Reft

by Libby Austin

  Me: I didn’t mean to say you taking your clothes off is appealing. It isn’t.

  Then, as if I hadn’t inserted my foot far enough in my mouth, I decided to continue until I had swallowed enough I could kick myself in the ass with it.

  Me: Not that I’ve thought about you taking your clothes off. I’m sure plenty of guys have. Maybe even a few girls. So don’t take it personally that I don’t think of you that way.

  As I was typing further proof of my stupidity, a text from Layna popped up.

  Layna: You should stop typing now. It would be in your best interest. I’ll see you at 5:30.

  In spite of the fact that this was not a date, I made sure I was at Layna’s door at 5:29. I didn’t know how to describe the feelings coursing through me. They varied from nervousness, excitement, trepidation, anticipation, and a few others I couldn’t name and didn’t want to acknowledge.

  I rang the doorbell once and waited. After the threats Layna had previously issued over the abuse of her doorbell, I’d learned my lesson. Not to mention her warning about making her angry, which brought graphic thoughts of her clothes slowly ripping at the seams, revealing more soft, smooth skin. My heart was pounding so hard that I was sure Layna could see it when she opened the door. Undoubtedly my face was flaming red as my eyes met hers.

  She smiled and said, “Right on time. Let me grab my bag.”

  My eyes followed her as she backed up a couple of steps to pick up the now familiar purse, dropping it over her head, and adjusting the strap to lay perfectly framed in cleavage while she turned back toward me.

  Why was I fascinated with the way that damn strap laid? It’s not like Layna’s breasts were popping out of her shirt or anything. Her shirt wasn’t even that tight or low cut. It was a plain turquoise-colored T-shirt. No sparkly designs or anything. But it did hug her curves. And, man, did Layna have some curves. As my eyes continued to skim down her body, I noticed the stretchy pants looked similar to the cotton material of her shirt. My perusal didn’t take very long and my eyes met hers within moments, but I blushed even more when she called me out.

  “It’s the one time I can get away with wearing lounge pants outside the house. And since I’m still not sure what you have planned, it seemed best not to be wearing a dress,” she said with a slight shrug. Thankfully, she didn’t mention any of my awkward observations.

  “You look great.” I spoke the truth. She looked beautiful, and the pale blush that dusted her cheeks only heightened her appeal. “I mean, you’re dressed perfectly for what I have planned. And I promise, no extreme sports are on the agenda.”

  “All right, let’s get this show on the road. We don’t want to be late for whatever it is you have planned.”

  I stepped back and she closed the door, then we made our way to the elevator without saying anything else.

  Once inside, Layna asked, “What are we doing?”

  Her question put me on the spot and I sort of panicked. What did she mean what were we doing? We were being friends, just like we had discussed. This was just two friends getting out of the house for a night. What did she think this was? Wait … Did this mean Layna was attracted to me, too? Shit! Not too, because I’m not attracted to her in that way. I needed to shut this down.

  “Uhh, just two friends having a night out, that’s all, like I said before.” I stumbled over the words, barely able to get them out without becoming tongue-tied.

  Layna held up a hand in a stop motion and laughed. “Slow down, Romeo. I was just asking what are our plans tonight, not what your intentions are for long-term relationship compatibility.”

  Oh, God, I was such an idiot. Why couldn’t I stop acting like a teenager with no clue how to act around a girl when I was near her? I take that back. I had been a lot smoother when I was a teenager, back before I realized how much my actions affected more than just me.

  I tried to laugh off my erroneous assumption and filled her in on part of tonight’s plans. “First, we’re having dinner at the Savory Shroom, and then … Well, I can’t tell you that part yet because it’s a surprise.”

  Layna’s nose scrunched up in disgust, and my heart sank. “Please tell me that this place serves something besides fungus,” she requested, and I laughed in relief that she was only turning her nose up at the name.

  “It’s just the name of a local pizza place. They serve all kinds of pizza. I’ll admit that some of them are pretty weird, but for the most part, the food is really good.”

