Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Winnie
Sometimes, I really really hate my best friends. Especially when I told them not to come over but they do anyway and then try to get me to talk about my FEELINGS.
Feelings? What feelings?
I don’t have feelings.
YOU have feelings. And you can keep them. Because I don’t want them. I have a zero-feeling carbon footprint. Doing my part to help the environment!
“Remember,” Lindy says, patting my thigh, “just a few months back, you were telling me to go for it with Pat. And look how that turned out?”
“I remember. It filled your practical head with romantic nonsense, which you’re now spewing at me.”
I shove Lindy’s hand away with a grumble that reminds me way too much of James and his constant rumbly, grumbly, growly sounds.
Not that I miss them as the soundtrack to my life.
The stubborn man can keep his stupid grump noises.
I need to find my own noises. But right now, all mine would be wimpy ones like sighs and whimpers and sniffles.
“You’re supposed to be on my side,” I whine.
“We are on your side,” Val pipes up from my other side, bumping her shoulder into mine. “Every couple has fights. You’ll get through this.”
They’ve made me the meat and cheese in a very squished sandwich, both practically sitting in my lap on Chevy’s couch. It’s like they suspect I’ll run if they don’t bodily keep me here.
They know me too well. Though, honestly, none of us are going anywhere because we’re drinking. Lindy and I are sipping jalapeno margaritas I made, while Val has a strawberry wine cooler that looks like blood.
“We aren’t a couple. We never were.” I’ve made this argument already. Several times, in fact. It doesn’t stick now any better than it did when I first said it. Even if it’s the truth.
“It was an unspoken coupling,” Lindy says.
I roll my eyes. “That’s worse than an unconscious coupling.”
Val frowns. “How does one become a couple while unconscious?”
“Go google Gwyneth Paltrow and her conscious uncoupling. Later ,” Lindy adds when Val pulls out her phone. “But seriously. Just because you and James didn’t have an official conversation, a DTR, if you will—”
“I won’t.”
“That doesn’t mean you weren’t a couple. You kissed .”
“Quiet! Chevy is probably listening with his ear pressed to the bedroom door. He doesn’t need to hear details about me kissing.” I don’t want Chevy going all big brother again and trying to take on James. “Plus, people kiss all the time who aren’t in relationships.”
“Not you,” Lindy points out.
“Not me. But some people.”
“You kissed a lot ,” Val adds in a loud whisper, waggling her dark brows at me. “Didn’t you say you kissed him in every square foot of the warehouse? That’s a lot of square feet.”
“Not helping.”
I don’t want to think about kissing James while pressed up against the storage room door. Or behind that stack of pallets. Or while perched on top of the pallets. Or while—NO. Must stop thinking of kissing. I want to think about despising .
Even though, in truth, I don’t despise James. Even now.
I can still see the pain on his face as he lashed out at me.
I didn’t deserve it. But I also made an error in judgment trying to show him my presentation when I did.
I know that. I think I knew it then too.
James is working through something else, something bigger, something that probably has little to do with me.
I just happened to be the one who buzzed around him like an annoying fly until he slapped me away. I get it.
Does that mean I want to forgive him and keep going as we were?
Nope. But I did already do something to help him because, as Chevy often tells me, I just don’t know when to quit. Kyoko texted me late last night, groaning about her bosses being impossible. I told her to come interview for a job. My job.
Is James hiring? No.
Does Kyoko want to take my job? No.
But were either of those reasons enough to stop me from convincing Kyoko she needs to drive here and interview for a job? No, they were not.
James and Kyoko can both thank me later.
Or, in James’s case, he can NOT thank me, because I’m not planning on talking to him again.
I’m just going to ignore the whiny voice saying I miss him already, and I’m a hundred times more heartbroken over this than I was when things ended with stupid Dale.
I mean, not that there was any heartbreak involved in that relationship.
But thinking about Dale has me thinking about what he did, which has me thinking about my dad, which makes me remember the truth of the matter.
“I don’t want a relationship anyway. Men can’t be trusted.”
“Not this again,” Val groans. “Why do you keep coming back to this?”
I haven’t told my two best friends the reason I can’t trust men. Not about seeing Dale in Austin. Not about my dad. Which is very un-best-friend-like of me, and they will absolutely give me grief about keeping this from them. “It’s a long story.”
“We’ve got nothing but time, chica.”
Lindy looks at her phone. “Or, we have an hour. Then I need to pick up Jo.”
There’s a knock at the door, and when I try to get up, Val holds me in place. “I’ll get it,” Lindy says, giving me a pointed look. “You’re too much of a flight risk.”
