“Am I allowed to go?” Daniel asked hesitantly.
“I’m hardly going to shackle you in the wine cellar,” Maddie said, shrugging. “No matter how much Eve begs.”
“I wouldn’t!” I objected. Daniel’s eyebrows went up in surprise.
Maddie hummed and pursed her lips in that way that suggested she didn’t believe me, and I shouldn’t be trying so hard.
“Does somebody want to fill me in on what’s happening before Sienna gets off the phone, or are we waiting for her to join us?” Maddie asked inquisitively, looking between the two of us. My heart slammed against my chest in panic. Sienna was fiercely protective of her people and loyal, and honest, and she expected those things in return. If she found out I was crushing on her brother and making an utter fool of myself with him every time we met, she would be so disappointed and upset. I couldn’t risk that. The Golden Girls were the only thing in my life that was just as it was supposed to be, and I couldn’t risk shaking that harmony.
“Daniel was the one who spilled coffee on me,” I hurried to explain.
Maddie’s eyes flared with surprise. She looked at Daniel, and not in the dismissive way she looked at most people. She looked at him, up and down, her eyes narrowed in concentration.
“I don’t see it,” she said to me. Yeah, well, I didn’t see it either. It didn’t make sense why I was crushing on him. He was not even my type. He was tall and pretty and athletic. I was pretty sure there were visible abs under that shirt of his. Physically, he wasn’t anything like the men I preferred to date.
“Why are you glaring at my stomach?” Daniel asked, sounding not even a little creeped out, and a lot amused.
“What? No, I’m not.” I laughed maniacally, and looked away, swallowing roughly.
Maddie clapped her hands once. “Alright, Daniel, thanks for stopping by. I think it’s time for you to leave.”
Maddie took his arm and led him to the door. Daniel looked baffled at the idea of being kicked out.
“I’m not even surprised my sister has found the strangest friends,” he said, shaking his head. Maddie opened the door and pushed him out. Daniel turned around, his eyes snagging on mine.
“It was good to see you again?”
My eyelids fluttered, and I gave him a little smile.
“Was it, though?”
He shrugged. “At least we’re not in Utah. I didn’t spill anything on you, and you didn’t try to run me over. I think we’re improving at this strange relationship we have.”
With that, he turned around and climbed down the steps to the driveway where his car was parked. It was a good thing he had turned around because that way, he didn’t see the goofy smile on my face at hearing him call this weirdness between us a relationship. Maddie closed the door, and turned to me, shaking her head in disappointment.
“Oh, Evelyn.”
I groaned. “I know.”
Chapter 7 – Eve
“I don’t do manual labor,” Maddie announced. “I have never done it, and frankly, plumbing seems like a risky place to start.”
The girls were all here. Logan, Clarissa, Sienna, Stella, Rosemarie, Maddie, and I were crowded into my bathroom. Once Clarissa had learned that there was something wrong with my shower, she had taken it upon herself to save us the cost of hiring a plumber since she could easily figure out and repair the problem. At her declaration, Maddie had looked at her like Clarissa had spoken in one of the languages Maddie didn’t know.
“You must have called a plumber some time and supervised the work,” Clarissa said, from under the bathroom sink. She was turning off the main valve.
“Never! I assume Jean-Paul took care of such things,” Maddie replied.
“Who’s Jean-Paul?” Logan asked. She was sitting on the edge of the bathtub, her margarita glass in hand. That’s right, we were fixing plumbing while intoxicating. What could go wrong?
Logan was one of my favorite people and the one I ran to when I needed advice. She was sensible, smart, and always remained calm. She was also a marketing genius and therefore, did all the marketing for Sugar Bliss. I was also insanely jealous of her tattoos.
“Our butler,” Maddie said. Her tone of voice indicated that this should be common knowledge. At which, the rest of us looked at her like she was speaking a different language. While some of our families were well off, they were nowhere as wealthy as the Guillaume’s, and this was one of those moments when I truly realized my best friend was heiress to a business worth millions of dollars.