  Her face relaxed. “Oh, good. I was worried there for a second.”

  “I think you were more than worried,” I observed with a laugh as we exited the elevator and made our way over to the door to the garage that housed my Jeep. The parking in the building was a unique feature. Each tenant could access their garages from inside the building or outside. Three sides of the bottom floor of the outside of the building were garage doors that the tenants accessed through a gate with remote access. You didn’t get through that gate unless you had a remote or your name was on a list. I pushed the button to open the internal garage door and teased her, “You looked like you were about to throw up at just the mention of the name.”

  “I did not,” she argued back playfully. “There are just certain foods I don’t eat.”

  I chuckled as I slid her crutches into the back seat and helped her into the Jeep’s passenger seat. Pushing the button on the remote hanging from my keychain again, the external garage door began to open, then I pushed the button to close the internal door. I didn’t like being in the garage with both doors closed. It was too confining.

  Climbing in and starting the Jeep, I made sure to check the mirrors outside the garage for any oncoming cars. Everything was clear, so I backed out and we embarked on our non-date friendly excursion.

  In an effort to keep the mood light, I brought up her foods to avoid. “So you don’t eat squid, eel, or fungus. What else is on this strange food boycott list of yours?”

  Layna harrumphed, causing me to grin. “I wouldn’t call it strange. It’s just things I don’t like. But, to answer your question, the boycott list is: yogurt, anything that resembles what it looked like when it was alive, most pickled anything, except pickles and green olives, no black olives, beets, raw carrots, nothing diet, pears, crunchy peanut butter—”

  “What’s wrong with crunchy peanut butter?” I quirked an eyebrow.

  “Butter of any kind should be smooth, not chunky,” Layna replied seriously.

  “But it’s not real butter,” I argued, laughing at her logic.

  “But it has butter in the name; therefore, it should be smooth. Chunky butter is not a good thing.”

  “What about when it’s called peanut spread?” I challenged.

  “Peanut butter by any other name is still peanut butter.”

  “You seriously just ripped off Shakespeare in defense of your smooth peanut butter stance?” Thankfully we were stopped at a red light, because I turned to stare at her just in time to see her shrug.

  “When it applies, it applies, peanut butter or not.” She looked over at me and smiled, my heart did that strange flippy-thing again, and I lost my train of thought when her tongue ran along her lips to moisten them. Her eyes glanced right and then back to mine. When she spoke, I was afraid she would mention my staring, which now centered on her lips, but she didn’t. “The light’s green.”

  “Oh, sorry, I was just shocked by your peanut butter ideals.” I focused my attention on driving and getting our conversation back to lighthearted. Layna didn’t seem to share my issue with wayward thoughts.

  “Come on. There has to be something you don’t eat just because the thought squeams you out.”

  “Squeams me out?” I asked. Having never heard the word before, I wasn’t sure what it meant.

  “Grosses you out. Makes you squeamish. It squeams you out,” she explained.

  “I’ve never heard that word before.”

  “It’s a word. Look it up on Urban Dictionary.”

>   “I’ll have to do that. But, to answer your question, I don’t like peas.”

  “Any kind of peas, like black-eyed peas or green peas?”

  “Just green peas. I won’t eat them in anything. Can’t even stand the thought of them on my plate.”

  “So no chicken pot pie for you.”

  “Not if it has peas in it.”

  “What do you with fried rice at a restaurant?”

  “I don’t eat it. Unfortunately, I’ve never found one in the US that makes it without peas.” Which was very disappointing because it looked very tasty.

  I pulled into the parking lot of the Savory Shroom and went around to help Layna out. Extending my hand, I joked, “At your service, madam.”

  Layna laughed at my silliness. “Aww, look at you busting out the manners.”

  “What can I say? You bring out the best in me.”

