Chapter 11
She Likes My Fish More Than Me
Crew
It will always be a part of you, no matter what you do.
For the rest of the evening, Carly and I are at the beach, and that sentence runs laps in my mind. She literally voiced my biggest fear, and I didn’t even ask for it.
I left that life behind me, and the thought of even a trace of my past being stuck to me like a leech to my skin brings unsettling chills down my body.
That was something I always knew from the start, but I didn’t want to face it. However, I can’t always choose when it happens.
And that still stuck with me, even when she pulls up to the front of my apartment complex, and I find these next six words to leave my mouth.
“Do you want to come inside?” I blurt out. Now, where the fuck did that thought come from?
And why did it leave my brain? It’s like the security guards of my brain aren’t doing their job effectively and need to be replaced as soon as possible.
“Are you sure?” She questions.
I shrug. “I wouldn’t have invited you if I wasn’t sure, right?” I guess I wasn’t as unsure as I believed to be
“Well, I guess so,” she agrees. “Where do I park?”
After guiding her to the guest parking lot, she follows me through the gates and onto the trail that leads towards the other end of the complex, where mine and Vinny’s apartment is located. We start our journey up the first flight of stairs.
“This is a nice complex,” she admires. “How did you manage to live here of all places? It must be expensive.”
“Vinny and I had been saving up.” He had a job from the beginning, and I saved up every penny of my residuals since I turned eighteen, only dipping into it for school. With the paid internship I got through the aquarium’s hands-on research program, we were able to afford it.
Plus, before my relationship with my father tilted on its axis, he was the one who suggested the area I live in. Busy but still quiet, which is a rarity outside of downtown LA.
“No siblings wreaking havoc?”
I shake my head. “Vinny and I don’t have any of those.”
“Wow,” she mutters. “It must be lonely sometimes.”
She’s not wrong. During my program in Australia, I shared an apartment with one other guy and two girls, and it was chaotic. Coming back from that was an adjustment.
“Ali’s an only child as well,” Carly continues. “She doesn’t mind because Carson makes her thankful to be an only child.”
“Carson?”
“Sorry, I feel like I’ve brought him up before.”
Uh, she certainly has not. I shake my head. “You don’t need to apologize.”
A wry smile graces her features. “Force of habit. Carson’s my twin brother at USC.”
My brows fly off my forehead at the mention of our rival school. “Carly Ryder, fraternizing with the enemy?”
She sighs as she takes her final step. “Yeah, the humor is not lost on either of us.”
We reach my floor and walk across the hallway.
Once we reach my door, I unlock it and step inside, taking my shoes off immediately.
I almost expect Carly to head straight for the couch after removing her shoes, but she doesn’t.
Instead, she moves straight to my fish tank before I can utter the words, “welcome.”
She doesn’t utter another word for about five minutes as she watches my pet betta fish swim around in his little tank, around the small treasure chest Vinny added while I was away. It opens and closes.
“Hi there, little guy,” she coos.
For someone who’s terrified of the ocean, she sure gets pleasure out of the little things about it—literally—but her wonder and excitement for it make her an even better person.
To be in your twenties and still hold this curiosity and excitement about what life holds is a rarity.
One that I lost before I even turned twenty.
“What’s his name?” She asks excitedly, her face not moving away from the orange betta fish.
“Vinny and I call him Nemo.” As a gift to ourselves when Vinny and I first moved into this apartment, I went straight to the pet store and bought a tank that would hold a betta fish. We spent a good two weeks learning how to properly take care of him.
I won’t say this out loud but it was so fucking worth it because Nemo is the best part about this place. He actually brings life into it.
She scrunches her nose. “Really? Like the movie? But he’s not a clownfish.”
“He’s orange.”
“You know what’s also orange? A mango.” Her face lights up. “I’m gonna call him Mango. Hi, Mango. My name’s Carly, and I think we’ll be best friends.”
