Chapter 13 #2
“You’re not an idiot. It’s your childhood trauma, and you’re working through it.
You’re used to struggling and working on a limited budget.
It takes time and maybe a few years of making a stable income before you get comfortable and feel okay about loosening your purse strings.
Look at Flip. He’s living with his best friend like he can’t afford a million-dollar house. ”
She has a point. Flip still has the dresser from his childhood bedroom. It’s in terrible shape, and one drawer makes an awful screeching sound every time he opens it. “I feel like you tolerated a lot of nonsense when we lived together in university,” I tell her. “Maybe too much.”
“We all have quirks, and I love yours. It helps that we had years of friendship under our belt to work with when we moved in together. Besides, you spent four years dealing with my constant assumption that every guy I dated would be my forever.”
“You’re a hopeless romantic.”
“I’m a serial dater, and I want every guy to be the one,” she replies.
“Does that mean you’ve met someone?”
“Date number two is tomorrow night. I met him at a coffee shop, and we ordered the same thing. I’m trying not to turn him into my new husband right away. You’d be proud. I haven’t even merged our faces on that app that shows me what our children would look like.”
“You’re saving that until date six?” I ask.
“Maybe even number seven.”
I smile. “Have you kissed him yet?”
“Oh yeah. We sucked face for a good ten minutes at the end of our first date. My next goal is to hold off on sex until after date five, but my libido gets in the way.” Essie cringes. “I’m trying to stay mysterious, at least with what’s going on in my pants.”
“Seems reasonable. What are you doing on date two?”
“Having lunch and then grocery shopping.”
“A grocery-shopping date? That’s new.”
“But also smart. His food choices will tell me so much. Does he price match? Does he buy things on sale? Does he binge or impulse buy? Does he only buy brand names, or will he get the no-name kind to save a little since it’s the same product in a less flashy container?”
“That is smart. Who suggested it?”
“Me, of course. I really need groceries, and it seemed like an unconventional way to get to know him better.”
“So smart. I miss grocery shopping with you. And going through the flyers,” I admit. We did it every Thursday when the new ones arrived in the weekly paper.
“We were the price-matching queens. We should have had T-shirts made.” Essie smiles.
I return it, but talking about this makes me miss having her close. If she wasn’t halfway across the country, I’d probably be on my way to her house right now. “Our system was unparalleled.”
“What else is going on? You and Dickhead still hate-fucking each other?”
“Yeah. I think I might not hate him as much as I should.”
“He’s softening you up with the D, huh?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. Sometimes he can be almost…
sweet.” Like earlier when he wouldn’t let me walk away.
Or when he’s not busy saying filthy things and turning me into a sex pretzel.
“I need to find an apartment, but I can’t secure anything before October first.” And maybe that’s okay because moving out means the sex with Tristan ends.
“The offer stands. You can always move in with me. I have a king bed. We could make it work.”
“Unless this new guy turns into your boyfriend. Then it would just be awkward.”
“True. And despite my best efforts, I’ll probably have us married by date four. It’s sort of my thing.”
“It kind of is.”
“What if I come visit you? We’ll time it when the guys are away. We’ll go to a bar, get drunk, and dance on tables. Flirt with dirtbags. It’ll be like old times.”
“You mean like last year’s old times?” I ask.
“Exactly.”
“That would be awesome.” A visit from Essie is exactly what I need.
“I’ll look at their schedule and check flights. I’m between events, and I need a reason to get out of Vancouver for a few days, so I don’t fall for this guy too fast.”
“This is perfect. I need some bestie time.”
The condo door swings open, and Tristan appears, laden with grocery bags.
“My roommate just got home,” I whisper.
“The one you’re fucking?”
“Yeah.”
“Love you. Play safe. Bye!”
She hangs up before I can tell her I love her back.
“I’m coming up whether you’re decent or not, Bea!” Tristan pulls the ladder down, and his head appears a few seconds later, followed by the rest of his body. He sets several bags on the floor, then pulls himself the rest of the way up.
“What’s this?”
“Stuff.” He grabs the grocery bags and one brown paper bag with handles and sets it all on the coffee table. He crosses his arms. Then uncrosses them and runs a hand through his hair. “For you.”
“For me?” I echo.
“Yeah. I went to that bakery. I hope I got the right one. I think it is. I ate three different kinds of cake to make sure.” He pulls out a full-sized version of the mini cake he ate.
“That’s four times the size.” And a fifty-dollar cake.
