22. Chapter 22
Chapter twenty-two
G igi seemed fine after I kissed her. With Gigi, I’ve learned not to believe her when she tells me nothing’s wrong. You can’t believe any girl who says I’m fine or it’s nothing after you ask why they’re acting so fucking weird. Gigi Knox is no exception to the rule.
And because I felt like such an ass after the kiss, I’m going to resign myself to not pissing her off anymore. It’s fun to push her buttons, but even if Gigi says she’s fine, I don’t want to risk it.
I like hanging out with her.
I like her, period. It was a no-brainer for me to volunteer to do the shopping for EJ’s party—the minute she offered I knew I was going to take her place. That girl gives and gives and gives to everyone around her—between humoring me on my stupid attempts to spend time with her disguised as helping me learn how to date and helping Belinda at the diner, even though she’s not getting compensated properly, and now, being willing to grocery shop for my stupid ass brother so he wouldn’t inconvenience her friend.
She won’t even raise an issue.
That’s the kind of girl Gigi is.
I want to go on these stupid little things with her. It’s fun to watch her smile and roll her eyes at me and enjoy herself when she takes me on dates.
It’s cute that she thinks she’s taking me on these dates, really. I drive us every time, and I would be more than willing to pay for every cent, if Gigi wasn’t so Gigi, insisting on handling things herself.
She doesn’t need me. And that’s what I like about her.
“You’re sure you got this?” EJ asks for the tenth time, at least.
“Do you think I’ve never grocery shopped on my own before, dumbass?”
I walk into Roy’s Grocery, instantly overwhelmed by the bright lights and sea of… everything. Shit.
“Whatever. But if I get home tonight and we’re missing shit, I’m sending you back.”
“Fuck off,” I say before I hang up.
I heave a sigh as I wander over to the produce section. EJ’s list is straight, to the point:
Beer
Hamburger
Buns
Things to Put on Buns
Bottles of Beer
Hotdogs
Vegan Hotdogs for Rory (I think)
Fucking idiot. My brother has a single brain cell, and I’m convinced it had the night off when he curated this list.
I start, naturally, in the Things to Put on Buns section. EJ’s lack of description is immensely helpful here, so I pick what I know. After grabbing a mess of onions, lettuce, and tomatoes, I make my way to the meat section.
I’m trying to figure out what makes a hot dog vegan, and if that’s even a real thing, when I hear someone call my name. My head snaps up from my Google search, and then I see Gigi.
“What are you doing here?” she asks me.
“What are you doing here?”
She rolls those pretty blue eyes at me. “Ice cream.”
A divot forms between my eyebrows. “Sad ice cream or happy ice cream?”
“Little bit of both, I guess.” She shrugs. I want to pry, but I won’t. She won’t like it if I do.
She looks tired, her blonde locks piled in a bun on the top of her head. She’s got a big sweatshirt on and a pair of shorts that are so short it looks as though she’s not wearing anything alongside her sweatshirt at all.
God, this girl.
“What are you up to?” she wonders, peering into my cart. “Impromptu produce shopping?”
“I haven’t told you?” I say. “I’m actually fascinated by grocery shopping. Produce, specifically. It’s so… bright and happy.”
She rolls her eyes again. I have to fight scraping my teeth over my lip. “Screw off. Nothing about you screams bright and happy, you dark, tattooed…” She peers into my cart again, and realization lights up her face. “Cade. I told EJ I could do the shopping.”
I scratch the back of my neck. “I know you can, but it’s not your job to do dumb shit for my brother.”
“I don’t mind.”
“I know,” I say. “Still.”
Those eyes roll. I’m afraid one day she’ll do that to me and her eyeballs will fall from her skull. She’d still be pretty without eyes, though, I—
Cade. What the fuck, man?
“Well.” She chews on the inside of her cheek, considering this. “It doesn’t look like you’ve gotten too much. I’ll help.”
“Gigi. No,” I say. “You’re here for sad-slash-happy ice cream. Not EJ’s bullshit.”
“In fairness,” she says, placing a hand on the curve of her hip, “it’s not just EJ’s bullshit. We’re all benefiting from beer and food. Community bullshit.”
“Community bullshit,” I repeat.
“Come on,” Gigi says, pushing me aside so she can get to the front of the cart. “I’m helping.”
“Gigi.”
“Cade.”
I know I’m not winning. Not with her. “Fine,” I say. “I’m texting you the list.”
“Belinda’s with me,” she says as she begins to peruse the hot dogs. “I didn’t know Rory was vegan.”
“I don’t think EJ knows for sure, either,” I tell her. “What’s the occasion?”
“Belinda asked me what I do with my other family, so I told her my mom gets me ice cream, thinks ice cream is a cure-all. Now I’m here, because Belinda is trying to be Mother of the Year. We’re going home to watch The Bachelor .”
“Really?”
Gigi nods once. “I found vegan hotdogs. I didn’t know that was a thing.” She holds up a package.
“How can hot dogs go plant-based?” I ask.
“You’d be surprised,” Gigi says, walking along the meat fridge, looking at steaks. “Black bean burgers are pretty good.”
“Black bean burgers? Do I have to buy those, too?”
“You should,” Gigi says, turning to look at me with a coy expression, “for Rory.”
She’s got a point.
“You haven’t told me why you’re getting ice cream,” I remind her.
“Why are you doing the shopping when I offered to do it?”