“What you’re saying is, you’re overdue for some manual labor?” Clarissa asked. She looked up at Maddie. Clarissa had knotted her red hair on top of her head, but wisps of it had escaped around her face. The two redheads stared at each other. I liked to think that Clarissa was more of a Jessica Chastain red, whereas Maddie was more Julianne Moore red.
“That is not at all what she’s saying, and you know it,” Stella said. Among the seven of us, she was the fun one. No one knew how she got that title, but she was always up, and down for things. Why be boring when you can be exciting? That was her motto.
“What happens if there’s a flood?” Rosemarie asked quietly. She was the youngest and quietest of us all. Logan had introduced her to us girls about six months ago when Rosemarie had started working for her. Still a little shy and wary, Rosie mostly stayed quiet.
“There won’t be a flood. I know what I’m doing,” Clarissa said. She moved to the shower, carrying the toolbox she had found in the garage. It took us thirty minutes to find the thing because when Clarissa had asked where we kept the toolbox, Maddie and I had looked at her blankly. Honestly, I could put together furniture and cabinets quite competently, but I had no clue how to use any of the tools in a toolbox. This was why I was paying close attention to everything Clarissa was doing.
“I’ve found three plumbers on Yelp with good ratings. If there’s a flood, we’ll call them,” Sienna supplied. I looked at her from the corner of my eyes. She was sitting next to Logan, her dark head bent over her phone.
From what I had learned about her over so many years of friendship, she was jaded. She was a pessimist who had a hard time trusting people. And there was I, sitting a few feet away from her, harboring a big secret. Well, it wasn’t a big secret. It was only as big as I made it out to be. The right thing to do would be to tell her so we could laugh about it. Because if I didn’t tell her? Then it would be a secret.
Now was the time to tell Sienna. Maybe her reaction wouldn’t be so bad with the other girls here.
“So, hey, weird coincidence,” I began, my voice squeaky. All the girls turned to look at me, including Clarissa who found me more interesting than taking apart the showerhead. I swallowed.
“You girls remember the guy who spilled coffee on me in Target?”
I had filled them in weeks ago when the incident happened. They had been howling with laughter, and now I got random texts asking if any hot guys had spilled coffee on me.
I glanced at Maddie, who raised an eyebrow as if to ask, ‘you’re going to do this now?’ I gave a small shrug. It had been her idea that I tell Sienna, and it was going to happen now.
“Yeah, what about him?” Clarissa asked. I looked at her quickly and looked away just as fast. The way she watched, it was like she was trying to see inside your skull and get all your secrets. Given that she was a therapist, she was very good at getting people to talk.
“It’s your brother?” I hadn’t meant for it to come out like a question.
“My brother?” Clarissa frowned. The girls were watching me with concern on their faces. It wouldn’t be entirely
“No,” I said, clearing my throat again. “Sienna’s brother.”
I hazarded a glance at her, just as her head popped up to look at me. Her eyes widened.
“Daniel? Daniel spilled coffee on you? How do you know?”
I looked at her nervously. She, like her brother, had dark brown hair and deep blue eyes. Looking at her now, I could see the fam
ily resemblance as clear as day. I was utterly stupid for not realizing it earlier.
This whole situation wouldn’t be a big deal if it weren’t for the mild flirting between Daniel and me.
“I saw him, earlier. When he came to drop you off. Imagine my surprise when a man I never expected to see again was in my living room,” I said, laughing nervously.
“He apologized to you, right?” Sienna asked. “And he wasn’t an ass?”
“No, of course not! He was very nice,” I said, a little too eagerly. Maddie coughed lightly, taking a big gulp of her soda water.
“Good,” Sienna said, almost cheerfully. “I mean, I knew he wouldn’t be an ass, but he’s been in Chicago far too long and who knows what kind of influence The Wicked Witch of the Mid-West was.”
“The Wicked Witch of the Mid-West?” I asked hesitantly.
“His ex-girlfriend,” Sienna explained, shuddering a little. “Horrible woman.”
“Oh.”
