Complicated Girl

by Mimi Strong

  Complicated Girl

  (Drew and Meenie)

  © 2014 Mimi Strong

  A BAKER STREET ROMANCE

  Each book in the Baker Street series is a stand-alone, complete book, focusing on one couple. The stories are linked and may be read in any order. COMPLICATED GIRL is the second book in the series. Book 1 is BLUE ROSES (Luca and Tina)

  Complicated Girl

  A Baker Street Romance

  by Mimi Strong

  Chapter 1

  I’m trying to focus on the menu, but I’m too giddy, which is weird for me. I don’t blush. I don’t get butterflies. Not over some guy.

  But here I am, and my stomach feels fluttery. Maybe it’s indigestion, from the barbecue ribs I had for lunch. Sure, we’ll say it’s that, and not that I’ve gone soft and turned into a girlie girl.

  The waitress comes by, and we tell her we need more time.

  Well, he tells her we need more time. I just stare across the table in wonder. Something’s happening with me and a cute guy, and it’s happening right now. I feel so girlie, I may even bite my lower lip.

  After the waitress walks away, the cute guy tilts his head to the side and really looks at me. I tilt my head to mirror him and do the same.

  He’s got long hair, for a guy. It’s not long enough for a ponytail, which is good, because no self-respecting guy should wear a ponytail. When you’re wrestling, it’s too easy to grab the ponytail and crush his face into the mat.

  This guy’s cute, though. Okay, so he’s a little on the short side, but other than that, he’s perfect.

  Perfect… except for the goatee.

  But besides the long hair, the shortness, and the goatee, he’s perfect.

  My date and I are at Delilah’s Cafe, sharing a meal. I didn’t even know his name an hour ago, and now I’m having dinner with Duncan, the owner of Sweet Caroline Antiques.

  Is he picking out my flaws, too? Is he noticing that one of my green eyes is a little higher than the other, and the tip of my nose isn’t quite straight? My mother had difficulty pushing me out, and it deviated my septum at birth. My sister was born by C-section, so her nose is perfect, plus she had a lovely round head that everyone admired—or so I’ve heard. Aunt Jane carries on about my perfect sister a lot.

  Duncan’s eyes, which are nearly the same green as mine, make their way to the top of my head, then follow my wavy brown hair down to my shoulders. He stares at my chest just long enough for me to know that he’s noticed I have boobs, but not long enough to mentally undress them.

  Now he’s looking at my chin. What’s so interesting about my chin? I wish he’d look at my boobs a little more. What do girlie girls do in a situation like this? Move their arms and squeeze the boobs together? I can’t do that. I’m surprised to even be here.

  I sure wasn’t expecting this whole date thing when I stopped into the antiques store right after closing the flower shop for the day. I only went in to welcome them to the street, and see if they had any special vases, because sometimes customers turn their noses up at the inexpensive ones we carry.

  Duncan showed me what he had in the way of vases—which wasn’t much—and then he asked me on a date.

  Well, technically, he asked me if Delilah’s was any good for dinner, and then technically I asked him on a date, but when I tell my sister about all of this, I’ll leave that part out.

  Then again, maybe I won’t tell my sister about this. She’ll give me that look of pity, and I don’t want her pity.

  Tina has always been lucky with guys. They take one look at her, and fall deeply in love. It was just a few months ago, in the spring, when Luca Lowell first came to Baker Street with his garage. Little did he know he was going to suffer a love-lobotomy.

  Luca took one look at my perfect, gorgeous sister, and then part of his brain just pulled away from the rest and walked right out his ear and down into his pants. Or maybe the missing brains went into his heart. I don’t know what happens to guys when they get that stupid look on their faces, because it never happens to me.

  Luca had it bad, though. He even came into the flower shop and personally hand-sold a thousand dollars’ worth of flowers, just so Tina could take the next morning off and have brunch with him.

  I have to give him credit: It was a pretty sweet trick. And I like the guy. We’re buds now.

