response. “You got it, man. I appreciate you letting her stay there. She’ll pay you rent, but she probably can’t afford to pay what I did until she gets back on her feet.”

Money wasn’t an issue nowadays anyway. When Luke and I lived together, we had to count the change from our couches to see if we could afford a six-pack of cheap beer from the gas station. But now, I had a job that, although gruesome, paid great. Covering bills even after Luke moved out wasn’t an issue. Space wasn’t technically the issue either, I supposed. The apartment had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and an office. And the living room and the open-concept kitchen were big. It was way more space than I needed by myself, but I liked my things the way they were.

I liked playing guitar late into the night without bothering anyone. I liked decorating my kitchen counters with Lego sets that took me way longer than I was willing to admit to put together. Sure, sometimes I’d get lonely. And maybe I missed having a roommate to split a pizza with. And yeah, it was possible I’d turn on Lionel Richie and look out the window when it rained, wishing that Luke still lived there. Those were all totally normal growing pains, weren’t they?

“Yeah, yeah.” I grunted. “We’ll be even when I see my name on the menu.”

He laughed. “You got it, man.” Without another word, he hung up.

What had I just agreed to?