The Girl He Knows

by Kristi Rose

  “Nope. Not a clue. I still think you should have stayed for breakfast.” He yawns. The simple sound brings forth the sensation of our naked bodies nestled together, the comfort of our sleep entwining us, and I suppress the urge to fan my face.

  “Are you crazy? Was I supposed to walk out in your shirt and join your parents? Morning, Poppy. Morning, Ms. Becky. Your son and I had sex all night long and I’m famished,” I mimic and Hank laughs.

  “Well it wasn’t all night. We did sleep the last few hours.” His voice is like chocolate, rich and creamy, and I kick myself for not staying around for a second helping.

  “Hank Lancaster.” I pull into a strip mall parking lot, unable to concentrate on driving while talking to him.

  “Where are you right now?”

  “About to get on I-4,” I lie. I don’t want him to know I’m staying in town. If we get together again, I’ll probably want a repeat performance, and then I won’t be able to call our night of sex a mistake. He’ll accuse me of wanting more.

  He’d be right, but there is no need to have that conversation.

  “You know not to head home without me, right?”

  Bam! It’s like being slapped upside the head. The aftermath of this impulse doesn’t ever seem to end.

  “What? Why?”

  “Because my truck is still in Orlando and you are my ride to get it.”

  Stupid me. Telling him last night I wanted to go to Lakeland, too. If we’d gone to my apartment in Daytona Beach, I would not be in this predicament.

  “It was stupid to come here.”

  “It was stupid to climb out the window,” he retorts.

  “It was stupid to hook up.”

  “Face it. What happened between us last night was bound to happen at some point. Heck, look what happened last week when we met in Cocoa Beach for the surfing competition. We’ve been gearing up for this since high school.”

  “We have not.”

  Liar. Liar. I know he speaks the truth. If I admit it, I’m breaking some unspoken friendship rule between Gigi and me, even if this is her fault for canceling on us and not attending the surf competition. She’s directly responsible, leaving us unchaperoned.

  When I accepted the invitation, I was excited to hang with an old friend. I never imagined we’d spend the evening on the beach, under blankets, learning each other’s body.

  I drop my head onto my steering wheel. Something about being with Hank makes me not think things through.

  “In my opinion, hot weather and too much booze are the root cause of these slipups.” I toss out the lie and hope it sticks.

  “OK, you keep telling yourself that.” He chuckles. “I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow? The folks leave for church at eight.”

  “All right. Listen, are you planning on seeing your sister today?”

  “No, should I?”

  “No, I’m heading to her house. I need a change of clothes before I visit my family. You cannot tell your sister what we did.” I hope he gets the severity of my words through my tone. I rub the space between my eyes.

  “Roger that,” he says, his smile coming through the phone.

  “Promise?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Say it.”

  “I promise, Paisley McAllister, to never tell my sister we made hot-monkey love in her childhood bed.”

  I groan. I can tell this is going nowhere fast. “I gotta go.”

  “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Gee, I can’t wait.” I end the call.

  I pull out of my parking spot, travel around the backside of the strip mall, and decide to take back roads to Gigi’s house since I’m having attention issues.

  I need a cover story, and a good one at that; otherwise she’ll see right through me. I dread facing her. I know I have to at some point. Why not today?

  The consequences of my actions plague me. It’s quite possible I may have set in motion the end of my friendships with Gigi and Hank. It’s ironic, this is exactly what I promised myself I would do once my divorce was final. Not sleep with Hank, but start getting a life. Married the summer before my last year of college, I veered off onto a path quite opposite my friends. While they were enjoying life after college with extra cash in their wallets, I was supporting a medical student. Now it’s my turn. Of course, I’m doing a bang-up job so far.

  What if he wants something more? I’m not interested in going there. My journey is just getting started. What if our families find out? They are entwined enough for me to know it would be damn near impossible for my mother not to exaggerate our one night and push for a permanent union. Because I’m the only divorced person in my immediate family, pairing me off with someone as fantastically magnificent as Hank Lancaster—my mother’s words, not mine—would go a long way toward putting the blight behind us.

