13. Gigi
13
GIGI
FOOLISH GAMES
My reflection glared out at me from the standing mirror in my bedroom, hands on hips, head cocked to the side. Disgust on her face.
Utter disgust.
This was the third outfit I’d tried on tonight. Three outfits, and I’d hated every one. Why? Couldn’t tell you. All I knew was, I had to leave for Parker’s in thirty minutes, and at this rate, I’d be showing up naked.
I turned away from the mirror, teeth clenched against the heat coiling through my stomach. “Fuck,” I growled, tearing my latest shirt off.
As if my uttering summoned him, Luke knocked on my bedroom door. I stomped across the floor and flung it open, glaring in my jeans and bra. “What do you want?”
“Whoa,” he said, hands up. He didn’t even flinch at my shirtless state. “Just heard you stomping around and thought I’d check in.” His eyes scanned the room behind me and he lifted a dark brow. “Fashion crisis?”
“Since when do I have fashion crises ?” I voiced aloud the exact question that had been bouncing around in my brain for the last forty minutes. I lived in jeans and t-shirts. Of course I’d wear jeans and a t-shirt tonight. So, why was I having such a hard time deciding which jeans-and-t-shirt combo to go with?
Luke didn’t reply as he picked his way across my clothes-strewn floor and sat on my bed. “What’s on the agenda tonight?” He looked around my room. “Hot date?”
“No.” The denial came fast and vehement. I knew it was a misstep the moment it was out of my mouth. Luke’s eyes sharpened on my face. I folded my arms across my chest and stared back. “What?”
“Nothing.” He gave another pointed look around my room. “Just curious, is all.”
“Well, you know what they say about curiosity.” I caught sight of one of my favorite shirts tucked beneath Luke’s ass. Grabbing it, I yanked. Once freed, I shook it out and studied it. Plain black V-neck that was worn soft and nearly sheer. Pulling it on, I turned to look in the mirror. The vee was just low enough to hint at cleavage, the material just see-through enough to hint at the lace of my black bra.
I felt good in this. Confident. Sexy.
“Nope.” I pulled it off and tossed it back onto the bed. I did not need to feel sexy tonight.
Rifling through the pile next to Luke, I unearthed a gray crewneck tee and held it up for inspection. A decade-old concert t-shirt from the first time I saw Matt Nathanson live.
Then proceeded to make out fervently with the chick I’d met in the pit.
Throwing it aside, I kept digging.
“Okay. What the hell is going on?”
“What do you mean?” I didn’t have to look up to know Luke was watching me. “I’m getting dressed.”
“For what?”
I exhaled and plopped down on the bed beside him. “I’m going to Parker’s for our next flirt lesson.”
“Ahh.”
Before I met Luke, I didn’t know that one single syllable could be filled with so much. Self-righteousness, know-it-all-ness, amusement.
“Fuck off.” I stood again and reached for a mustard yellow Taco Fest t-shirt from college. Then, I reconsidered and dropped it. Fuck whoever made taco into a euphemism.
“So, what I’m gathering,” Luke said, pulling a navy shirt from the pile and holding it up for inspection. “Is that you’re going for a frumpy, sexless vibe.”
I snatched the shirt from him and pulled it on. Oversized and boxy. But also the same shirt I wore to bed. Pantsless. I yanked it off. “Why would I want that?”
“Do you really want me to answer that?”
Instead of replying, I threw the shirt at his face. He laughed and threw it back in the pile.
“She’s gorgeous, no?”
I paused, my hand halfway to the next shirt. My mouth started to form the question, but Luke cut me off. “Don’t play dumb. You know who.” He grabbed for another shirt and handed it to me. “My question is, why do you feel like you need to look like a potato sack?”
“That’s not—”
“That is.” His blue gaze lasered in on my face. “Why?”
My arms dropped to my sides. In my mind, yesterday played again. That moment. The moment I was mere centimeters, mere milliseconds away from leaning in, from kissing those full, luscious lips, from crossing a line, invisible like the electric fences people had for their dogs. The moment the dog crossed the barrier, it got zapped.
I’d been zapped before.
I pulled the shirt over my head and glanced down. A cartoon dog’s pitiful eyes looked back at me. A choked laugh escaped me.
“Where should I start?” I faced Luke. “There’s the fact that she’s into someone else. Or that she’s my brother’s girlfriend’s little sister. And if neither of those things were true, there’s the part where I have no business getting involved with someone so…” I trailed off, a sudden surge of something I couldn’t name tightening my chest.
“It’s a bad idea,” I finished quietly, not meeting his eye.
“So cancel tonight.”
My head shot up. “What?”
“Cancel.” His expression dared me to argue. “There’s not one part of you that wants to do this. Or, rather, there are too many parts of you that want to, and you’re fighting them. So.” He lifted a shoulder. “Cancel.”
