“Arr arr?” He braces himself for a smack, but I resolve not to touch him again. “Well, even though Graham didn’t tell me about their romantic getaway, what’s a girls’ weekend without Uncle Henry?”
The girls cheer again.
“Are you gonna invite me in?”
I give an eye-roll and wince at the sting.
“Uh-huh. Better be careful with that.” He shakes a finger at me. “So when’s this pizza coming?”
We spend the next few hours camped out in the living room. The girls keep saying it’s the best “vacay” they’ve ever had, and I keep reminding them it’s really a “staycay,” which they treat as though it’s the funniest thing any human has ever said.
I’ll take it.
“Thank you for letting me paint your toenails, Uncle Henry.” Ella hasn’t left his side the whole night. Even as I watch him put her to bed, she’s reaching up for him—one more hug. “Of course! I really think Pretty in Pink is my color, don’t you?”
Once both girls have been satiated with story time and an abundance of “five more minutes,” Henry and I congregate in the kitchen, where I tackle the dishes and he tackles the garbage. We settle into these roles without a word, no sound but the running of the faucet, the crinkle of paper plates and trash bags.
Suddenly I’m feeling very stiff. There’s a curl in my stomach. A twist. Like the cheese on the pizza was a few days past its expiration and it’s about to start a revolution from within.
A blanket of unsaid things hangs over us—over me anyway—and changes the air to molasses. Every move I make requires strain. Effort. Everything suddenly feels unnatural.
It’s only nine thirty—and what’s he thinking? Is he going to stay? I’m somehow dying for him to go because, really, we’ve just started to establish a sort-of awkward friendship. The longer he stays, the more likely he’s going to do some obnoxious thing and I’m not going to be able to help myself; I’m going to say something bitchy back and ruin it all.
Why can I talk to this guy behind a screen, but when he’s right in front of me, all I do is pick and nag and go for the jugular? He’s really not that much different in either setting—it’s just that, through the app, he doesn’t know he’s really talking to me.
I’m lost in thought about this. My mind sinks back to our messages from earlier this week and a smile spreads across my face.
Stimulating conversation.
I chuckle and immediately freeze. Def didn’t mean to actually laugh.
“What’s so funny?” His voice is muffled from inside the pantry.
“Oh, nothing.” My voice slides. “That tomato.” I recover, setting the last of the forks on the drying rack.
“Pretty petty, right?”
“I don’t disagree.” I nod.
Pop. A cork.
I jump at the sound—nerves on high alert. He’s emerged with two wineglasses and a bottle of something white. A boyish smile as he shows me the glasses, his form of asking if I want to partake.
“Gee, make yourself right at home.” I toss him a look, and the snarking has already begun.
“So was Byrd horrified?” I turn back toward the sink in an attempt to stay neutral. Get my mind off his citrusy scent as I wipe my arms with the dish towel.
“He was less than thrilled, yes. But he’s used to it. You guys have been crawling up his ass since his reelection.”
I take my first sip. It’s sweet and sugary on my tongue. I force away a gag—YOU CAN DO EET—and I let it swirl as I try to control the swirl to my tone. It feels like there’s a marble in my brain, rolling between flirty and combative. There’s not much of an in between for me where Henry’s concerned.
Wine was probably not a good idea—for this, for whatever is brewing in my guts, for all that is good and holy.
“Us guys?” I scoff. “I don’t agree with the guy’s policies, but I would never throw food at anyone.”
“Not even me?”
Our gazes magnetize over the wineglasses. His blue eyes bright—highlighted by the gold reflection of the wine—they draw me in and hold me there.
Fuck fuck FUCK. Stop looking at me like that!
I can’t like him! But I’m starting to recognize what this feeling is, and GAH—I need to steer the conversation to Ansley somehow.
I lean back against the sink, pop a knee. I realize I do a little hair flip—stop it—but I’m about to put an end to this flirting, so it’s all good. I can get us both back on track.
