Free The Opposite of Me by Sarah Pekkanen

“Got tied up in a meeting. How are you?”
    “Great,” he said. “Really great.”
    I closed my eyes and pictured Bradley. His brown hair was always rumpled, he was on the skinny side, and his hands and feet seemed too big for his body, like a puppy’s. His eyes wereearnest behind his big wire-rimmed glasses, and he always carried a pen and notebook in his back pocket like a wallet, and at least two cameras slung around his neck. Bradley was the kind of guy people considered a geek in high school, at least the people who weren’t able to see how kind and good and honorable he was. Suddenly I missed him terribly.
    “You won’t believe what happened to me tonight,” Bradley said.
    Bet it can’t top my night, I thought, grimly swigging another gulp.
    “I got stuck in an elevator for three hours,” he said. “You know that parking garage in downtown Bethesda? I was going to pick up a book at Barnes & Noble, and on the way back to my car, I got stuck between the third and fourth floors. It took forever for the firemen to get us out.”
    “What a pain,” I said, covering a yawn.
    It had been a mistake to answer the phone. I couldn’t do
casual chitchat tonight, even with Bradley. Exhaustion was starting to crash over me in thick, heavy waves, and I desperately wanted to succumb to it. I ached to collapse into my bed under my fluffy down comforter, to put my pillow over my head and curl up in the darkness.
    “Well, at least you had something to read,” I said, cradling the phone between my ear and shoulder and opening my drawer with my free hand, the one that wasn’t clutching the champagne in a death grip. I found my keys exactly where I’d left them, a twenty-dollar bill pinned to the key chain with a paper clip. And they say anal-retentiveness is a character flaw.
    “So there I was, stuck in the elevator,” Bradley said. I heard a woman giggling nearby. God, I hoped he’d wrap this up quickly. I needed to get off the phone.
    “And guess who I ran into in the elevator?” he said.
    I so didn’t want to play this game.
    “No idea,” I said briskly. I didn’t want to be rude, but Bradley was too happy and chatty and I really needed to go home.
    “I’ll give you a hint,” he said. “She’s a redhead.”
    “A natural one!” a familiar voice shouted. “You’ve seen the proof, Bradley Church!”
    This time I did drop the champagne bottle: “Shit!”
    “Lindsey? Are you okay?” Bradley asked.
    I snatched up the bottle before too much spilled.
    “Alex?” I asked tentatively.
    “None other.” She giggled. She must have been perched by Bradley’s side. Their faces must have been close together with the cell phone in between so they could both hear. Their cheeks were probably in that electric space just before skin touches skin.
    “What a coincidence,” I said. The numbness was draining from my body; anxiety was evicting it and staking a claim.
    “We’re starving to death after our ordeal,” Bradley said.
    “Our heroic ordeal,” Alex added.
    “Heroic,” Bradley agreed.
    “Well,
you
were heroic,” Alex said. “Bradley gave me his bottle of water.”
    “But you insisted I drink half,” Bradley said. “So you were noble.”
    What the—what the—what the
fuck
? Why were they finishing each other’s sentences like an old married couple?
    “Anyway,” Bradley said, “we’re about to grab dinner at that Thai place. Remember? It’s where you and I went the last time you were in town.”
    We’d shared chicken satay with peanut sauce and crispy spring rolls and talked for hours. The restaurant was on the dark side, I suddenly remembered. With soft background music. And votive candles at every table.
    “So this is really funny,” I said. I took another long gulp of champagne. “And natural redhead? What are you talking about, Alex?”
    “I showed him the proof,” she said.
    I closed my eyes. Alex was using her husky, there’s-an-attractive-man-in-the-house voice. Something close