“I don’t think we have a first aid kit, but we could probably call down for one?” Charla looks unsure.
I examine my knees. Typical rug burn. Just big, raw patches with some blood. “I’m not hemorrhaging or anything. It’s cool.”
“Um, your eyes,” she says. “Are you okay?”
I sigh. Whenever I don’t get enough sleep, my eyes blow up like puffer fish for the first few hours I’m awake. My roommates love these mornings and are always trying to sneak photos with me in them. Because I can’t see all that well, what with the puffiness, I’m an easy target. Thank goodness Facebook lets you un-tag yourself from pictures.
“I just went to bed late. I’m okay. Did you say something about coffee?”
“I think you said something about coffee. I already had my green tea.” She must notice the look of desperation on my face, because she snaps to it. “I think there’s a machine in the bathroom.”
Charla spins so quickly that her towel lifts, giving me an eyeful.
That’s one way to wake me up. Did she mistakenly use a hand towel? Or a washcloth?
This is all too much. Even hotel coffee made in a bathroom with tap water will do, at least to wake me up enough that I can go downstairs for real coffee.
Someone knocks on the door. I really hope room service somehow heard my silent cry for help and has brought a plate of bacon and a double espresso. I stumble toward the door, but Charla has beaten me there. She opens the door, not seeming at all fazed that she’s wearing a glorified washcloth.
Both Jack and Zane are standing there, wide-eyed.
I don’t know which is worse. Charla in her barely there towel, or me, looking like a half-dead mole with a nest of blonde and pink hair around my head.
“Come on in,” Charla says, swinging the door open wider.
Because, sure. They’ve already seen it all. Why not?
Zane hesitates, but Jack strides right in, giving Charla an appreciative sweep of his eyes that makes her giggle. She slaps his chest playfully before darting into the bathroom with a handful of clothes.
“Be right out!” she calls through the door. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”
I don’t know what she would or wouldn’t do, but I can categorically say that her warning is wholly unnecessary. Jack is now reclining in the office chair, smirking at me.
“Not a morning person?” he says.
“If by that you mean that I am not a person in the morning, then yes. At least not until I have coffee.”
Zane, who has been hanging back in the doorway, clearly not sure if he wants to enter this circus, swoops in decisively and holds out a to-go cup that smells like life and joy.
“A flat white,” he says.
“You are the perfect specimen of a man,” I say.
I take a few swallows, thankful that it’s not hot enough to scald me, before I realize what I just said to Zane. I shouldn’t be held responsible for anything I say the first few hours of any day. Especially not when running on a few hours of sleep.
I clear my throat. “Thank you.”
“Are you okay?” He looks truly concerned, which is adorable, especially compared to the smug amusement on Jack’s face.
“I just take some time to wake up usually. And I was up late.”
“No, you’re bleeding,” he says.
Right. My knees. I glance down, and they look a little worse now. There is actually a trail of blood almost down to my ankle on my right leg. Perfect.
“I fell out of bed.”
Zane looks horrified, and as the coffee drags me into further consciousness, I am mortified. I look like something dragged out of a swamp. I have morning breath. I’m bleeding.
It’s probably good that he sees me like this. I mean, might as well just help me get over my tiny (aka: growing by the minute) crush on my best friend’s twin by making sure he would never, ever be interested in me. No matter what I thought I saw in his eyes last night.
“Up late watching movies? Having pillow fights?” Jack waggles his eyebrows suggestively, and if I didn’t need this coffee to exist right now, I would throw it at him.
Did I really think he was cute when I first met him? Every minute I spend with him, he grows more and more … gross.
“I was working on the glitch,” I say, glaring. He probably can’t tell though, since my eyes are so tiny right now.
“Did you fix it?” Zane asks, his voice sounding way too hopeful. I wish my news wasn’t disappointing.
The thing about talking to anyone who isn’t a programmer is that they don’t get our language. I say glitch, because Jack and Zane will get that. Except that glitch implies that it’s one singular thing, when the reality is much more complex. I simply can’t explain it to them. At least, not without analogies.