“So why aren’t you out on the town this evening? Isla told me you met somebody.”
He blinks like I’ve caught him off guard, the silence buzzing around us now. He scratches at the back of his head, focus trained on anything but my face, and he clears his throat. “I wouldn’t say that.”
“Are you one of those guys who’s ashamed about online dating? Don’t be.”
He’s wooden in his movements, but the tightness in his face relaxes a bit.
A sheepish smile curls on his lips. “Eh, it’s just.” He shakes his head. “We haven’t met yet.”
This feels super weird all of a sudden, talking about this with him. I thought it would help, but a pang, an ache that’s been dormant until now, catches fire and smolders.
“She seems really smart. Driven.”
“Tall, blond, and gorgeous, right?” I ask the bottom of my wineglass, not quite able to keep a tinge of acid out of my tone—while feeling another kind creep up my throat.
He pulls it to a tight smile and averts his stare again.
“I’m just teasing,” I say. “I’m really happy for you.”
It almost sounds like I mean it and I loathe myself just a little that a small part of me doesn’t.
Another part of me is taking a sick satisfaction in hearing what he thinks about the girl he’s talking to—ahem, me—but the flush in Henry’s face says he’s desperate to change the subject. If we’re being honest, I am too; this situation I’ve gotten myself into, this line of conversation, is too weird to continue delving further.
“More wine?” I top him off and grab my own bottle—more excellent choices—and we retire to the sectional, where maybe some Disney magic can make me believe in love again. Or remember all the reasons I don’t want it.
DRINK THROUGH THE PAIN!
We stick Tangled on, and I’m making a game of it.
Take a drink every time Flynn Rider cocks an eyebrow! Every time there’s low-key sexual innuendo! Whenever you notice another Disney reference!
Needless to say, we’re pretty messed up before the lanterns are released.
Before I know it, I’m waking with a start, and it takes what feels like a full minute for me to realize I’m face-to-stomach with Henry. I’ve fallen asleep on him, in a puddle of my own drool apparently. Lovely. His shirt smells like man soap and perfection, and I?
Fuck. Me.
I can’t be thinking like this, and my head is already pounding. A sour film already coats the inside of my mouth.
“Good morning.” His voice is a rumble just above my head. Deeper, raspier than normal, and he chuckles as I’m scrambling to get myself upright.
“What time is it?”
“Relax—it’s only one.” He stretches his arms overhead.
“A.M.?”
Another amused ha. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry about…” I gesture at him but can’t bring myself to say the words, and he’s all lazy smiles and droopy eyes. “How long was I—”
But before I can even finish my sentence, an angry storm of bad decisions that has been rumbling all night comes churning its way up my esophagus. Vicious and violent and punishing me for my behavior—my thoughts—this evening. I’d had plenty of warnings, but no no NO, I kept pushing things anyway.
Just as I realize what’s happening, however, it’s too late.
I lose my lunch—my dinner, my breakfast, those Oreos we thought would be a good idea, everything I’ve ever eaten?—all over him.
The soun
d almost makes me retch again, but I manage to stand and that helps.
I look down at him, stunned, and although my brain is still technically functioning, my body is useless after that ordeal. My knees liquefy. I’m waffling between Run to the bathroom? Get him a towel? Get swallowed up in a hole of mortification and die?
That last one seems best, but I can’t will a hole in the floor to materialize.
Everything spins.
The questions, the sourness still stirring in my stomach, the rawness of my throat, and the overstimulation of all these sensations at once have me so dizzy that I don’t actually do anything but crumple to the floor.
“Oh God,” he says, “are you okay?”
The concern in his eyes really seems to be more for me than about what I’ve just done to his shirt, to him, to his emotional well-being for the rest of his life probably.
Dramatic.
The coherent part of me lying dormant right now appreciates this. I grunt out some kind of sound in an attempt to express it, but I don’t know that it comes across.
