17. Seventeen
SEVENTEEN
Ifelt better once I made the decision. Fighting the attraction I had for Wylie wasn’t going to work. It was torture, and I had no inclination to torture myself. I was too weak anyway. I would have given in eventually. It was better to do it now.
If Wylie and I decided it wasn’t going to work, then we would figure it out sooner rather than later. If it was going to work, then our mothers would have to deal with it.
Just picturing my mother’s face when I told her I was dating Wylie Dixon made me cringe. She didn’t have a problem with Wylie — she’d always been Wylie’s biggest champion — but the reality of dating Aggie’s daughter was something else entirely.
If things did work out and we stayed together, it would put holiday celebrations on the table as something to fight about. Conventions, too. And what if we actually got married? How would they deal with one another? Since Mick and Aggie were married, that would make things even more difficult.
Eleanor Ambrose wasn’t going to take the idea of sitting around a holiday table with her ex-husband, who just so happened to be her mortal enemy’s current husband, well.
Only now, as I sorted through the ideas Wylie had given me for an outing, did I stop to consider what that would actually look like.
Would we have to split Christmas between our families every other year? What about if we had children? It was a mess. Actually, it was the stuff of nightmares. That didn’t stop me from reading up on some of the tours she’d mentioned.
I didn’t have a problem with the trolley tours.
They looked fun. They also looked crowded.
The hearse tours were something else entirely.
I could buy out all six spots on one of the hearse tours, and we could have it all to ourselves.
That sounded infinitely better as a starting point.
Plus, this way, we wouldn’t run the risk of anybody recognizing us.
It didn’t happen often, but it wasn’t unheard of either.
If we got the wrong person on the tour, who not only knew who we were but also our mothers, that would ruin the entire night.
I went on the website and was happy to find I could secure a solo tour without having to place a call.
I filled out all the information, supplied my credit card, and then leaned back in my chair.
It was done. Our first official date was scheduled.
I expected to feel a pang of regret. I was being disloyal to my mother by putting my happiness ahead of hers, right? I felt nothing but anticipation.
The only thing I regretted was that I hadn’t been able to secure a tour spot until the following evening. I would have preferred to be able to take her out tonight. Now I had to wait.
She’d looked a little shellshocked when we separated at the coffee shop. We’d both pretended to write, although I wasn’t certain how much writing actually got done. I’d walked her to her apartment, and not strictly because I was a gentleman. I hadn’t wanted to say goodbye to her just yet.
We stood on the sidewalk for 10 minutes and talked.
It was so easy to talk to her. She could make anything funny.
I’d wanted to kiss her when leaving, but I forced myself not to push the issue.
I’d had a whole night to sit on my decision, and I never reconsidered it.
She needed that time, too. If she’d only agreed to the outings because she didn’t want to hurt my feelings …
I pushed that thought out of my head almost immediately. It wasn’t that it couldn’t happen. I knew that. If Wylie felt for me even a small iota of what I felt for her, then she wouldn’t change her mind.
We had to see this through. I had to know if it could work. Otherwise, I would always wonder. Not trying was worse than the alternative.
THE NEXT DAY, I MANAGED to bang out a chapter on my manuscript in the morning. I didn’t go to the coffee shop, but only because I knew Wylie wouldn’t be there. We’d discussed it the previous day. Since we were spending the evening together, we were going to spend the day apart.
It was torture.
Because I couldn’t stop thinking about our date, I did something I never did.
I went shopping. There were plenty of clothing stores in the downtown area, so I stopped to grab a few pairs of casual pants and polo shirts.
As I was walking, shopping bags clutched in my hands, I passed a T-shirt shop that caught my attention.
It was one of those pop culture places that featured movie and television T-shirts.
It was the sort of place I’d always avoided like the plague because …
well, I wasn’t certain why. Part of me wondered if it was because the shirts reminded me of Wylie.
She had so many different pop culture T-shirts when we were younger that I couldn’t keep track of them all.
I wasn’t lying when I told her that I’d been jealous of the security guard that day, or that I hadn’t realized why I was being such a jerk back then.
All of that had come to me like an epiphany when I’d lain awake in my bed the night after the reader event at Pirates’ House.
It was like being caught in a cartoon and an anvil dropping on me when the realization hit.
