Free Perfect on Paper by Janet Goss Page B

pair of bolt cutters. I got a feeling it’s the same guy who—well, I guess you could say he introduced us.”
    “I guess you could,” I agreed, thinking back to Snaggletooth and the scattered apples. “So you’re hoping he’ll turn up for Thanksgiving at the Mission?”
    “I sure am. It’s my big chance to set that guy straight.”
    “I get it—no sweet potatoes for you until you cease and desist.”
    “Something like that. Although I got a feeling he’s going to keep trying, irregardless of what I say.”
    His words—rather, his word—rendered me temporarily speechless. When it came to pet peeves, “irregardless” was my pick of the litter, even worse than the use of double modifiers such as “more smarter.” Not that Hank’s flawed vocabulary made him, well, less smarter than me. After all, he was rewiring an entire brownstone, and I couldn’t even rewire a lamp. But had I been deluding myself into thinking I’d found the perfect boyfriend?
    “You still there?” he said.
    “Oh—sorry. I was just, uh, nothing.” Under the circumstances, “nothing” seemed a better explanation than “questioning the viability of our relationship.”
    From the corner of my eye, I could see Scruffy still looking in my direction, which didn’t help matters one bit. I started blushing, a condition I was powerless to reverse once the process had begun. Long before I could establish beyond a reasonable doubt that I was speaking with my age-appropriate significant other, I heard the rumble of an engine.
    “Looks like my bus is getting ready to board,” I told Hank. “See you Saturday night?”
    “Can’t wait. You know, I miss you already, Dana.”
    “Me, too.” It was true. I did miss Hank Wheeler, regardless of his linguistic shortcomings. Why, just last Sunday I’d sat on the rickety staircase of the brownstone, marveling at the painstaking way he stripped paint—not to mention the exhilarating way his biceps tensed and the endearing way his dark hair flopped into his eyes—and thought how appropriately timed Thanksgiving was this year.
    You need to grow up,
I told myself.
Step One: no more flirting with youthful strangers. Step Two… ibid.
    Soon the driver poked his head around the door, which was temporarily blocked while the gargantuan man staggered to his feet, and surveyed the snaking line.
    “I can only take fifty-two of you on this run. But don’t worry, folks—we got another coach right behind this one.”
    I quickly began counting from my position toward the back of the line. Scruffy was number fifty-three: first in line for the second bus. He’d been trying to count, too, but now that the passengers were milling around in preparation to board, it was unlikely he’d come up with an accurate total. He raised his eyebrows, gave me a hopeful look, and shrugged.
    I shrugged back, torn between relief and dismay, with dismay coming out on top.
You are a horrendous excuse for a girlfriend,
I told myself, all the while wondering whether Scruffy’s eyes were more gray than green or the other way around.
    As I reached for the bagel bag, Growling Man’s cell phone rang. Unfortunately for him, it was still in Hissing Woman’s coat pocket.
    “You
shit
!” She brandished the glowing screen at him. “I
knew
it! How many times has she called? Wait—don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.” She ripped her bus ticket into sixteenths, threw the pieces in Growling Man’s face, and stalked off.
    I scrupulously avoided looking to my right. Instead, I stared straight ahead, all the while wondering two things: what the Bieber bus line’s policy was with regard to saving seats, and what the hell was wrong with me.
    I finally inched my way through the door and up the stairs to the bus, where I was once again confronted with the sight of the gargantuan man. He was sitting in the front row, across from the driver.
    The entire front row. He was occupying both seats.
    I let out a sigh of what I told myself