“Seemed like a small price to pay if I can make up for being an asshole.” He pulls out three more boxes. “These are the slices I bought. I ate half of each of them. They can be yours too, if you want them.”
“You didn’t need to do this.” My heart is at risk of pooling at my feet.
“Yeah, I did. I made you cry. Twice. So I’m making up for it. Plus, I got you this other stuff.” He motions to the grocery bags, then shoves his hand in his jeans pocket.
I peek in the first bag. “How did you find Thrills gum?”
“There’s a vintage-candy section in a grocery store about twenty minutes from here. It’s on the way back from the bakery. I’ll take you sometime, and we can get whatever you want.”
I riffle through the contents. It’s literally all my favorite treats. “How did you know I like all this stuff?” I’m at risk of getting emotional again. Part of me wants to squirrel it all away and eat it one piece at a time.
“I remembered from when we were kids, I guess. It’s all the crap your parents got you for your birthday one year. Or am I not remembering that right?” He rubs the back of his neck. “One year you had a mountain of freaking candy.”
I stare at him. “You remember that?”
He lifts one shoulder. “It was a lot of candy.”
My bottom lip trembles. Yeah. My feels are extra big tonight.
Tristan frowns. “Are you going to cry again?”
I cover my eyes with my hands, press my lips together, and shake my head.
His fingers circle my wrists and, despite my best efforts to keep my hands in front of my eyes, he’s way stronger than I am. But he’s gentle as he moves them away.
“Hey, hey.” He kisses my cheek. “This was supposed to make you feel better, not make you cry again.”
“My parents didn’t buy all that candy. I did,” I whisper.
“Oh.” He’s still holding my wrists. “Flip and I almost made ourselves sick on it.”
“I know.” My feelings are on fire.
“I’m missing something important here.”
I sigh and drop down on the couch. My arms are still raised because Tristan is holding them. He lets them go and takes a seat beside me.
I pick up a package of Fuzzy Peaches. “I’d mentioned to Flip earlier in the week that I wanted to have a movie night on my birthday.
Looking back on it, he probably wasn’t paying attention.
I was an annoying barely-teenager, and you were seventeen and probably already getting blow jobs in the back seat of your car from the bunnies. ”
“That’s about right. The part about the blow jobs, I mean.
” He makes a face. “Which you probably didn’t need me to confirm.
Anyway, you weren’t really annoying. I know I said that a lot, but mostly coming to your place was an escape from having to take care of my brothers.
Hanging around with Flip was a reprieve, because at your house, all the responsibilities didn’t fall on my shoulders. ”
I shake my head. “I drove Flip nuts. He hated it when I had to tag along.”
“But it wasn’t your fault you were a kid with parents who worked long hours, just like it wasn’t my brothers’ fault our mom bailed.”
“You had to take on a lot of responsibility, didn’t you?”
He shrugs. “I didn’t want them to think they weren’t important.”
I wonder if that’s how he felt when his mom left. Unimportant. Maybe even unloved. He had no mom to hug him, give him affection. His only female role model abandoned him. I open the package of Fuzzy Peaches and offer some to Tristan.
He shakes his head. “They’re for you.”
“I’m not going to eat all of this on my own.” I pop a pink one in my mouth.
“I can’t stand those; they make my mouth peel so they’re all yours.” He stretches his arm across the back of the couch, fingers sliding under my hair. “Tell me more about the candy birthday.”
“I asked my parents for money for my birthday that year, instead of a gift. I bought candy and all the ingredients to make cupcakes and buttercream icing.” With real butter.
Not lard or margarine, which were cheaper.
“I was so excited. Essie was coming over, and Flip said he’d watch a movie with me. I said you could come, too.”
The smile slides off his face. “We didn’t stay for the movie.”
“It was stupid anyway. No seventeen-year-old wants to hang out and watch action movies with his younger sister.” I’d gone to change. Essie was coming over after her dance lessons to sleep over.
“Fuck, Bea. I was such a dick to you that night.” He rubs his bottom lip.
I can’t believe he remembers this at all. “I was being a pest.”
He shakes his head. “You were being a normal girl who wanted to celebrate her birthday.” He runs his hands through his hair.
“Fuck. Fuck .” His expression makes my heart clench.
“I thought your parents had done all this stuff for your birthday, decorated and made it all fun and special, and I was so pissed off that my mom couldn’t even be bothered to send me a fucking card, let alone remember to call. I was so mean to you. I’m sorry.”