“Now who’s asking questions so they can deflect, princess?” I challenge as we round the corner to the freezer section. Belinda is standing in front of a cooler of pints, her hand on her hip just like Gigi does.
“How do you decide?” she asks. “There’s so many.”
“I usually stick to anything chocolate in store-bought,” Gigi tells her. “I’m a bit more adventurous at a parlor.”
I love that she’s so passionate about ice cream, that the passion is part of her unwavering makeup, in the same way she’s insistent on the simplicity of black coffee. In the way she insists on loving people, even if they have nothing to give back.
“Try something with a sweet and salty combo,” I tell Belinda. She turns to look at me, and her gaze travels up, down, back up again. “That’s my go-to. Hits all the right spots.”
Gigi flushes, her lips thinning. “I think black bean burgers are in the next aisle over,” she says quickly. “Let me grab those. For Rory.” And then she’s walking with purpose to more vegetable-meats, like she’s got an unwavering passion for them, too.
“I’ll get this because you highly recommended it,” Belinda says. She reaches into the freezer, grabbing a pint of Everything But The. “Little bit of everything, huh?”
I stuff my hands into the pockets of my jeans. “You got it.”
“You know.” Her gaze flicks to me, her eyes turning into slivers. “Gigi likes you. And she’s done with whatever other guy she was seeing. Now’s your chance.”
Gigi’s done with artist guy? “No shit,” I say. Then, recovering. “Sorry. No way.”
“I’m getting black bean and chickpea,” Gigi says as she floats back over. “That way, she has options.”
“Smart.” Chickpea burger? What in the ever-loving fuck is a chickpea?
“Come on,” Gigi says, “there’s more to get.”
“I think I can grab variations of beer by myself,” I tell her. “You can go do your ice cream thing.”
She frowns. “You need my help, though.”
I don’t, really. But if she wants to spend time together, I’m not arguing. “There’s nothing left on that list. I think I can handle it.”
Her delicate hand finds its usual place on that hip. “This says things to put on buns ,” Gigi says. “Do you know what that means? Because I’m not one-hundred percent sure what the hell he means.”
She’s got a point. I have no idea what the fuck that means.
“Alright,” I say behind a sigh. “You got me. Come on.”
She smiles, satisfied. “I’ll meet you at home?” Gigi asks Belinda.
“Take as long as you need,” Belinda tells her. Before we roll our cart away, I catch her wink in my direction.
“I still don’t understand why you took this on yourself,” Gigi says as we meander through nearby aisles. “I told EJ I would do it. In fact, my plan was to get it done tomorrow after work. That way, if you guys needed help cleaning the apartment, we’d have plenty of time to—”
“That right there is why,” I tell her. “I knew you’d spread yourself thin if it meant helping.”
She pouts, the jut in her lip immediately causing a strain on my zipper. “Belinda says I should be thinner, so that works out well, really.”
I frown. “Can you tell me why you were getting ice cream, really? ”
“I told you,” she says. “Belinda is trying to be a mom, so we had a weird heart-to-heart thing, and I told her about my mom buying me ice cream.”
“What was the heart-to-heart for?” I ask. “Did you get anywhere?”
Gigi shakes her head, purses her lips for a moment, like she’s debating what to say. “I attempted to ask why she’s so… herself. And chickened out. Kinda. It seems like she heard me for once, though, and actually absorbed what I said. It’s like she had no idea telling her daughter men prefer motivated, thin women was a bad thing. We’ll see.”
“Wait. She said that?” My jaw flexes. I clench my hand into a fist at my side, unclench, clench again.
Gigi waves a hand at me, and there those eyes go again. “That’s nothing new, Cade. She was telling me, in fact, that you prefer a motivated, thin woman.”
My eyebrows find my hairline in an instant. “That’s not true,” I mumble. What the fuck is Belinda doing?
“So, all the girls you sleep with are unmotivated and objectively curvy?”
“Well.” I sigh, pinch the bridge of my nose. “No.” She frowns. “But for her to act like you aren’t a girl I’d gladly sleep with,” and admittedly do one million other things for if it meant she’d smile at me, “that I’d be attracted to, is… wow.”
“She probably thinks she’s your type,” Gigi says, flippantly. “Mind of a narcissist, Cade.”
I’ve never met anyone like Belinda Elliott.
Then again, I can’t say I’ve met anyone like her daughter, either.
On July third, I plan a date day with Gigi. It tugged on me, knowing she’s stressed about Belinda, worrying herself with EJ’s community bullshit, and whatever else she’s doing for anyone but herself.
So, I wake up early, and sit in the kitchen, drinking coffee, waiting for Rory to move, at least a little, so I can feel better about waking her up.
She leaps when I shake her, squealing and forcing her body far away, into the corner of the couch.
“Cade!” she exclaims. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“You’re off today,” I say, “right?”
She rubs sleep from her eyes, blinking slowly. “Huh?”
“The diner. You don’t work today?”
“I don’t,” Rory confirms. “Why are you waking me up before the sun?”
“Gigi works today. What do I have to do to get you to take her shift for me?”
Turns out, all I have to do is offer to do the laundry that Rory piled on EJ’s bedroom floor. And to do the dishes on a regular basis.
As Rory prepares to walk out the door, she says, “You do this for all the girls you want to be with, or is Gigi special?”
I wave her off. “Give me a break.”
“Gigi’s special. You’re not admitting it to yourself.”
My jaw clenches. “Don’t you have a shift to go to?”
Rory flips me off, then makes her way out of the apartment.