  Now I’m in the same restaurant where Tina and Luca had their first date. Is this a sign? A good omen? Is my losing streak over?

  I stare across the table at Duncan’s green eyes, and I wonder… is he the one? I sure hope Duncan’s not one of those insecure guys who can’t take a joke. Those guys are the worst. My last sorta-boyfriend said I was always emasculating him. I told him to grow some balls, and then also grow some hair on the balls. He didn’t think that was funny.

  After we broke up, I sent him a box of tampons by mail. He didn’t think was funny, either.

  No sense of humor.

  Most guys do not get me, but I have a feeling Duncan is different. Back in the antiques store, he made a crack about handjobs and stepmothers. His joke made me feel uncomfortable, and I liked it.

  I’m all about personal growth, and getting out of my comfort zone. That’s why I’m going to a self-help group, and trying to take more risks in life. That’s why I asked Duncan out on a date, even though he’s short and has a goatee.

  I’m looking forward to telling my self-help group about this date. Some of the people there would never be brave enough to ask someone out for dinner. My heart just aches for people who won’t take a risk.

  One of the older guys in the group told me last week that my honesty has helped him a lot. He gave me a big hug, and in his wrinkly arms, I felt like maybe I’d found my reason for being on this planet. I felt like maybe all the loneliness and time with my thoughts was actually worth something.

  The waitress comes back, and Duncan orders a pizza with onions and roasted garlic. So much for a makeout session later. I smile politely and order a plain cheese pizza.

  After the waitress walks away, Duncan says, “All that time with the menu, and you order a plain cheese pizza?”

  “You’re on a date with a girl and you order onions and garlic?”

  His green eyes crinkle at the corners. “This is a date?”

  His words feel like a slap across my face. He’s making fun of me. Suddenly, I feel disgusting and ugly. I never was the pretty girl that guys liked. I’m the late-night booty call. I’m the one they might settle for, just for now.

  The butterflies inside me turn into a marching army of little green soldiers, stabbing me in the guts with bayonets.

  What was I thinking? I must be wearing a cosmic Kick Me sign that everyone but me can see.

  “No, it’s not a date,” I snap back. “It’s an interview to be my new gay bestie, but I don’t think you’re gay enough.” I mean to sound sarcastic and witty, like someone on an HBO comedy, but my words come out like they’re drenched in venom. “You own an antiques store, so you must be gay, right? I thought gays had good fashion sense, so what’s up with the goatee?”

  Oh, no.

  It’s happening again.

  He turns his head to the side, giving me a suspicious look. “Megan, what did you say your nickname was?”

  Wishing I hadn’t mentioned it back at the antiques store, I swallow and say softly, “Meenie. My sister’s name is Tina, so we’re Teenie and Meenie. It’s a rhyming thing, not because I’m not mean.”

  He blinks. “I didn’t say you were mean.”

  No, he didn’t say it, but now he’s thinking it. I can see it all over his face.

  I look down at the table, avoiding his scrutiny. “People like to say I’m mean. But that’s just because they’re insecure and can’t take
a joke.”

  “Is that so?” he says calmly.

  I can feel the attitude running through my body, making my head twitch to the side. “Most people can’t take a joke, or the truth, for that matter. But I can take it. I wish more people were honest, and got to the point. Small talk is the worst.”

  He’s quiet, so I glance up to see his reaction. I’m hoping he’ll laugh and agree with me, but he doesn’t. He’s not a cool dude like Luca. Not many guys are.

  Duncan picks up his import beer and takes a long swallow straight from the bottle. It’s a light beer. Shit. That should have been my first clue he was the sensitive type. Or vain. Or both.

  He keeps his green eyes open and on me the whole time he drinks.

  I look around for the waitress. “Wow, I am so hungry. We should order some nachos.”

  He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and sets the bottle down carefully.

  “You must do some really nice flower arrangements at the shop,” he says.

  “We do. Why?”

