Book Boyfriend by Kris Ripper

Author:Kris Ripper
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-02-03T19:21:07+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

I got used to my nails being amazing, but I didn’t stop staring at them when they caught the light. Or when I was bored. Or when I was supposed to be typing an email but didn’t really know how to phrase the thing I was saying and oh, hey, look at my sparkly nails. And when my gaze happened to be captured by my sparkly nails, I wondered, again, if Art knew. About me. About the book. About...everything.

My nails became an ongoing reminder. Other people noticed my manicure, too. People complimented me when I was reaching for my coffee at the shop in the bottom of my office building, and once someone broke The Sacred Oath Of Pretending No One Else Exists in the subway and said, “I just have to tell you how much I love your nails.” She said it as she was getting off the train, like she’d timed it so her transgression would be brief.

Which was kind of unfortunate. I wanted to tell people about my nails. I wanted to brag about them a little. “Oh, my best friend did them. I know, they look great, right?” It’s not weird or conceited or whatever to agree about how badass your nails look if you’re giving someone else credit for them. And if a random complimenter wanted to hear more, well, that wasn’t a problem. I could glow about Art forever.

I brought them lunch at the bookstore one day when I was in the neighborhood. (Also, I was really on it with the pronouns after almost a month of practice.) I was waiting for them to finish up what seemed to be a really long conversation about nature photography with a little old man who had a very battered camera on a strap around his neck when a woman accidentally bumped into me.

“Sorry, dear, wasn’t looking—oh, you must be Art’s young man.” She grinned with this stunning deduction and gestured at my fingers. “I recognize the color. He’s really something else, isn’t he, our Art?”

“Um...yes?” Did I correct their pronouns? Did I correct the “Art’s young man” thing? Did I just go along with it because it didn’t matter?

“I’ve been coming in here for years,” she continued, like she just started talking to random strangers all the time. “I remember when he was just a baby and now he’s all grown up.”

I blinked. A baby? “He’s only been working here since college.”

“That’s what I mean! But you’re still so young, both of you. I’m sure that seems quite adult, but someday you’ll look back at yourselves in pictures and think, ‘Oh, we were babies back then!’” She put her hand on my arm. “That’s how it happens, you know. Time goes so slowly until you look back and poof! It’s flashed right past you.”

“Uh-huh.” Okay, I can be as nice to a little old lady as the next guy, but I sent Art serious mental signals to wrap it up with Nature Photog and come rescue me.

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