He stares at me a few moments, and once, I guess, he’s established I’m going to live, he disappears to the bathroom to deal with the atrocity and possibly the emotional scars I’ve just inflicted.
While he’s gone, I give myself a silent pep talk and manage to get myself together. I’ve got to get him out of here so he can’t be wonderful and dreamy to me anymore—and me being a damsel in digestive distress is not going to aid in that effort.
When he returns, having donned one of Graham’s beer tees, it looks like he’s fairly unscathed from the ordeal.
“Not sure how you managed not to get it anywhere but on me, but I’m certainly impressed.” He chuckles.
I stand. “I am so so sorry, Henry. Like…I’m humiliated.” Head in hands.
“Eh, it happens.” He tosses a hand and sits back down at his spot on the couch like none of it ever happened.
But I can’t allow this. I stand firm in my resolve. It’s all I can do to keep from flapping my arms around like a chicken, panic rising in my chest.
“You should probably go,” I say. “I’ve…done enough, and you’ve been super sweet about it and everything—thank you, really—but I can take it from here.”
He looks up at me with puppy dog eyes. “But what if you need someone to take care of you?”
The fireflies this sets loose in my chest are exactly the reason he needs to leave. I can’t continue down this road with him. I’ve got to get some distance. To get him out with Ansley as soon as possible before I start to acknowledge that—yes—I’m feeling the feels and this was all a terrible, horrible idea.
Why is Gordon always right?
And then, click. My brain starts working again.
“I just texted my boyfriend,” I lie. “He’s on his way over, so he’s got that covered.”
Chapter 12
Henry doesn’t message Ansley at all the next day, the next night, and even though I’ve got the kids to distract me from obsessing over it, I’m concerned. It just doesn’t seem like him to disappear. Not after our last conversation. Other guys, sure, but not Henry.
Maybe I’ve made him wait too long.
On Sunday, after Graham and Isla return, I say my good-byes and then I suck it up and message him. It could technically fall under Rule Number 9, Don’t be pathetic, but I decide it’s a gray area whether messaging a guy first after a full twenty-four hours plus of not hearing from him is pathetic or not. It depends on the context.
But when I start in with a breezy How was your weekend? Henry’s quick to respond, and I decide it’s okay.
Not pathetic at all.
He mentions he was babysitting his nieces the other night, and ice skates through me that he’s bringing it up. Maybe the worst part of this whole thing is not the ethics of deceiving Henry but the strain on my own conscience—the stress of me dealing with these layers of deception.
It’s too much for me, so I suggest he and Ansley meet for coffee this week. I know she’s scared, but I can’t interact with him anymore. If this is going to happen with them, I don’t want anything else to do with it.
He happily agrees, despite me warning him that he might get a lap full of French roast.
Henry:I’ll take my chances. I’ve had much worse—trust me.
I read the message, and there’s that ice again because—yup—he’s talking about me.
I almost write Do tell! but even I can recognize this would be diving into unhealthy waters for me, so I just say Haha.
Very articulate.
Still, I’m disappointed he doesn’t elaborate, but I also understand why he wouldn’t want to say anything about drinking with his sister-in-law’s crazy friend—
With whom he once had sex—
And she not only fell asleep on him—
But vomited all over him too.
Probably not the best way to woo a potential date.
* * *
Ansley’s foaming at the mouth when I give her the good news. She insists I be there, which sucks because I thought I could get away with just an earpiece this time. I guess she wants me there to hold her hair, in case it comes to that.
Where was she the other night when I needed her? I hate myself.
So, as cringey as it makes me, I assure her I’ll be at the café. Watching like a weirdo from the other side of a newspaper. Listening as best as I can.
If this is what needs to happen in order to get things moving, to get them together and out of my hands, to end what’s becoming a nightmare for me, then this is what I will do.
I get to the coffee shop thirty minutes ahead of time. Find myself a nice little corner to skulk in. I’m a little worried I’m not going to be able to stay inconspicuous since I’m all boho Blackbeard, but I’m also worried I’ll do permanent damage to my vision if I don’t follow the doctor’s orders on this one.
