Chapter 39
LUCY
I senda frantic text to the girls.
911. Emergency. Now.
Holy shit. You preggos or something?
Don’t ask stupid questions. I’m freaking out here
Whatevs. Your place? 8pm
Yes. And don’t bring ice cream. Last time I almost barfed
Fine. I’ll bring carrot stix
You suck. Bring chocolate
Your wish is my command
“Things were going great.Like I was pretty sure he was going to give-me-a-drawer, great.”
Gilly rolls her eyes at me. “Why do you judge all relationships by that criteria? What if the guy simply does not have an extra dresser drawer to spare? Or what if he doesn’t even have a dresser? Like he just uses Ikea bins or milk crates or something?”
Petal turns up her nose. “If a guy our age is still using crap like that, I’d run in the other direction, fast.”
“Easy for you to say, you’re married. Personally, I don’t care about a guy’s furniture. I’d just be happy to meet the kind of guy I want to do more than just hit it with,” Gilly says.
“Gills, you’re not meeting the kind of guys you want because you spend too much time at the nightclub,” I say.
“Geez. You make it sound like I’m hanging out on skid row or something.”
I shrug. “Well, the club is in the Tenderloin.”
“Well,” she says, moving a piece of her Marilyn Monroe hair off her forehead, “I’m not sure how else I’m supposed to meet guys.”
“It’s hard if you don’t like online dating, Gills. That leaves you with grocery stores and the gym,” Petal says, breaking off a corner of the fancy salted caramel chocolate she picked up on her way over.
“You know I’m not the type to go to the gym,” Gilly says, “and I don’t really go to the grocery store, either.”
“If you ate something other than takeout, you’d end up in a grocery store.”
She considers this. “I guess I could go to one. Just walk around with a cart, throw a few things in it. I don’t actually have to buy anything.”
She gazes out my window at the ugly building next door while considering this.
“You do you, Gills. But hey, guys, we’re here for me. This is my emergency meeting. Sorry if I’m a selfish bitch, but I’m in trouble.”
Petal jumps to her feet. “Oh. My. God. I KNEW you were pregnant!”
She runs over to where I’m sitting on the floor and puts a hand on my tummy.
I push her away. “Get off, I told you, I’m not pregnant.”
“Are you surrrrre?” she asks, squinting like she wants to catch me in a lie.
“Please, just shut up for a minute. I am not preggers. But this does have to do with Tyler.”
Gilly shimmies her shoulders, and her cleavage nearly pops out of her low-cut blouse. “Spill it, girl. I bet he has a miraculous tongue. Huh?”
She looks so hopeful, I almost want to answer her.
“Gills, don’t ask me shit like that.”
She claps her hands together. “Ha! That means he does. Tyler’s got the pussy-eating tongue!”
I roll my eyes. “I’m ignoring that and moving on to the real reason we’re here. Guys, I fucked up with Tyler. Big time.”
“Did you cheat? Who was it with?” Petal asks, sitting on the edge of her chair.
“No, I did not. Look, guys, remember how I told you my boss was talking about layoffs and stuff?”
They dutifully nod.
“That’s when we came up with an idea for me to write a book. And I was kind of inspired because we’d just been at that happy hour for the Aftershocks where I chatted with Tyler, and figured he was kind of a douche. You know, the kind of guy who could teach a Masterclass in picking up women.”
I go on to explain how that meeting evolved into the idea of writing a book to help women avoid the Tyler-type of guy—the players, the womanizers, and the smooth operator assholes. I explained how it initially seemed like a brilliant idea and how excited I was because the universe had handed me not only a great idea, but also the perfect research subject to write about.
So, I started fake-dating him. Only he didn’t know we were fake-dating. He thought we were real-dating.
“Okay. I see what’s going on here,” Petal says. “First off, that’s shitty. Second off, it’s really shitty. I can’t stress that enough. But you like him, right? You’d like to keep going out with him?”
I shrug one shoulder, trying to play it cool, when I realize that’s stupid. These girls are my ride-or-dies. It’s required that I be straight with them. “Yes, I like him, and yes, I want to keep going out with him.”
Petal throws her hands up. “Then just don’t tell him. Keep it to yourself. Forever. Easy.”
“You see, that’s where the problem is,” I say, and dive into how after he abruptly left the other day, I realized he’d seen my notes for the book.
“I’ve been beating myself up for leaving that stuff out where he could find it. I’m such an idiot. The things I wrote about him were horrible. I would have left, too, if I were him. He hates me now. I know it.”
Gilly shakes her head. “Lu, don’t be so dramatic. I’m sure you guys can talk it out.”
“Problem is, he won’t respond to my texts or calls.”
Quiet falls over my living room and Gilly and Petal look at each other, at a loss for words.
Yeah, it’s like that.
“See, even you guys can’t believe I fucked up this bad.”
They each nod slowly, and pop some more chocolate in their mouths.