  “Because that attitude of yours would drive you out of business if you didn’t. I wouldn’t hire you to sweep my floors, much less talk to customers.” He pauses to let the words sink in, then says, “How’s that for some truth, Meenie?”

  This date is over. I push my chair back and dig through my purse for some money. I toss some bills on the table and get to my feet.

  I open my mouth to tell him I just remembered that I have a group therapy meeting tonight, and I can’t stay for dinner after all.

  But all that comes out is, “You’re short, and your goatee makes your mouth look like a lady’s privates.”

  I turn and walk out of Delilah’s as fast as I can without running.

  Outside, I turn down the side street and pick up the pace.

  I mutter under my breath, “What the hell, Meenie? Why do you have to be so aggressive? No wonder you don’t have any friends or a boyfriend. You’re hopeless. You thought you were making progress with your stupid self-help group, but you’re getting worse and worse every day. You should just give up and stop trying. Go to a shelter and get a dozen rescue cats and be done with it.”

  I keep walking and muttering to myself like the unhinged and unlovable person that I am.

  Chapter 2

  I get home, walk in the door, and toss myself face down on the sofa. The pillows smell like my mother’s perfume.

  Sadness burns in my lungs. I miss my mother, who’s traipsing around Europe like she’s Julia Roberts on a magical zero-calorie pasta binge.

  I’m about to start a massively self-indulgent sob session when I feel cat feet on the backs of my legs and then my back.

  Muffin has sensed that I need his furry comfort, and begins kneading my back, between my shoulder blades. Of course I am still in deep despair over the disaster that was my almost-date, but one cannot wallow in despair when a loving ginger cat is giving you a compassionate back massage.

  He leans forward and gives my earlobe a nip.

  “Muffin, I thought you loved me, but you just want tuna, don’t you?”

  He purrs louder, and nips my ear again, harder this time.

  Cursing him, I get up and walk to the kitchen. The orange cat follows along, trotting on his white-socked feet, a look of pretend surprise on his face. Oh, you’re going to the kitchen? Oh, you’re opening the fridge? What? There’s tuna in there? In that can? For meeeeee? Well, I suppose if you insist!

  I sprinkle his blood pressure medication onto a tablespoon full of low sodium tuna. He’d love the whole can, but it would give him painful gas and irritate his pancreas. Then I’d have to google feline forums and get the cold sweats over cat care disasters.

  The powder turns bright green. Opening the capsules with my thumbnail and doing this always reminds me of a Disney witch, happily poisoning children. Sometimes I cackle.

  Muffin doesn’t care what I say or how I laugh, as long as I deliver the goods.

  Once he’s been taken care of, I give the countertops a wipe down and pull out the canisters to do some baking. I tap the radio on with flour-dusted fingers, and then lose myself in classical music and a divine batch of cinnamon buns.

  My unhappiness over what happened with Duncan is still present, but it’s more of a dull ache than a raw hurt. I’m practicing one of the things I learned at group—procrastination. When I think about bad thoughts, I tell myself I’ll just worry about it later.

  Meenie, you told Duncan his goatee makes his mouth look like a lady’s privates.

  Did I? Oh, well. I’ll worry about that later. I’ve got to put on a fresh shirt for group, because this one’s covered in flour.

  Meenie, no man can ever love you.

  Really? Is this because—oh, wait. I’d better think about this some other time, when I can truly focus on the issue. I’ll worry about this later. Not now.

  I pull into the parking lot for the community center and park my mother’s big Cadillac at the far end, where it won’t get dinged. I like this big car. It makes me look skinny.

  I’m already late for the group session, but I have a pan of cinnamon buns, so I’m okay. This group loves my baking. I could probably murder one of them at random, and the others would help me bury the body, if I had cinnamon buns.

  I walk down the hallway, past the community bulletin board, and arrive at the door to Room 3C.

  Most groups will put a sign on the door saying what the meeting is for. Our coach just tapes a small business card on the door—a business card that is really not that descriptive.

  The door to Room 3C opens with a squeak.

