20. 20 Parker
20
20 PARKER
IRONIC
I have to go .
I squeezed my eyes shut and pulled my pillow over my head. Light crept into my bedroom window, signaling a new day, but I was not ready to face it. In fact, I was still firmly planted in yesterday.
Or, rather, early this morning.
I have to go .
Gigi’s words echoed long after she got into her car and sped off. I’d stood there in the parking lot for a few minutes after she’d gone, whiplashed. I could still feel the burn of her hands on my waist, still taste her kiss. But…she was gone.
Why was she gone?
It was a question I still didn’t have an answer to in the new light of day.
In the moment, we seemed to be on the same wavelength. Both lost to the same crash of desire. But something happened, at least in Gigi’s mind, that caused her to pull away. I wished I knew what.
Kicking my blankets away from my feet, I sat up. Across the room, Wilbur basked in a buttery ray of sunshine, oblivious to his mother’s turmoil. I watched him for a moment, envious of his little life. No angst, no drama. No earth-shattering kisses followed by sleepless nights.
“Knock, knock.”
I tore my gaze from Wilbur to find a sleep-tousled Simon peeking into my open bedroom door. Waving him in, I scooted over and made room for him on my bed. He plopped down beside me, propping my pillows up beneath his head. “How are you this lovely morning?” he asked through a yawn.
“Wanna be a cat.” I yanked a pillow from beneath his head and laid down beside him. “Tired of being a human.”
“That is valid as fuck.” Rolling over, he faced me. In the morning light, his eyes leaned more green than gray. “No job, no bills.”
“Just head skritches and sunshine naps.” I turned my face into my pillow. “The perfect life.”
Simon reached over and skritched my head. “One out of two ain’t bad, right?”
Despite myself, I laughed. Rolling onto my side, I faced him. He’d been asleep when I got home last night. Dead to the world. I knew this because I’d peeked into his bedroom when I got home, desperate to talk about what’d happened, what I’d done. But now that he was here, a captive audience, I…kinda wanted to keep it to myself?
“So, you ready for your big date tonight?”
The question sank in my stomach like a stone in a well. A weird response to something I'd been wanting for so long. I forced a smile onto my face, however, as I answered. “Yeah. Very much.” Turning my face back into my pillow, I added, “ So excited.”
Beside me, Simon froze. I winced. Not convincing enough, apparently. Interrogation was nigh. I had seconds to whip up an excuse for my lack of enthusiasm. I had seconds to figure out why I had no enthusiasm.
Who the heck was I kidding? I knew why. And that reason had dark eyes that burned like coals in a fire and the softest lips I’d ever—
“All right. Spill.”
I sat up and shoved my hair away from my face. “Spill what?” I was going for innocent, but I sounded fake even to my own ears. Still, I stayed the course. “What’re you talking about?”
“Oh, come on.” Simon sat up, too. “What’s with the fakery? You’ve been dreaming about this night for, quite literally, hundreds of days.” He looked me over, hazel eyes assessing. “Tell me.”
My cheeks burned. Looking away, I fidgeted with the blanket. “I, um,” I began, thoughts swirling like tornados in my brain. “Maybe, kind of, possibly, sort of—”
“Are you going to recite the entire thesaurus, or are you going to explain yourself?”
“Fine.” I huffed out a breath and faced him, chin up, shoulders back. “I’m into someone else.”
The silence that followed my confession was louder than the coffee shop during a Monday morning rush. For a moment, I thought Simon wasn’t going to speak. The man was stunned speechless. A very first in our friendship. Had…had I broken him?
“Sim,” I started, but that was enough to snap him out of his trance.
“Are you yanking my wang?” he demanded. “Are you tugging my tes—”
“I’m not doing anything to your genitalia,” I cut in, face flaming. I wasn’t sure if the heat in my face was from Simon’s vulgarity or my confession. A confession I’d never said aloud, that I’d never fully thought about until the words were out of my mouth.
I’m into someone else .
When had it happened? When had Gigi snuck into my psyche and settled in? And why did it feel like she belonged there?
“Ahem.”
I blinked away my shock and refocused to find Simon staring at me. Scrutinizing me. I shifted under his gaze. “What?”
“When, pray tell, were you going to tell me you were lusting over that cute little bartender?”
“How did you—”
“Please.” He waved me off with a dismissive hand. “Who else could it be? Besides,” he turned to pet Wilbur, who’d jumped on the bed to investigate the goings-on of his people. “It’s been a long time coming.”
“What do you mean?” I asked over the loud buzzing in my brain. “What are you talking about?”
Simon glanced up. “Sparks,” he said simply, going back to stroking Wilbur’s chin.
“ Sparks ? What do you mean, sparks? There are no sparks between us.” Even as I said it, my lips burned with the memory of her kiss. Without thinking, I put my fingertips against them.
My best friend’s eyes followed the movement, one perfect brow lifting. “Is there something else you want to tell me, Parker dear?”
“Argh,” I groaned, “what are you, a psychic?”
He laughed and dodged the pillow I swung at his head. Wilbur, over our shenanigans, leapt off the bed. “It’s written all over your face, love,” he said once he recovered. “You wear everything on your face.”
I growled. He grinned. Yanking my pillow back, I squeezed it tight to my chest. Then, with my eyes glued to the peonies on my comforter, I spoke. “I kissed her.”