  We made our way into one of the best pizza places around. As we looked over the menu, Layna playfully threatened to put peas on the pizza so she wouldn’t have to share, leading me to issue a counter threat of anchovies. I’d never eaten an anchovy in my life, but it was fun to kid around and just relax without stumbling over everything I said or did around her.

  After dinner, I drove us around the corner of the strip mall. As I parked, Layna asked why we drove when we could have walked.

  “I may not have the most polished manners, but even I wouldn’t be so thoughtless as to make you walk that far on crutches. Plus, it will be late when we finish up, so having the Jeep right here will be convenient.” Even though Layna didn’t know me that well and I’d had a few rough moments in her presence, I hoped she thought a little better of me than that since we’d started hanging out.

  “Doctor’s appointment in two days. I’m hoping they’ll switch me to a boot or at least a walking cast. Then there’ll be no slowing me down.” Her enthusiasm, as she bounced in her seat at the thought of being free of the cast, should have been infectious, but it left me feeling a bit saddened; she probably wouldn’t be hanging out with me as much anymore when she had the opportunity to go out doing the normal stuff people our age did. At that thought, I realized I didn’t know how old Layna was; I’d just assumed she was close to my age.

  Without thinking, I blurted out the question. “How old are you?”

  Layna stopped bouncing and gave me an ‘I can’t believe you asked that’ look.

  “What?” I asked as I tried to decipher what was wrong with my question.

  “You never ask a woman her age, unless you’re a waiter carding her for alcohol, and then you always ask, even if she looks like the crypt keeper.”

  I held my hands up in surrender. “Sorry, it was just a question. I realized I didn’t really know that much about you.”

  “So you decided to ask how old I am,” she said it like it was a completely implausible place to begin a conversation. I didn’t see what was so wrong with it. I wouldn’t walk up to some random girl in a bar and ask her how old she was, but then again, I’d never walked up to a random girl in a bar, so what did I know?

  “It was the first question that came to mind, so I asked. I wouldn’t be upset if you asked how old I am.” On that note, I got out of the Jeep and walked around to her side to open the door and help her.

  When I opened the door and extended my hand, she asked, “So, how old are you?”

  If I kept hanging around her, I was going to need to get checked for whiplash. Seeing as how she gave me such a hard time, I decided to return the favor. “What, you didn’t Google me?” I was being sarcastic, but the guilty look that flashed across her face made it obvious. “What? You’ve been looking me up?”

  “No, not like that,” she vehemently denied my assertion. “I looked up the band when your mom offered to let me stay in the condo across the hall from her son, who was about my age, as she put it. She mentioned it because you don’t use your real last name and she didn’t want it to come as a shock to me or have me flip out and go all psycho-fan on you or something when I put two and two together.

  “I read your official bio on the band’s website, which doesn’t list your age. Figured it was fair to ask you since you asked me.”

  Sometimes I wondered if my mom had told Layna more than Layna let on, but my mom was as protective over our privacy as I was, so it didn’t seem likely she would overconfide in a friend’s daughter. I could call my mom and ask; however, that would be like hanging a sign around my neck that read ‘Open Season.’

  “I’m twenty-nine. I’ll be thirty on February 28th. Now, we better get inside before we miss the start time.” I gestured to the studio in front of us.

  “Throw,” Layna read aloud, “Paint and Clay Arts Studio.” She began making her way to the door as she asked, “Which one are we doing?”

  “We’re going to be painting,” I answered as I caught up to her and opened the studio door.

  She smiled at me then made her way inside as I held the door. “This should be fun. I’ve never done this before. Have you?”

  “Umm, no, I’ve never done this before. I used to paint, but I’ve never been to this kind of place.”

  “Why’d—”

  “Hi. Do y’all have a reservation?” A lady wearing a painter’s smock and sporting hair in a wide array of colors asked as she walked to the front desk. I’d met plenty of people with some crazy hairstyles, but I didn’t think I had ever seen one quite this colorful.

  “Yes, for Brandon and Layna,” I answered for the both of us.