  Our coach, a pretty blonde named Feather, waves for me to come in. I put the cinnamon buns on the back table, careful to keep the plastic wrap on so the smell isn’t distracting, and I take an empty chair in the circle.

  One of the older ladies, the librarian, is sharing the news that things are going well with the widower she’s dating. When she talks, my eyes get leaky. I’m happy for her, finding not one, but two great loves in a lifetime. It gives me hope that maybe if I’m half as decent a person as her, I might get half as lucky. That would be enough.

  Feather leads the group like a true professional, offering some comments and asking the group for thoughts before moving to the next person.

  Someone raises his hand, and everyone turns with interest.

  I turn as well, and for an instant, the chair under me disappears and I feel like I’m falling.

  There’s a new guy, and he’s hottt. That’s HOTTT with three T’s.

  First of all, he’s wearing a suit. It’s 8:15 on a hot Tuesday night in August, we’re at a community center that’s showing its budget cuts, and the guy is dressed for… I don’t know, the opera? He’s got that fancy pants look to him. Good breeding. Like generations of his ancestors selected their partners based on a points system. I think racehorses are bred that way.

  His hair is dark, but not black. He’s around thirty, and if his hairline is receding, it’s at a rate of one follicle per year. His brown eyes look sharp and inquisitive. He glances at me, then looks away almost immediately, as though he figured me out in a microsecond. As I stare at his perfectly-square, thoroughbred-horse-like jawline, I long for him to flick his attention back over to me and linger.

  Instead, he says to our group’s coach, “How does this whole thing work? How many sessions does it take for people to fix their problems?”

  I hear a collective gasp from the whole group. I can’t help but smirk. Feather tucks her pale, perfectly straight hair behind her ear and licks her lips. She always does that before she rips someone a new butthole.

  As she collects her ammunition of words, her pretty earrings swing gently. People always give her feather-themed jewelry, because of her unusual name.

  Feather says, with authority, “Andrew—”

  “Drew,” he says, cutting her off. He turns on the grin to soften his rudeness. Damn it, the smile works. His teeth are bright and perfect.

  “Drew,
I’d like to tell you how many sessions it takes before a person solves their problems, but first, you tell me: How many ties should a man own?”

  He blinks and pulls his head back, seemingly caught off guard by Feather’s question. His smile becomes a genuine one, a dimple forming in the cheek visible to me.

  “As many as he wants,” Drew says. He looks down at his own tie, a simple blue pinstripe. He frowns at the tie, as if seeing it for the first time.

  “Exactly,” Feather says.

  He keeps looking at the tie, all his seriousness gone.

  “I don’t even like this tie,” he says, laughing.

  Oh, be still my beating heart. A good-looking man, laughing at himself? Marry me, New Guy Named Drew. Sweep me up in your thoroughbred-horse arms and carry me off to make sweet, sweet—

  “Forget the tie,” Feather says. “If you need help with your style, you can schedule one of my assistants for one-on-one personal shopping. Why don’t you share a few words about why you’re here?”

  “If I give it up now, I’ll have nothing left for next week,” he says, chuckling.

  Feather nods, makes a note in her little notebook, and turns to the person seated next to the librarian, a white-haired lady who’s been part of the group since long before I started. “Let’s hear from you, Abbie. Have you been making progress talking to your sister about your mother’s reluctance to move into a home?”

  With the sigh of someone who’s been waiting to be asked, the woman starts talking about her family drama. Well, I shouldn’t say drama. That word implies that someones problem’s aren’t real. Feather doesn’t like us to say drama.

  I put on my best I’m-listening expression and try to pay attention to Abbie. I’m distracted by Drew, though. He’s also paying attention to Abbie. His well-bred dark brown eyebrows push together in concern. He’s also slowly loosening and removing his tie.

  Wow.

  Paying attention to a woman talking about her problems, AND undressing at the same time? Be still my… everything. I think I’ve just discovered the equivalent of pornography for women, and it’s this.