I tried to stir my brain away from this phantom image of his ex. Even then, my mind conjured up a tall, statuesque doctor, who was just as good-looking as he was, albeit with a horrible personality. Which was messed up of my mind because I was just as good-looking. I wasn’t a doctor and still, I was successful. Or I used to be. What mattered was that I had started my business and made it a success instead of letting it crash and burn. I was struggling now, that didn’t mean I wouldn’t find a way out of this creative block I was in. The point was, I was probably just as good as his ex was.
“Who wants more margaritas?” Clarissa asked. “I could sure use another one before I finish off here.”
Everyone, except for Maddie, raised their hands.
“I’ll make more,” Sienna said. “You girls go easy on the tequila. Is everyone getting a cab?”
“I’ve called a car service,” Maddie explained. “They will drop you off tonight and bring you back any time tomorrow to pick up your cars.”
“Do you need help?” Stella asked.
“Nah, I’ve got it. I’ll bring the jar up here.”
Sienna walked out of the bathroom and we heard the sound of her footsteps going down the hallway and tapering off. Everyone turned to look at me.
“Spill,” Stella demanded.
I choked a laugh. “Spill what?”
“You don’t expect us to believe the only thing that happened between you and Daniel was that he spilled coffee on you?” Clarissa said, her voice hushed. I blanched. This was a secret; I didn’t want to keep a secret from Sienna.
“Why would I hide anything?” I scoffed.
“Wait, was Daniel the one you were talking to that day in the coffee shop?” Rosemarie asked. I met her inquisitive blue eyes.
“Yes,” I said begrudgingly.
“Do you like him?” Stella asked, her voice a scandalized whisper.
The million-dollar question. Did I like Daniel? I didn’t know him enough to like him. Still, parts of me tingled and awakened each time we met. And each time, I wanted to know more while wanting to fight whatever magnetic pull I felt towards him.
“I can’t. I don’t even know him.”
Logan shrugged and pushed her long, dark hair over her shoulder. “I like Chris Evans, and I don’t know him.”
I looked at her and her flawed logic. She crossed her tattooed arms and raised an eyebrow like she knew her logic was flawed and was daring me to defy it. I wasn’t like her. She was a fearless wonder woman and I was just a wonder woman, with all the fear. I couldn’t easily admit to liking a man who was not even my type, who had seen me in various stages of disrobe, and who probably thought I was crazy and obsessed with cupcakes.
I was hoping that I would have the chance to talk to Logan alone. She would be the voice of reason, or she would have been before she started talking about me liking Daniel. She had always supported me, almost since the moment we met when I was nineteen, and she was twenty-one. Without her, my business wouldn’t be half as successful as it was today.
“I don’t see what the big appeal is,” Maddie said.
“Maddie, you can meet Adonis and still find flaws in him,” Clarissa said. “Which is why I love you.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Maddie replied.
“I can’t like Daniel,” I said, a little louder this time. We all quieted, straining our ears to listen for Sienna. I felt an ugly, oily feeling in my gut because I was essentially hiding this thing from Sienna. “I didn’t even bother to ask his name the first five times we met because I thought I would never have to know. He was just a stranger. Oh, god, I’m so stupid. I am the girl who gets killed in the first fifteen minutes of a horror movie.”
“Yes, you are,” Maddie agreed.
“Thanks,” I said dryly.
“Eve,” Logan said. The heaviness in her voice sucked the levity out of the room. “Be careful, or don’t. I don’t know what you want. Look, Daniel is a nice guy, there’s no doubt about that. You’re also completely different people and if you get into a relationship, it could be messy.”
“All relationships are messy,” Clarissa said. “How different could they be?”
“Well, for one thing, our Eve likes to play it safe. Daniel does everything but that. He’s an adventurer, an adrenaline junkie. Sienna told me that one year in college, Daniel did that running of the bulls in Spain.”
My mouth dropped open. I was familiar with the running of the bulls, only because of its notoriety. I had never seen it because of how violent it was. It seemed suitable for who had a death wish.
“Are you serious?” Stella said. “That’s crazy!”