  “I’ve got y’all right here. You prepaid, so you’re all set. Select a smock from the wall, and help yourself to some refreshments if you didn’t bring your own. Everything else you need will be at the station. Have either of you been with us before?”

  “No,” we both answered.

  “Well, don’t sweat it. There is no wrong way to paint. Just express yourself and do what comes naturally. Now, go get yourselves settled in.” With that, she left us standing there as she moved on, preparing stuff for tonight’s class, I assumed.

  “My advice is if she’s serving brownies, we should skip them,” Layna said in a low voice as she leaned closer to me.

  I’d done my best to keep a good foot of space between us most of the night. When she leaned back, I caught her unique scent and I was once again trying to get ahold of myself to make an intelligible reply to her observation. “Umm, why shouldn’t we eat the brownies?”

  “Because hippy-dippy Rainbow Bright may have added something a little extra to them.” Oh, that’s what she meant. “Come on, let’s get our stuff and sit down. We don’t want to get sent to painter’s detention during our first class.”

  She walked back to the wall lined with painter’s smocks. By the time I followed, Layna already had hers on and was looking over the available stations. Even though she’d joked about the teacher, she picked seats close to the front. Since it was a weeknight, the class wasn’t very big. There were only six of us.

  Once we were seated, Layna said, “How much do I owe you?”

  “Owe me?” I repeated.

  “Yeah, for the class. How much was it?”

  “Don’t worry about it. I invited you so I wouldn’t have to come alone.” Okay, that part wasn’t true, but there was no way I was letting her pay for something I invited her to do.

  Layna was about to argue with me, but she was cut off when Rainbow Bright—shit, now she had me calling the woman by the stupid name—started explaining the painting we would be working on and the techniques we would be using.

  As I had noticed before, Layna took her artistic efforts seriously over the next couple of hours. We made idle chitchat but nothing too deep. Unfortunately, Layna’s endeavor at painting was marginally better than her musical talent.

  “Mine looks like an inkblot test,” Layna made her observation out loud as we were cleaning up our stations.

  “It’s not bad. It’s just … ,” I searched for the right word, “abstract.” I’m not an overly positive
person, obviously, but I hated when someone was put down for trying something new. I never wanted to be the one who discouraged someone from doing what they enjoyed just because I thought they weren’t naturally gifted.

  I once again received one of Layna’s looks, as I was beginning to think of them. “You don’t have to humor me. I’m not going to fall apart at my lack of artistic talent. Yours is really good,” she said, pointing to my painting of the sun setting over a bay.

  Her compliment made me feel good. “Thanks. It’s been a while since I’ve painted.”

  “Why’d you stop?”

  I shrugged. “Life got busy, I guess. It’s not easy to lug around a bunch of art supplies when we’re on the road.” I began to make my way down the aisle toward the door.

  “You aren’t going to take your painting?” she asked. I stopped and turned around to look at her. Layna had her painting in her hand, being careful not to touch the wet paint while she held on to her crutches.

  “Well, no. It’s not even a good painting, technically speaking. I just did it for fun,” I explained.

  “Who cares if it’s not ‘technically’ a good painting? It’s pretty and you made it. That’s all that should matter.”

  We stood there facing each other. I didn’t know what to say. My art was just something I did in the moment. I didn’t want to go back and examine it later on and try to read into what the reasons behind what I painted were, even if it was a painting I painted in a random hobby class. I didn’t know how to explain that to her, though.

  “Well, can I keep it since you don’t want it?” she asked, and I felt relieved that we could drop the subject.

  “Sure. It’s all yours,” I readily agreed and turned to make my way to the door.

  “I sort of need some help here,” Layna called from behind me.

  Shit! I’d been doing my damnedest to be more considerate, and I dropped the ball because she asked about some stupid painting.

  “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking about you not being able to carry them.”

  “It’s okay. I like that you don’t treat me as helpless. But it’s also good for me to ask for help when I need it. I can be a bit stubborn at times.”