Simon’s eyes widened. He struggled into a sitting position and shoved my shoulder. “Shut up . You did not .”
My face flamed. Squeezing my eyes shut, I nodded. “I did. Then she…ran away.”
“She—” Simon shifted, the bed rumbling beneath us. “She what?”
I opened my eyes to find him kneeling before me, his face a mask of shock and scandal. Unable to bear the look on his face, I dove back into the bed, face buried in my pillow. “She ran away,” I repeated, my words muffled. “I kissed her and then she ran away.”
Simon didn’t speak, not at first. After a long, quiet pause, a gentle hand landed on my shoulder, urging me to roll over. I did, but I kept my eyes closed. I could only imagine what I looked like in that moment, eyes squeezed comically tight, face pinched like I was bracing for a punch.
“Run that by me,” he said finally, voice soft, “one more time.”
With a sigh that could’ve pushed a sailboat across the Pacific, I sat up. Then I talked.
“So, she actually ran away.”
I nodded, both vindicated and embarrassed by the indignation in Simon’s tone. “She did.”
“What the fuck?” He stood from my bed and planted his fists on his waist. “I find it hard to believe you’re that bad a kisser.”
“Well, thanks,” I said dryly. “That thought hadn’t even occurred to me, but now it’s all I’m going to think about.”
“Oh, stop it.” Irritation radiated from him, and I knew it wasn’t meant for me. “It makes no sense. Why would she do that?”
“Well, obviously,” I started, sliding to the edge of the bed. “She’s not into me.”
“No.” Simon shook his head, tone final. “That’s not it.”
“How not?” I stood, the cool of the wood floor grounding me. “Why else would someone run away after being kissed?”
“My dear, there is a plethora of reasons. None of which have anything to do with that woman’s attraction to you.” He spun me to face him. “You may not have noticed the way she looks at you—and that’s an entirely different issue we’ll address at a later date—but I have. Trust me. She’s into you.”
“Well, then why—”
“I don’t know.” Marching across my bedroom, he flung my closet door open. “But we’re gonna make her rue the day she ran.”
“You wanna clue me in?” I asked as he flipped through my closet, hmm- ing and ooh- ing.
He glanced over his shoulder, a brilliant smile on his face. “You, my dear, are going to go out with Halle tonight, and you’re going to have an amazing time.” He pulled a green paisley dress from the closet, held it up for inspection, then put it back. “You’re not going to think of that cowardly kisser one time. Now.” Turning around, he held up another dress. My favorite dress. “Put this on.”
“Okay,” I said slowly, taking the dress from him. “But it’s only eleven a.m. My date isn’t for another eight hours.”
“Oh.” Simon nodded. “Right. Of course.” Hanging the dress on the outside of my closet door, he faced me again. “Plan still stands. But in the meantime.” He looped his arm through mine and led me from my bedroom. “How about some breakfast?”
Later that night, I stood in my bedroom, staring at my reflection in the mirror on the back of the door. I was meeting Halle at Casa de Queso in about forty minutes.
I’d gone back and forth earlier, like an emotional ping pong ball. Go on the date or Cancel . Back and forth, back and forth. Simon had watched me fling myself from option to option, until finally he couldn’t take it anymore.
“You’re going,” he had said. “Are you going to let one little kiss from someone who couldn’t even stick around to talk about it like an adult get in the way of the date you’ve been dreaming about for months?”
He was right, I’d decided. This thing with Gigi? If it was supposed to be more, I’d know it. If it was supposed to be more, she would have stayed. It was a blip. A glitch.
I couldn’t miss out on the potential of something with Halle over a glitch.
So here I was, forty minutes before our date, shoving every second thought and anxiety as far down as they would go as I pulled on the dress Simon had chosen.
I brushed my hands over the cute black number with a subtle white print that, upon closer inspection, revealed itself to be cats. Lots of cats. I looked cute. Pretty, even. But I also looked terrified.
Blowing out a lungful of pent-up oxygen, I turned away from my reflection. This was good, I told myself as I crossed the room. This was what I wanted.
But the excitement I thought I’d feel right before my first date with Halle was nowhere to be found. Instead, all I could think about was the woman who’d helped me get here.
“I should cancel,” I mused aloud, earning a slow-blink stare from Wilbur as he sat on my bed. “I should—”
My words were cut off by the jangle of my phone from somewhere on the bed. Rifling through the blankets and pillows, I located it and slid it unlocked to find a message from Gigi.
Have a good time tonight, the text read. And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.
Another came in as I finished reading: Or, I guess, anything I WOULD do.
I stared at the winky-face emoji at the end of her message, a million thoughts swirling through my mind, circling around one single realization:
She didn’t feel anything for me.
Simon was wrong when he said she was into me. If that were true, why would she still want me to go out with Halle, after last night? Why else would she run—literally run —away after I kissed her?
Why had she kissed me back?
Tossing my phone back onto my bed, I searched for my shoes. I didn’t have time to analyze the why’s of Gigi. I had a date with someone who actually wanted to spend time with me.
Who knew? Maybe this date would be everything I’d ever hoped for and I wouldn’t even remember the taste of Gigi’s kiss by the end of the night.
My heart lurched and my steps faltered as I headed for the door.
Or…maybe not.