“Unfortunately, it’s not one issue I can just fix. Code is kind of like a spiderweb. And when a bug lands on it, it impacts the part of the web where it lands, but also the whole web. Think of it like this: I’m trying to figure out where all the bugs have landed by following the movement of the web.”
Then I have to figure out who brought the bugs. But I’m not saying that, not yet. I remember Zoey’s words, that Zane will want a whole trail of evidence. I’m close. Probably by the end of the weekend. Maybe Monday. Or mid-week. I should be able to tell where the code was introduced, which will give me either a signature or a login or IP address to narrow it down. If they’re smart, which I suspect they are, it’s probably bouncing around various IP addresses to mask the location. But I’m smart too. I haven’t had a challenge like this in a while, and believe me, I am here for it.
I’ll figure it out, then give Zane all the evidence he needs. Plus, fix the damage. I’ll be the hero of the day and also get paid.
But then I won’t be seeing Zane every day. The thought makes my hopes crumble a little, but I remind myself that I don’t want Zane. Too complicated. Too straightlaced. Too much Zoey’s brother.
As he eyes my knees again, I remember that I don’t even need to worry about anything happening with Zane now that he’s seen me in my disturbing natural state.
Charla pops out of the bathroom, her hair up in a messy knot, still looking like a sexy model in an off-the-shoulder shirt and yoga pants. I’m a little surprised at the outfit, though, considering our fancy resort.
“What’s the plan for today?” I ask around a yawn.
“Golf,” Jack says. I realize then, because my tiny mole eyes are starting to open thanks to caffeine, that the guys have on polo shirts, khaki shorts, and funny shoes. Golf. Okay. Which means …
“Spa day!” Charla squeals.
“Spa day?” I read about all the amenities on the flyer downstairs, a few things I know of, like massages, but also things I don’t understand and can’t pronounce. I swear I read something about a vampire facial. Heck to the no.
“Cool. You have fun. I think I’ll stay up here and work.”
Charla laughs, grabbing my hand and waving it around. I’m concerned all the movement is going to jostle my flat white.
“No, silly,” Charla says, still flapping my arm around.
I remind myself again that she is a CPA. A smart girl who crunches numbers and just happens to act like the stereotype of a sorority girl slash swimsuit model.
“You and I are both going. We’re meeting Sara and Mel in twenty minutes. Better get ready!”
The horrors of this morning are unending. I have to go to a spa. With Charla and the investors’ wives. It’s why I’m here. I glance at Zane with pleading eyes. But again, my eyes may not be open enough at this point to convey emotion.
I would much rather carry clubs or ride around in a golf cart or even wade into a lake to find balls. Alligators are almost never this far northwest, despite that story I heard about one being found in Dallas recently.
“Don’t worry,” Jack says. Because clearly, enough emotion is leaking through my swollen face to convey my panic. “We’ll meet up with you later for a co
uples massage.”
Just like that, I am fully and terrifyingly awake, and as Jack gives first Charla and then me a predatory grin, I think about how lovely wrestling an alligator sounds.
Chapter Ten
Abby
Every single one of my roommates would trade places with me right now. A free day at a high-end spa. I can’t even complain to them about it because they’d be all, Boohoo! Poor, pampered Abby and her first-world problems!
And I get it. I do. This is a gift.
But the logic does nothing to erase the sheer panic I’m experiencing as I stand in a dressing room with just a robe covering me.
“Do I have to get naked?” I asked the woman who handed me the robe.
She only laughed, like she thought I was joking. I wasn’t.
This day has felt like a fun house, where every room is worse than the last. Maybe if it hadn’t started with me stripping down to nothing and getting hosed off in a room with a drain in the floor. This is what they do to prisoners. I half expected them to dump some kind of lice treatment on my hair or give me a flea dip.