  Maybe one day my mother and I will want the same thing: me, happily married. Right now we don’t.

  I pull up to Gigi’s house and park. If best friends could be soul mates, Gigi would be mine. I don’t think there’s a thing she doesn’t know about me, until now. Which makes this all the more difficult because she’s who I go to for confession and guidance.

  While I was in the midst of my divorce and on the edge of a nervous breakdown, it was Gigi who came to me with the soundest advice. “You get a second chance,” she told me. “A second chance to do it right. Pick wisely and do it for those who are stuck.”

  I have every intention of getting it right this time, no matter what.

  Chapter 2

  I like to think there are golden rules for every aspect of life. The one between best friends goes like this: Thou shall not covet a friend’s old boyfriend or brother, and thou shall not fornicate with either of them.

  If Gigi finds out I used her brother for sex, that I consider last night a jumping off point for starting my single life, I don’t know if she’ll forgive me.

  I want to idle in front of her house, but her husband, John, is leaning against his truck, smoking. With no, “Hello, how are you” or even a comment about my appearance, he points me in the direction of his wife. I walk through the fence gate to the backyard where she’s cleaning their pool. She does everything: cleans the house, mows the yard, runs their kid to and fro and even works the grill.

  Personally, I think yards and grills are for men. It irks me she does so much. When they first started dating, Gigi was on the back end of a bad breakup. John seemed nice enough but secretly I’ve always thought of him as her rebound guy and I’m pretty sure research exists showing relationships with rebound guys don’t last. They married six months after graduation. I’m not convinced John makes Gigi blissfully happy, no matter how much she swears he does, certainly not lately.

  “Hey.” I toss the box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts on the outdoor table. Sometimes a good doughnut can fix anything.

  “Hey yourself.” She runs the net through the water and does a double take when she looks at me. “I didn’t know you were coming to town.”

  “Surprise,” I mumble. I pick up a water noodle and start twirling it.

  “What the hell happened to you? You’re a wreck.” She’s staring at my hair.

  I swat at her with the pool noodle. “I need to borrow some clothes.”

  She hangs the long-handled net up and sits down to a pitcher of tea, pouring a glass for both of us, and helps herself to a doughnut. “Clearly. You getting laid?”

  I cough and look away. Gigi points at me and laughs.

  “Good for you. Anyone I know?” She wiggles her brows at me, reaches into the wet bar they keep on the porch, and pulls out a bottle of Jack Daniels.

  “No,” I squeak. She pours a good splash of booze in her tea. I dare not make eye contact. She hovers the bottle of Jack over my cup and I shake my head. My stomach is churning. Though I’m not exactly sure if it’s from the dare-I-say excitement or my now-raging headache.

  “Tell me about t
his.” She waves her hand toward me.

  I suck in a breath and in a rush of words spit out the story I’d rehearsed.

  “It’s nothing. I went partying with my Daytona friends last night. Met up with this guy I know and did something stupid. I believe it’s the alcohol’s fault, thank you very much.”

  It comes out fast and jumbled. I hold my breath and hope sticking to some semblance of the truth will work to my benefit.

  She chuckles. “I guess you’re ringing in your freedom like you planned. You gonna keep a journal? Notch your belt?”

  I feign indignation. “I don’t have a quota I’m trying to reach or anything like that. I only want to get some more experience. Figure out what it is I want from life. My previous life’s plans were based on Trevor’s and what I thought they should be. Now, in my new single life I’m trying to make some new ones.”

  The moment passes between us, and I’m reminded why Gigi has been and always will be my best friend. When her eyes catch mine there isn’t an ounce of pity in them.

  “Why’d you drive here looking like a college coed sneaking out of a frat house?” In a snap, we shift gears.

  “Because I have a dinner tonight at Sarah Grace’s and...you know.” I want to leave it at that but her expression is open, waiting for me to continue with my story. “I mean this guy, he like lives in Orlando and I um...didn’t have the time to drive home. Now I’m up shit creek. I guess I didn’t think it through.”