I’d been jealous of the security guard. Because he was getting attention from Wylie that I wanted? Because he thought she was cute, and I didn’t want anybody thinking she was cute but me? I couldn’t dig that deep. I just knew that I had been jealous in the moment, and I’d taken it out on her.
I hated myself for it.
When I looked back on the time I’d spent with Wylie as a teenager, I wasn’t proud.
Sure, teenagers were notoriously bad at recognizing their own emotions, but that didn’t feel like an acceptable excuse.
Had my mother known I was jealous? That was a harder question for me to answer, and it wasn’t as if I could call her and ask.
No, I was going to have to be careful when talking to my mother for the foreseeable future. I didn’t like it, but I wasn’t ready to get her going — and she was going to fly right over an emotional cliff if we got that far — until I was absolutely sure.
Standing in the T-shirt shop, I was sure.
Just seeing all the options, imagining Wylie in them, had my heart threatening to burst. In that moment, I knew I had avoided these shops because they would remind me of her, and after our mothers broke up, I didn’t want to think about her.
We hadn’t even been able to say goodbye.
The store clerk was all smiles as she approached. There was something flirty about her demeanor as she looked me up and down, her smile suggesting that she liked what she saw. “Can I help you?”
“I hope so,” I replied. “I’m looking for a gift.”
“Absolutely.” She bobbed her head. “What sort of gift? I can help you. Is it for a nephew, maybe?” Her eyes moved to my left hand to see if I was wearing a ring.
I had to hold back a smirk. “It’s for my …
” Was it too soon to call her my girlfriend?
It was probably too soon. That didn’t stop me.
“My girlfriend absolutely loves Star Trek. It’s like a way of life for her.
We’re going out on a special date tonight, and I want to bring her something that I know she’ll love. ”
The clerk’s face fell. “Oh, sure. Star Trek.” She made an exasperated sound and motioned for me to follow her.
“Something wrong?” I asked as I tried not to laugh.
“No. It’s cute that you’re here to get your girlfriend something. It’s just … the Star Trek and Star Wars girls get all the guys. It’s frustrating if you don’t like space battles.”
“What do you mean?” I wasn’t in the mood for small talk, and yet curiosity was getting the better of me.
“Just what I said. Every guy secretly wants a Star Wars girl. The Star Trek fans are even worse because the Star Trek fandom is smaller than the Star Wars fandom. If a girl likes Star Trek, she has to beat the guys off with a stick.”
I thought about Wylie and whether she’d ever beaten the guys off with a stick.
My guess was she had, although she likely hadn’t realized at the time what she was doing.
She had no idea how attractive she was. That much was clear.
Her self-esteem was in the toilet. She was fine being who she was, of course, but she had no idea how great she was.
I planned on changing that.
“So, we have about 15 T-shirts to choose from,” she said when we reached the back corner of the store. “Do you know if she likes original Trek better than The Next Generation?”
“I know she likes Klingons. I think she likes both original and Next Generation, though.”
“Klingons, huh?” The clerk made a growling noise that caught me off guard. “I bet she’s gorgeous and speaks Klingon, right?”
“How did you know?”
“Because you’re really hot and that’s the unstoppable combination.” She pointed. “That one is probably a good bet, even if it’s simple.”
The shirt was just words. It said, “I speak fluent Klingon.” My heart soared. “I want that one for sure. What else have you got?”
She helped me pick out four shirts. Then I saw one for myself. “I need you to be honest,” I instructed, angling my head toward the shirt with Kirk’s face on it. It said, “Is that a phaser in my pocket? Or am I just happy to see you?”
“Are you asking about that for yourself?” she asked.
I nodded. “I think it’s funny. I’m worried that it’s too sexually aggressive, though.”
“Isn’t she your girlfriend?”
“Yes, but it’s new.”
“Oh.” She brightened considerably. “Well, if you haven’t known her that long —”
“I’ve known her the bulk of my life,” I corrected. “We grew up together. The romance part is just the new part.”
“Oh.” She seemed to consider it. “Does she have a good sense of humor?”
“The best.”
“Then I think you’re safe wearing it. She’ll get the joke and appreciate that you’re pointing it at her.”
That was what I was going for. “I’ll take that, too.” I looked around. “Is there anything else Star Trek themed here?”
“Are you going to love bomb her or something?”