“It may be, but Daniel likes that kind of thing. He’s been skydiving, bungee jumping, mountain climbing, paragliding, and on and on,” Logan said.
I leaned back against the sink, feeling numb. I tried to fit everything Logan said to Daniel, the one I kept running into, and it almost didn’t fit. Part of it was because I didn’t know him well enough. The rest of it was just my heart rejecting the idea that the man it had grown to like didn’t fit the image of my perfect man. Logan was right, if I got involved with Daniel, which wasn’t an option—it wasn’t—then we would just end up getting hurt.
I felt Maddie’s hand on my arm as Sienna’s footsteps came up the stairs and down the hall. All of us pasted on bland expressions like we weren’t just talking about her brother and his notorious hobbies which would make some people think he had a death wish.
“What’re we talking about? I heard excited voices,” she said.
My eyes met Logan’s, and the pained look in her eyes said she wasn’t comfortable keeping this from Sienna. It was my decision whether I wanted to tell her the whole truth, or not. The good thing about being raised by lawyers is you learn to look for loopholes. Technically, nothing had happened between Daniel and me, and I had told her what she needed to know.
“We were just talking about crushes,” I blurted. Why did I say that? Darn my guilty conscience.
“Just yesterday, Clarissa developed a crush on a barista,” Logan said, coming to my rescue.
“I am telling you he’s been flirting with me for weeks,” Clarissa said defensively.
“He’s nineteen, of course, he’s flirting with the hot woman who comes in every day to buy two cups of coffee that she intends to drink herself,” Logan replied.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had a crush,” Maddie said thoughtfully. We all turned to look at her.
“Oh, honey, you have no idea what you’re missing out on,” Stella said.
“The rush of excitement when he walks by,” Rosie supplied.
“The fullness in your chest when he speaks to you for the first time,” Clarissa added.
“Dreaming up the perfect way the two of you fit together,” I said.
“And then the inevitable realization that he’s married, gay, in a relationship, or a real asshole,” Logan finished.
“Sounds lovely,” Maddie said sardonically. “Can’t wait to try it.”
&n
bsp; “I always thought there was something between you and Jack,” Rosie said. Ah, the British best friend. I was shaking my head before Rosie had finished talking. I couldn’t see the two of them together.
“Jack and I are too different and too alike in all the right ways to have a great friendship and a terrible romantic relationship,” Maddie said, a soft smile on her face.
“What about Jack’s brother? Doesn’t he live here?” I asked.
Maddie choked on her water. “Luc? I would rather become a vegan and give up bathing.”
“I am intrigued,” Clarissa said, looking around the glass door of the shower. She was almost done with whatever it was she was doing, and she didn’t even need us for help. I had missed a prime opportunity to learn a life hack. “Tell us all about this Luc person.”
“He’s insufferable,” Maddie said in a clipped tone.
“Sienna, tell us about the Library Guy from college,” Logan said.
Sienna stopped in the middle of filling Stella’s glass and looked up.
“Picture this, UCSD campus library, 2013…”
We stood there, listening to Sienna’s story and laughing along at the right moments. At that moment, it was so easy for me to forget about everything outside this house. These girls were more important to me than anything else in my life. I would get over this ridiculous crush I had on Daniel because there was no way I was losing this dream team.
Chapter 8 – Daniel
The one thing I truly enjoyed about being back in California was being able to surf again. I had missed the heat of the sun and the bite of the water. The utter concentration that surfing required, so I had to turn off all other thoughts. And the thrill that came from riding that perfect wave. My morning surf session was the one time when I put everything out of my mind. It was my form of meditation.
Until Eve Darling.
Before she decided to jam outposts in my head so that all I was able to think about was her. The harder she tried to take over my mind, the harder I tried to put her out of it. I wasn’t used to this singular need to know someone. I was always able to compartmentalize, and the fact that I couldn’t with her was pissing me off. Nothing helped, not even my adventures. She was an addiction I had given into without knowing its effects and now she was haunting me.
Not My Type : Golden Girls 1 Page 6