  If that isn’t the understatement of the year I don’t know what is. I catch my lower lip in my teeth but quickly release it. What if that’s my “tell” and she knows I’m fabricating the truth?

  “You wanna shower here, too?”

  Slowly, I let out my breath and nod as I reach for a doughnut. Maybe it will be OK after all.

  “OK, I’ll lend you clothes and you can shower in the guest bathroom, but I want details. Every juicy one. I want to know everything about this guy.”

  I may throw up. I put the doughnut back and wipe my fingers on my jeans.

  “Can it wait until after the shower? I feel pretty skanky.”

  She laughs and gets up. I follow her into the house and down the hall to the bedrooms, stepping over a boy’s oversize dump truck. Gigi and John have a four-year-old who defines the word rambunctious. She pauses at a closet, opens the door, pulls out a fluffy blue towel and washcloth, and hands them to me.

  “Aside from this event, how’s the single life?” This is her favorite question and I’m afraid she’ll compare my answer to her life, weighing what she has and what she’s given up. I follow her into her room and watch her pull clothes out of her closet.

  “It’s all right. It’s an adjustment.” Mostly good, I want to add, but why rub salt in a wound? All my money is mine, I can shop when I please, keep dirty dishes in the sink without a care, and don’t have to worry about someone else making poor decisions and messing up my life. I’ll leave that part to me.

  She hands me some clothes.

  “I need underwear.” We both grimace, she pauses before snapping her fingers.

  “You left a swimsuit here that you can use. It’s not like I don’t want to give you some underwear, it’s just... You get it.” She runs down the hall. The French door opens, slams shut a moment later and she comes back carrying my old bikini. She tosses it to me.

  The elastic and fabric are separating, “I don’t know if I can wear this all day.” I pull the elastic, puckering the fabric, and let it go in a snap.

  “Only until the mall opens and you can go buy your own skivvies.”

  She breaks into a smile and when I look at her dimples, so similar to Hank’s, my knees quiver. I look at my bikini bottom and figure it’s better than nothing.

  Gigi is an amazing hostess who keeps her bathrooms stocked with spare everything: toothbrushes, shampoo, soap, and lotion. Her mother does the same. I take the best, albeit shortest, shower of my entire life and don a short, navy-blue T-shirt dress and flip-flops. Thankfully, we’re close in size. Gigi’s clothes are perfect for the warm Florida spring day.

  Outside, I find Gigi sipping iced tea by the pool. The bottle of Jack is sitting out, the box of doughnuts half-empty. I plop into a chair next to her and reach for a doughnut. My headache is finally fading.

  It dawns on me something isn’t right.

  “Why is your house so quiet?” Come to think of it, I haven’t seen her son. “Where’s Pete?”

  “He’s at John’s mother’s house. We’re supposed to be having a romantic weekend. But, he got called in to work, of course.” She leans in, her eyes suddenly bright. “Hey, stay over and we’ll get our party on.”

  If memory serves, I believe I got my party on last night.

  “I can’t. Sarah Grace’s dinner remember?” I do an eye roll.

  My sister, Sarah Grace, is perfect. She married her high school sweetheart, is blissfully happy, has a twin boy and girl, a beautiful home, and makes me feel inadequate simply thinking about her. Sarah Grace would never get divorced, my mother once told me.

  “Sounds nice.” She wears her oh-poor-me face.

  “Seriously? You don’t want to come with me do you?”

  “What are my options? John will be at work tonight, I’m kid-free, and you won’t ditch your family for me.” She looks at me. “I could go to my parents’ I guess.”

  Holy shit.

  My headache flares up. “That would suck, huh?”

  I whip out my phone and send a text to my sister.

  “It’s OK, I’ll figure something out.” She sighs, takes another drink, and watches me text.