In my mind, I envisioned me texting Parker, telling her I couldn’t make it. Telling her I couldn’t keep doing this. Seeing her. Talking to her. Not having her, in any compacity of the word. And, in my mind, Parker’s face fell, blue eyes filling with disappointment. Her voice, soft with hurt, but trying to fake it, saying she understood.
I couldn’t do it.
Not yet.
I’d let her down someday. Just like everyone else in my life.
But not yet.
Luke watched my face as I came to this decision, then nodded. “All right, then.” He stood and assessed me, top to bottom. “The puppy shirt works. Now, get out of here, before you’re late.”
In the silence of my bedroom after Luke’s departure, I faced my reflection one last time. The woman who stared back at me no longer looked frustrated and frazzled.
She looked sad.
Squaring my shoulders, I met my reflection’s eyes. It’s gonna be okay, I wanted to tell her. You’re doing a good thing.
I didn’t even have to voice the words to know she didn’t believe it.
If I had knocked on Parker’s apartment door when I first arrived, I would have been on time. Right on time. Down to the second. Instead, however, I spent two minutes pacing across the welcome mat, then another three or so scrolling idly through my phone. Now, I simply stood there. Staring at the brass numbers on the door until they blurred.
“This is ridiculous,” I muttered, shoving my phone into my pocket. Exhaling one quick breath, I stepped forward and knocked on the door.
“Why, hello there.” Simon held the door open wide. “Come on in. Parker’s in the kitchen.”
I hesitated for only a moment before I stepped inside. My brain released a sigh of relief as it registered that Simon’s presence here meant that I would not be alone with Parker. Not being alone with Parker was good. Great, even.
“I cannot tell you,” Simon said as he led me through the living room, “how thrilled I am that you’re doing this. Our girl needs all the help she can get.” Flashing me a brilliant smile, he pushed open the door that led to the kitchen.
Returning his smile with a weak one of my own, I stepped through the doorway. The kitchen was bright, cheery. Even in the middle of the night. And it only brightened more when Parker turned around.
Her hair was piled on top of her head in a messy bun, and her face was free of makeup. She wore glasses, tortoiseshell and cat-eyed, a pair of sweats, and a t-shirt that had a squirrel and moose on it .
She’s gorgeous, no?
Fuck, I thought, the pit in my stomach widening. I should have canceled.
“Hey.” She grinned, crossing the kitchen to join us. “There you are. Come on, sit. I made cookies.” She put a platter on the island and waved at the stools. “I wasn’t sure if you were a chocolate chip girl, or a peanut butter girl. Or maybe a rebel oatmeal raisin fan.” She gestured to the platter. “So I made some of each.”
“You made three different kinds of cookies?” I stepped forward and got a better look. “How—”
She waved me off. “Baking relaxes me.” She whirled to the fridge and opened it. “Milk?”
“Sure?” I sat down on the nearest stool, gob smacked.
“She does this,” Simon murmured. I jumped, forgetting he was there. “Baking is her love language.”
Parker grinned over her shoulder. “And you love it.”
“Not a complaint to be had,” he agreed. He reached for a chocolate chip cookie and backed away. “You two behave yourselves,” he said with a wink before leaving the kitchen, the door swinging shut behind him.
“Anyway.” Parker took the seat next to me and reached for a peanut butter cookie. “How are you?”
“I’m…good,” I said, urging my brain to catch up. “I’m good. You?”
“Oh, you know.” She held up the cookie and gave a sort of chagrined look. “Working out my anxiety the best way I know how.”
“What are you anxious about?”
A soft chuckle left her. “What am I not anxious about?” She broke her cookie in half and set it on the saucer before her. “This,” she said, gesturing between us, “for starters.”
My stomach lurched. For a moment—for a dizzying, delusional moment—I thought she meant us .
But then she kept talking.
“I’ve always been an excellent student.” She kept her eyes on her plate as she spoke. “Straight A’s all through school. Not a single B. Once, my French teacher gave me an A minus on a quiz, and I begged her for extra credit to make it up.” She shrugged, self-deprecation in the wrinkle of her nose. “I don’t want to fail at…” Trailing off, she glanced up as if searching the air for her next words. “Flirt class?” Shaking her head, she looked at me. “Isn’t that silly?”
Beneath the counter, I wrung my hands together and squeezed. Hard. I would not be reaching out to smooth away her worry. I would not be touching her at all. “No,” I said, my voice barely audible over my pounding pulse, “not silly at all.”
At this, she smiled. “Thanks.” Brushing the crumbs from her fingers, she angled her body my way. “So. What’s on the syllabus tonight, professor?”
My slow and agonizing death, I thought, steeling my spine against the fissures that raced through me as our knees brushed.
“Lesson Two,” I said, both regretting and thanking every decision I’d made that led me to this moment. “Body language.”