So, alas.
Once my macchiato has cooled enough to sip, I catch a glimpse of Henry as he moseys in. Dark jeans and a polo. Very nonthreatening. Very clean-cut.
Very good.
I look down at the phone. He’s fifteen minutes early—good man!—and he does this thing with his tongue where he traces one corner of his bottom lip as he makes his way over to the pastries. I can’t quite decide if I think it’s indecision over what to order or if it’s nerves. Not without knowing Henry better. But it pricks my cold dead heart when he tells the guy behind the counter he’s “just looking”—that he’s waiting for someone—and I see a teensy grin pull at his features.
Every time the door opens, he flips around, eyes bright, and then his face goes back to pleasantly minding his own business, big hands spread out on the glass of the display case.
I slouch behind my laptop. Tug my baseball cap down low. We’re not doing the Bluetooth this time. To provide some extra distance, I told her I’d make sure I was within earshot and we could handle everything over text if need be.
You got this, I message her, and I feel a flutter in my chest like I’m the one about to meet someone new.
A few moments later—right on time—Ansley breezes through the door, a bright summer lily towering over a coffee shop full of dandelions. Although both may be yellow, they almost don’t even register as being in the same color family. Definitely not the same species.
With her entrance also comes the sudden relief that I’m no longer concerned Henry’s going to discover I’m here. He’s a huge idiot if he peels his attention away from her for one second. I can’t imagine he will.
Her gaze darts around until she finds me, and I throw her a look like STOP IT and sink back behind my busywork.
Henry stands. A flicker of recognition, and his shoulders relax.
“Hi there.” His voice is gentle.
She puts her tiny hand in his and smiles a wide slow smile. Something tugs me to my seat. I hold my breath as I watch them sit and fidget some and exchange pleasantries and be generally adorable and also awkward at the
same time.
“I’ll go get the coffee. You know, just as a precaution,” he says. “What do you want?”
She giggles at this, and I begin to wonder what I’m even doing here besides looking like kind of a creeper.
When his back is to her, she’s eyeing me, terror tinged in her baby blues, and I’m pointing to the phone—the phone!—and waving my arms like Don’t look at me…and then I have the brilliant idea of just texting her that—
All before Henry’s paid for whatever it is he ordered.
He returns, the hint of a bounce to his step, a steaming bevvie in each hand.
“I have to admit, this is kind of a relief,” he says, sliding Ansley’s to her with the caution and care of the bomb squad.
“It is? How come?” She’s not being all that articulate so far—she hasn’t actually said many words yet, but I’m already on it, figuring out how we can spin this to him later that she was just nervous in person. Which isn’t even really a total lie.
I’m not overly concerned, though. Henry has a way of setting people at ease, it seems—it’s probably why he’s supposedly good at his job—diffusing situations, schmoozing people, smoothing over stressful circumstances. So I’m confident she’ll chill out, the more time they spend together.
He chuckles. Takes a long sip. “I was starting to think you might not be real.”
This is a line—it’s a line every guy uses—but somehow he makes it sound sincere.
She gives a playful scoff, hand to chest. “Me? A catfish? What about you, Mr. Beach Blond high-powered career guy? You look more like you should be in a Banana Republic spread than rubbing elbows with the folks on Capitol Hill.”
There’s a bit of a tremor to that last sentence, but I’m proud as a peach she’s able to dish something back to him.
He tosses his head back. Spikes one ha through the air, amusement crinkling the corners of his eyes. “Some of those pictures are oldish, I will admit…I did have longer hair, but I’m not a surfer dude.” He runs a careless hand through his now-shorter hair. “But you? Gorgeous blonde, playing hard to get with I-didn’t-know-that-was-you-on-the-phone and then I-can’t-meet-you-for-at-least-a-week? Of course I was starting to wonder.”
Switch and Bait Page 12