  I give her my knock-off-the-pity-party look. I’m like a juggler. Only my balls are on fire. Chances are I’ll get her to my sister’s house and she’ll still want to pop over to her parents’, say hi, and find Hank there.

  Without a car.

  She’ll put two and two together and kick my ass right there in front of my nana.

  Gigi once said no girl would be good enough for her brother. She’s certainly not going to approve of me and my actions. I may be her best friend, but I’m her divorced, train-wreck best friend.

  “You’re coming. Y’know my sister is an amazing cook, so the meal will be good. You’ll have a decent time, if a bit tame.” I finish my text and put my phone on the table to wait for a reply. It comes in an instant.

  “Sarah Grace says to bring wine. You’re locked in. It’ll be mandatory fun. No good time for you, my friend,” I tease. “And certainly no S.E.X.,” I say, reminding her of her lost romantic weekend.

  “You suck.” She laughs and throws her teaspoon at me. “Hey speaking of things that suck, did Hank get a hold of you the other day? He misplaced your number.”

  I nod. Thinking of Hank makes me blush. I try to hide it by guzzling my tea. She quirks a brow, and I look at my watch. Well, what do you know? The mall is open.

  I pop up out of my chair.

  “You in a hurry?” She pours more Jack Daniels in her tea.

  “Yeah, the reason I left this swimsuit here is it’s a bit small. It’s chafing me in a few uncomfortable areas. Let’s hit the mall. You’re coming, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “Jeez, don’t look so excited. What else you got going on?”

  I guess I strike a chord, because when she looks up at me she looks sorta sad and I hate that for her. Is her life what she wants it to be? Are her dreams coming true? Did she think these things about me when I was married to Trevor? Seems like neither one of us are doing too well in the whole make-your-dreams-come-true department.

  “You’re right. I have absolutely nothing going on. What I do have is chocolate-covered strawberries and champagne in my fridge going to waste. I guess a bit of retail therapy will boost my spirits.”

  “Plan a trip to Daytona and boost your spirits. We’ll meet with my Daytona gang and have a great time.” I reach over and give her a hug. My Daytona gang consists of fo
ur other women who get together on a monthly basis for girl’s night out.

  “When?”

  “Next weekend, any weekend. Just come.” I pull her up out of the chair and push her toward the house.

  “Now go turn your frown upside down and let’s go get our shop on.” I fidget with the suit as it decides to ride into my crack.

  The way I see it, this is a win-win situation. I’m cheering up my best friend by keeping her busy. If she’s busy she won’t wander over to her folks, see Hank, visualize how we spent the night, and take me out. No doubt I’ll score some crazy-good retail deals because Gigi is the bargain huntress of the world.

  Totally win-win.

  Chapter 3

  When Gigi and I roll to a stop at my sister’s house, the tension returns, my blood pressure rises, and nausea joins the party. I want to turn around and go speeding back to Daytona. I don’t have the energy for my family.

  With flowers and wine in hand, we head inside. I give the customary polite two knocks, open the door, and stick my head inside. You never know with Sarah Grace. She’s blindsided me before by bringing home one of Dan’s employees to dinner as a setup. It’s happened twice, once when I was dating Trevor and once right after our divorce.

  Nana, my father’s mother, comes around the corner and smiles. My mother is right behind her.

  “Hi, Nana.” I give her a kiss. Two years after my father died, my mom spiraled into a dark depression. It was clear she couldn’t keep it together any longer. Without any living relatives from my mother’s side, Sarah Grace and I were at a loss as how to help her. Thankfully, Nana stepped up. She came for a visit and never left. They’ve been thick as thieves since.

  Nana waits for Gigi to give her a kiss before she pats us on our cheeks and walks away, cocktail in hand. That’s my Nana, quiet. Though when she has something to say, it’s wise to listen up. I hug my mother, who is scanning me up and down.

  “Are you staying long enough to see the hairdresser?” My mother, a Georgian Southern belle, never goes out of the house unless fully coiffed. My appearance this morning at the Circle K would have given her a coronary.