After the hosing, which the woman administering it seemed to enjoy way too much, I was subjected to hours in a bathing suit with Charla, Sara, and Mel. Hours. Going through various pools and a steam room. That part wasn’t terrible. I should not be complaining. Or miserable.
It’s just … this whole thing triggers a lot of memories for me. Spending so much time with women I don’t know, women who seem so different and whose conversations hover around things I’m just not interested in: bags, shoes, and the spa treatments. The wrinkles on their foreheads, and the Botox to combat it. I’ve discovered that I’m the only one in the greater Austin area who doesn’t have regular facials.
Tack on the fact that being in a bathing suit—or, like right now, less than a bathing suit—makes me feel so vulnerable. So exposed.
I don’t hate my body but have the same self-consciousness that most women do. Maybe a bit more, just because of all the stuff that happened in middle and high school that I try to forget.
I don’t love parading around wearing next to nothing. Especially when the women I’m with don’t seem to have any qualms about it. Because then I’m not just self-conscious, I’m self-conscious about being self-conscious. There were even women who walked around totally in the nude without a care in the world. I mean, Go, ladies! You do you. But it only highlighted the insecurities I still need to kick to the curb.
I had to admire a group of women who had to be in their eighties, walking around with it all hanging out. Emphasis on hanging. I’ve resolved to start a fund for the breast lift I will most certainly need one day. So, I guess if I want to look on the bright side, I can say that today was educational.
“Abby! Are you coming?” Charla knocks on the door, making me jump.
I pull the knot on the robe tighter. “Just a sec!”
If the goal was to relax, it’s been a total fail. Every muscle in my body is tense, and my fight-or-flight response is in high gear. I don’t have any hope that the massage at the end of the day is going to help, because it’s a couples massage. With Jack.
He hasn’t done anything to make me think he’s trying to cross any boundaries I set up, but then again, we’re going to be lying naked in a room together. Covered with sheets or towels or something—I think?—and with massage therapists, but still. If I feel uncomfortably aware in a bathing suit with other women, there is no way I’ll relax naked in a room with Jack.
When I don’t think I can put it off any longer, I open the door.
“Hi!” Charla waves, like we haven’t just seen each other and spent hours together.
“Hey.”
“Could I talk to you for a minute?” Charla tugs at the sash on her robe.
Worry gathers in my gut. These kinds of talks are almost never good. “Sure. What’s up?”
“It’s about the massages today.” She chews her lip, her brown eyes shooting me a look that’s both pitying and pleading.
Whatever she’s about to say, I think I’m going to hate it. “Okay. What about them?”
“I just wanted to double check that it’s okay. About Zane.”
Oh no. Does she know I like him? Am I that obvious?
Last night, I couldn’t help but find my eyes drawn to him. A few times, I caught him looking at me, and he had this little smile, almost like he was proud of me. It made me feel pretty amazing.
Charla must have noticed me looking at him. She knows I’m into Zane, her date for the weekend. And now, she’s doing that girl thing where she checks to make sure I’m okay if she and Zane really date.
Clearly, I can’t blame her. Zane is amazing. It’s sweet that Charla wants to talk with me about it. Sweet, but unnecessary. It’s not like Zane asked me to be his date this weekend. He had the opportunity. But he didn’t.
I can literally feel the heat of embarrassment crawling up my spine, vertebra by vertebra. The last thing I want is to talk about Charla and Zane. I don’t want Charla to be a CPA and a nice girl. It was easier to focus on her inability to carry a tune.
I hold up a hand. “Say no more. It’s fine.”
Charla tries to hide her smile, but it does no good. She positively beams, then throws her arms around me. The embarrassment turns to dread and jealousy like the burning of a thousand suns.
“Are you sure? I don’t want to step on your toes,” she says, finally letting me out of the hug. I can see the wistfulness in her eyes. I can’t blame her. Zane is amazing.
“You have my blessing,” I manage to say, not prepared for the assault—I mean, second hug—that follows.
