The Meeting Point by Olivia Lara
Thirty-Seven
My mind is feverously working at three hundred miles a second, processing. Why is he here? How does he know where I live? Did he follow me? Is he some nutcase?
“Hello,” he says, and I open my mouth and close it like a fish. No words come out.
“I’m Ethan,” he says. “Celine’s brother.”
“Ethan,” I say and feel my face is burning up. “You’re—you’re Ethan.”
I can’t believe it. The customer from earlier is Ethan. Oh my God!
How can this be him? He doesn’t look like his author photo at all; except for the shape of his eyes and the jawline. His hair is wavy, and down to his cheeks, he has no beard, no glasses, and his arms look like he’s spending all of his time in a gym, not writing books. Plus, the massive tattoo. Where’s the Steve Jobs look I expected?
“Hi,” I say, mortified.
“H—hi,” he says, sounding embarrassed for me. Which is precisely what I needed right now. “I didn’t know you lived here,” he says.
“I do. I am. Sorry, come in,” I say and pull vigorously at my towel, making sure nothing is showing. Water is dripping from my hair onto the floor. Could this be more awkward?
He walks behind me and I feel so self-conscious, I wish there was a hole in the floor that would eat me up now and spit me somewhere else. Anywhere else.
“I didn’t know you live here either,” I say. “And we didn’t know you were coming tonight,” I add, as an excuse for him finding me like this. And for earlier, at the café. I don’t even know anymore what I feel bad about.
“I’m sorry. I thought Celine told you we both live here. When I’m around, that is.”
“She didn’t,” I mumble, mostly for myself.
“I managed to catch an early flight. But I forgot my keys in Florida,” he says.
“Good. That’s good. Not the keys, I mean. The earlier flight.”
Maya, get a grip of yourself. You’re all over the place.He’s making an effort not to stare at me; I can see it. He’s looking around the room, at the window, anywhere but at me.
“Can you excuse me for a minute? Just need to—”
You know. Get dressed. Punch myself in the face. Scream into a pillow—normal stuff.
“I’ll be right back,” I say.
“Take your time. Didn’t mean to barge in like this.”
“It’s your family’s house. Your house. Not mine. You didn’t barge in. I’m just a guest here. I’m the one who—” I stop. “Celine should be here any moment. She went to the store.”
He nods but still looks away from me.
“Be right back,” I say again, sounding completely dumb.
I can’t believe he’s the guy from the café. Why didn’t he say anything? I thought he was just a customer. He saw my almost meltdown; he saw me making the wrong order for that woman. What is he going to think of me now? That I’m incapable, that’s what. That his sister made a mistake hiring me. I replay our interaction from the café in my head. He could’ve said who he was, but he didn’t. Was he having fun at my expense? Watching me make a fool of myself? And now he’s seen me almost naked. This day is complete. A complete disaster.
I try to calm down. I couldn’t have known it was him, could I? What threw me off, apart from his face not matching his photo, is that he also looks nothing like Celine. She has light brown hair and amber eyes, he has black hair and green eyes. What kind of twins are they? Ugh, does it even matter? He looks what he looks like. More importantly, I embarrassed myself in front of him and as far as first impressions go, his of me must be disastrous. This is not a good start. I bet the first thing he’ll do when he finds out who I am is tell Max what a hot mess Maya is. He seems like the kind of person who would do that.
I’m done getting dressed and I hear Celine’s voice in the living room.
“You’re here,” she says, sounding so happy it almost makes me happy. “What a surprise!”
“The Delphy twins back together again,” he jokes and lifts her up just as I walk into the room.
Celine laughs and when she sees me, she comes over.
“Ethan, this is Maya,” she says.
“We’ve met,” we both say. He’s smiling while he says it; I look away.
“That was fast,” she says, chuckling. “Great. How tired are you? Wine and Karina’s famous pretzels?”
“You have them? For sure. And wine sounds good too,” he says.
“Red?” she asks, looking at us both.
“I’m sure you have a lot of catching up to do. I’ll let you chat and go get some sleep.”
I want to remove myself, go to my room, and basically never come out. Ever.
“No way! Come on, Ethan just got here. Let’s all go on the terrace and pop open the bottle,” she says, looking at me.
He opens his suitcase and takes out a black T-shirt. “Do I have ten minutes?” he asks Celine. “I want to take a shower and change out of these gross clothes.”
“Sure,” she says. “Go to Mom and Dad’s bathroom, though. We took over your room.”
He smiles. “That’s fine.”