Page 25 of More For Me

“Hey,” Alex says, her welcoming smile faltering when she sees I’m alone. “Where’s Bodhi?”

“He had to go see his mom,” I say, tossing my jacket behind the counter.

“Oh.” She looks disappointed. “Did you have a nice time, at least?”

I open my mouth then immediately close it again. I was about to tell her about the change that seemed to come over him when he took that phone call, but it feels wrong for some reason. If Bodhi wouldn’t even confide in me what was bothering him, it doesn’t seem like I should bring it up with someone else.

I fix a smile on my face. “Of course it was nice. It was Bodhi. Who’s ever had a bad time with Bodhi?”

* * *

It’s almostpossible to make myself believe I imagined that weirdness in Bodhi the other day. He ended up spending the night at his mom’s so I don’t see him until dinner time the next day. But when I do, he seems completely back to normal. He’s waiting for me when I get home with take-out from our favorite Thai place and our rom-com match-up board already out and ready to go.

“You’re going down tonight,” he says, grinning, and relief courses through me. This seems more like Bodhi.

“I haven’t lost in four weeks,” I say, kicking off my shoes at the door. “And I don’t plan to start now.”

He makes a scoffing noise. “Your over-confidence will be your downfall.”

I run upstairs to change my clothes, feeling a rush of giddiness. A lot of people would probably be confused about the plans I turned down tonight—some Instagram influencer is throwing a huge party at a beach house in Malibu—but I don’t care. Spending my Friday night with Bodhi, take-out, and rom-coms sounds like the best way to end the week.

When I get back downstairs, he has the food set up on our coffee table, along with two bottles of beer, the first movie already pulled up on the television screen.

“We’re starting with the obvious winner,” he says, pointing the remote at the TV.

“Boo!” I yell, because the carefully determined schedule calls for Bodhi’s pick to be up first.

He ignores me. “Widely considered to be Nora Ephron’s greatest script—”

“Widely considered by people named Bodhi Lakra,” I mutter.

He doesn’t let this interruption go, instead turning to glare at me. “What Ephron movie is better thanWhen Harry Met Sally?”

“Um,Sleepless in Seattle? You’ve Got Mail?”

He looks pained. “What is your obsession with these movies where the couple barely know each other? Harry and Sally are clearly the most realistic hero and heroine. They’ve been best friends for years!”

The truth is, I love this movie as much as Bodhi does. I just have to give him a hard time about it. It’s part of the routine.

About a year ago, we got into a huge argument about the best rom-com of all time. Obviously, the only way to solve it was to develop a highly scientific, head-to-head match-up system. Ever since then we’ve been working our way through a list of our favorite movies. We watch the film in question then score it in various categories. Whichever movie gets the highest number of points at the end of the night goes up on our chart as the winner. In spite of how competitive we both are about our picks, we made a pact to be completely objective in our rankings, and we’ve stuck to that surprisingly well. We’ve only gotten into two huge blow-out fights—one of which involved spraying each other with water from the kitchen sink. Not our most mature moment.

Is it ridiculous? Absolutely. Does Fox throw a fit every time he so much as sees the chart come out? Definitely. But I don’t care. Our movie match-ups have become one of my favorite ways to spend an evening.

“I’m just saying,” I tell him. “It would be nice if just once, you picked a movie that came out this century.”

He scowls. “The nineties were the golden age of romantic comedy.” I boo again and his scowl deepens. “Are we watching this, or not?”

I sigh dramatically. “Fine. Press play.” The scowl doesn’t leave his face, but I’m pretty sure I see the corner of his mouth tilt up when he turns to pick up one of the Thai containers from the coffee table.

We settle in to watch the movie, eating mountains of noodles before moving on to containers of Ben and Jerry’s. In spite of my teasing, I get a little weepy by the time Frank Sinatra starts singing “It Had To Be You” on New Year’s Eve. But when Billy Crystal starts running through the streets of New York City to find Meg Ryan, I snort out a laugh.

“I forgot this is how this movie ended. Of course you picked it.”

“What does that mean?” he asks, not taking his eyes off the screen.

“It has a climatic running to the lover scene! That’s like, your favorite thing in a movie.”

He shoots me a sheepish smile. “Well, duh. It’s awesome.”