“I’m so glad you said that,” she says, squeezing out a bit more of my soul with her bony arms. “I didn’t want to move into your territory. You’ve been so nice. I have to honor girl code.”
I barely restrain my snort. Girl code. I’d like to take girl code and show her exactly where she could stick it.
Sheesh. Even my insults are lame right now.
“Can we be done hugging?”
Charla laughs like I've just said the funniest thing, but thankfully, she lets me go. “You’re the best,” she says. “Thank you for being so awesome about this.”
She practically skips away to the next part of the spa. If only she knew the thoughts in my head, which are vacillating between dismemberment and decapitation.
It’s fine. Next week, I’ll be done working for Zane. I’ll see him occasionally with Zoey like I used to, and I’ll be totally normal. Well. My brand of normal. I’ll find some nice, cute, geeky guy who can speak code to me and we’ll make super smart, nerdy babies. Zane will settle down eventually with someone like Charla.
Everything’s going to be fine.
Even so, I’m dragging as I walk into the couples massage room, where a woman even shorter than me smiles and tells me to strip and cover myself with a sheet. And here I thought the robe was bad. At least there are no hoses in sight.
There’s a partition between the two tables, but it’s open. Jack isn’t in here, so I rush to hang my robe on a hook and wrap myself in the sheet, burrito style, which makes me feel slightly more secure. I don’t know how they’ll get me out, but that’s a problem to worry about in a few minutes.
My poor, rug-burned knees are stinging as I lie facedown on the table with a groan. I wiggle my way up like an inchworm until my face fits in the hole, allowing me to stare down at the dark teak floors. I thought the pain in my knees might subside, but I’m still groaning when the door opens.
“Abby?”
I turn my head as much as I can. Zane is in the doorway. Not Jack.
And it hurts. It shouldn’t. But no matter how much I tell myself that I shouldn’t care about Zane, it doesn’t make it hurt less.
“Wrong room,” I say. “Charla’s in the other one.”
Looking everywhere but at my sheet-wrapped body, Zane closes the door and steps inside with a smile. “I asked Jack if we could switch.”
&nb
sp; It takes a moment for his words to register. But when they do, the elation hits my chest like a shot of helium, sending my heart shooting up through the top of my body. Oh. Oh! This is what Charla was asking me about—switching partners. I completely missed it.
Wait. It was Zane’s idea to switch?
“I don’t mind,” I say, trying to play it cool. But even as the words tumble out of my mouth, I’m suddenly very aware of the fact that I’m naked in a room with Zane.
Sure, there’s a sheet l wrapped around me like I’m the mold for a paper-mache project, but suddenly all those parts of me that have never been gazed at with male eyes flare up.
If the CIA were watching outside with thermal heat imaging, I’d be the brightest red item in the whole building. Heat-seeking missiles would redirect their courses right toward me.
As Zane nods, stepping forward to toe off his shoes, I realize that he’s about to also be naked, and I stuff my face back into its place, trying to breathe at a normal human rate.
I’m hyperaware of every sound. The rustling as Zane removes his shirt. The clink of his belt buckle. The shuffle as he removes his shorts. What I never heard was the sound of the partition moving. Which means if I just tilt my head, I’ll get an eyeful of Zane undressing. Must not peek at Zane. Must not peek at Zane.
Closing my eyes makes it worse, because my other senses sharpen. I can smell him. There should really be a law regulating men’s body products. They all have to be using pheromones of some kind. That’s the only explanation I have for the strong compulsion I have to climb off this bed and plaster myself to Zane.
I’ve had crushes before. Little teensy, tiny pebbles, where this is a massive boulder rolling downhill, gathering speed as it goes.
I wish I had my phone. I need the phone-a-friend option. Some moral support or advice, most likely from Sam, definitely not Zoey, about how to get control of myself.
Falling for Your Best Friend's Twin: a Sweet Romantic Comedy (Love Clichés Romantic Comedy Series Book 1) Page 8