Wow, I don’t think I’ve seen her excited over just about anything else. Then again, I’ve only known her for a couple of months. Now, I’m starting to think she likes my fish more than me.
Also, why am I getting jealous over a fish? Mango—I mean, Nemo—can’t speak a damn word, yet he’s entranced the first guest I’ve brought into this place.
“You know he can’t hear you,” I point out stupidly.
I don’t even need to get a second glance at her playful eye roll. “Okay, smart ass. I know that. But let me be delusional for a minute, okay?”
She continues to watch Nemo in his tank, and once he enters the little cave, her eyes move away from the tank, and her entire body shifts to face me. “How long have you had Mango?”
“Nemo,” I mutter to myself. “About a year and a half. Same amount of time we’ve been living here.”
“That answers my next question.” She chuckles.
“Do you always ask a lot of questions?”
Carly’s smirk is almost as identical as her smile, with a hint of mischief, as if she’s about to commit something heinous. “You know, Movie Star, if I didn’t know better, I’d assume you were getting nervous around me.”
I scoff. Nervous? Ha, please. I’m showing my apartment to a really pretty girl who happens to have a stronger fascination with my fish than me. Nervous is not the word I would use to describe how I’m feeling.
Nope. It’s just totally normal for me to feel my toes curl in my sneakers and my hands to be slightly sweaty because it’s a little too damn warm in here.
She stands by the aquarium, watching my betta fish swim around in his tank, past the tiny treasure chest Vinny planted in the small pebbles before moving away to observe the rest of the living room.
The whole time, my eyes don’t leave her. I actually don’t think any of my brain cells are working right now. She’s the first girl I’ve ever invited to my apartment, too, so I’m a little…lost? Confused?
In retrospect, I don’t talk to a lot of girls, so the latter seems more appropriate.
Carly stifles a yawn. “What time is it?” She checks her phone before widening her eyes. “Oh, shit. I have to get going.”
Grabbing her bag from the countertop, she quickly slips her feet into her sneakers. She had changed into them when we left the beach. I check my watch and frown.
I already feel like a bad host for not offering her water.
“It’s not late,” I point out.
“Yeah,” she agrees. “But I have to wake up at four in the morning.”
“Four?”
“The troubles of being a film student.” She tsks. “I put this upon myself. Don’t worry, dude, I’ll see myself out.”
“No, I’ll walk you out.” Because that’s totally normal. From the apartment door, down to the elevator, and even to her car.
We stop at her car, and she turns to me and smiles. “Thanks, by the way.”
I tilt my head at her. “For what? I should be thanking you.” For knowing what I needed at the moment.
“I know, but I wanted to thank you for trusting me.” Her cheeks develop a rosy shade of pink, noticeable by the dimly lit streets. “It probably doesn’t seem like much to you, but it means a lot to me. Even though you were just there.”
And as she unlocks her car, I make the stark—and somewhat rash, regarding my history of decision-making—decision of responding with, “Well, what are friends for?”
Those blue eyes widen slightly in surprise. “Friends? I didn’t think we were.”
“You saw me on the verge of a panic attack and aided me out of it,” I joke, holding my hand out to her. “If that doesn’t make us friends now, then I don’t know what does.”
She glances down at my hand and holds out her left hand, where I have a clear sight of her tattoo.
An anchor, loosely wrapped in film strips.
I have to remind myself that even with everything that happened today, she’s still a director.
Still a reminder of the industry I’ve spent years walking away from, scrubbing myself clean from.
But as I switch hands and grasp hers, I can’t help but feel the same warm tingle shoot up my arms and to my spine, and any resistance my brain has built up towards Carly Ryder begins to disappear. Who knew that a handshake could be so intimate, especially between two friends?
Which is what Carly and I are. Apparently.
“Yeah,” she agrees, a small sigh leaving her lips. “Friends.”
Maybe I’m just starting to figure out how I truly feel about her.