“Hiya,” Kyoko says when Lindy opens the door.
“Oh, good. Reinforcements,” Lindy says.
“I’d get up to hug you, but I’m being held hostage,” I tell her.
Lindy ushers Kyoko inside. I make quick introductions, and Val pours Kyoko a jalapeno margarita.
“Can you talk sense into her?” Val asks.
“Doubtful,” Kyoko says, plopping into the chair across from the couch. She grins when Lindy practically sits down on top of me again. “But I’ll do my best.”
“How was the job interview?” I ask.
“I officially got the job. But I won’t say it wasn’t without some enthusiastic family involvement. Also, I think it was … your husband—Pat?” She looks questioningly at Lindy, who nods. “Yeah, he was in a dumpster for some reason. No one explained why.”
I can imagine several reasons, and all of them involve Pat running his mouth to James. I’m happy to hear about the family involvement though. Maybe it means they’re jumping on board to help James with his crisis of overwhelm. Good.
“A dumpster, huh?” Lindy makes a face. “I love Pat, but he probably deserved it. Hopefully, he showers before I get home. Anyway, Winnie was just about to tell us why she doesn’t trust any men.”
“Was I?”
“Yes,” Lindy and Val say at the same time.
“I don’t remember ever agreeing to that.”
Kyoko takes a sip of her drink and hums appreciatively. “Now. You’ve fixed my life. You’ve tried to help James fix his. Your turn!”
“I don’t need fixing.” When they all laugh at this, I glare. “I’m fine.”
“You’ve had two breakups this month,” Lindy says.
“You’ve been fired twice,” Kyoko adds.
“You’re living on your brother’s sofa,” Val says.
“You could sell your app at any time but for some reason, refuse to do so. You keep helping everyone else with their lives, while ignoring your own.”
I stare down into my drink. “If your goal was to bring me down, it’s working. My life is a lot sadder than I realized. I guess I’m not fine?”
Val pats my knee. “No, you’re not fine. But you will be.”
I really, really hope she’s right.
“What kind of sad sack convention do we have here?” Chevy emerges from his room, glancing at the limes, tequila, and scattered glasses on the table. I swear his eye starts to twitch.
And, of course, seeing my brother makes Val spill her drink all over her shirt. It looks like she’s bleeding from a gunshot wound to the chest.
Chevy winces as he looks down her shirt, then, as though realizing he’s staring at Val’s chest—honestly, it’s hard to miss—his gaze shoots straight to the ceiling as he rocks back on his heels. “Sorry. Is that my fault?”
“It’s fine,” Val says in an overly bright voice. She holds her shirt out from her body.
“You can borrow one of my shirts,” I tell her.
“Or one of mine,” Chevy says. “Here.”
And while we all watch, my brother strips off his T-shirt and holds it out to Val.
She stares at him for a long moment, her gaze traveling over his bare chest. My brother is built like some kind of oversized-teddy-bear-linebacker hybrid.
He’s big and sturdy, not ripped or cut like the Grahams, and has a pretty impressive coating of chest hair. If you’re into chest pelts.
Apparently, Val is very, very into them. Stocky and hairy must be exactly her fantasy, because her eyes have gone all glazed. She’s holding Chevy’s shirt but making no move to put it on.
Still looking at the ceiling, Chevy says, “If you, uh, want to change, I can get that stain out for you.”
“It’s one of his better qualities,” I say. “His ability to remove the toughest stains from a variety of fabrics.” When Val still doesn’t move, I nudge her. “Maybe go change in the bathroom?”
“Change! Yes. I’ll do that.” With a last look at Chevy, Val hightails it to the bathroom, her cheeks flushed a deep red. I hate to tell him, but Chevy is never, ever getting that shirt back.
“I hope you didn’t forget,” Chevy says to me, and I obviously did forget, because I have no idea what he’s talking about. “Going to visit Mom and Dad?”
I groan. This is usually something we do on holidays. With all the Feastivus craziness, we didn’t get to the cemetery yesterday.
Which is just fine by me. Every one of these visits has been torture, knowing what I know. And knowing Chevy doesn’t know.
“Do we have to?”
“Yep. You can go like that if you want to,” he says, eyeing the pajamas I’ve been wearing for almost twenty-four hours now. “But … your smell might make someone mistake you for a corpse.” With a grin, my brother disappears into his room, presumably to grab a new shirt.
“Well, as fun as this has been, friends, I’ve got a sibling date with the cemetery.”
* * *
A sibling date at a cemetery the day after you’ve been fired and broken up with a man you’re pretty sure you’re in love with is just about as miserable as you’d imagine.