Not My Type : Golden Girls 1

by Veronica Adler

  I didn’t know what to do with her, or why I couldn’t put her out of my mind. In each of my past relationships there had been an understanding that we were devoted to our work, and it would always come first. None of exes had ever had time for much of anything else. My ex, Cecily, wouldn’t even leave the house unless she was properly put together, every hair in place. She wouldn’t be caught dead with melted chocolate and flour in her hair. It was what had drawn me to her at first. Cecily was robotic on most days; there was nothing beyond her need to get ahead.

  For three long years, that had worked. It had worked wonderfully because it was exactly what I had needed. It was what I had needed until four months ago, when all those old feelings of emptiness, and this need to be reckless just to see what would happen, came back. Cecily was never going to change, and I wanted to. I wanted to see what would happen if I just let go.

  Maybe that’s why I couldn’t stop thinking about Eve, and why none of my distraction techniques were working.

  Eve was… She was sunshine, and rain, and waking up on Christmas morning to see you had gotten everything you wished for and more. She was all the best, fun things wrapped in one. I’d moved back to California, and the first amazing thing that happened to me was Eve Darling. A woman who was not only the kind of woman I would never date, she was also a close friend of my sister’s.

  And yet. My dreams were full of this beautiful, enchanting woman who smelled like orange blossoms and cupcakes. A scent I found insanely intoxicating.

  Water sluiced over me as I lost my balance on the board, and crashed into the water. For a moment, everything was cold and quiet. One breathless moment where I sank. Then my lungs protested, and I pushed upwards, breaking through the water. I pulled my board under me, and straddled it, looking towards the horizon where the sun was just starting to rise.

  This was meditation. I pushed my hair back and breathed deeply. The air smelled like salt and sand. The scent of my childhood. My father had us out on the water as soon as we learned to walk.

  I sat there for longer than I realized. I was lost in the sounds of seagulls, laughter from the other surfers, the gentle bobbing of the waves. When was the last time I had experienced something so peaceful? Most days I was so hyped up, it took a good hour or more to fall asleep when I got into bed.

  I finally got out of the water when more people started showing up on the beach. Back at my car, I strapped the surfboard to the carrier on top and stripped off my wetsuit so I was left in my swim trunks. I was just drying off with a towel when my eyes fell on a car not too far off. It was parked facing the beach and someone—a woman—was sitting on the hood. There was nothing unusual about that. Except I was pretty sure I had seen that hunter-green Mini Cooper before.

  I donned a t-shirt and shut the back door of my car, walking over to her. She was dressed in all black, hair piled high in a bun, her legs pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. Her chin rested on her knee and her gaze locked on the horizon. At least she was fully dressed this time. She had accidentally exposed herself twice and that was just embarrassing for both of us. The last time, it had taken a fuck ton of self-control to not look down when her robe had practically fallen open. The image was seared in my brain.

  I came to a stop next to her car, something like hope or excitement bubbling up inside me. The feelings were so unfamiliar, I wasn’t even sure I felt them. It could be just that I wished I felt them.

  “Eve?”

  Startled, she turned to look at me, her eyes wide with fear. She placed a hand on her chest, releasing a loud breath and closing her eyes. She shook her head, deflating slightly.

  “Oh, it’s you,” she said blandly.

  “No need to get so excited.”

  “Remind me again why I don’t think you’re stalking me?” She asked. She shifted over a little, opening up more space on the hood of her car. Did she…want me to sit down?

  “I come to this beach every day. Are you stalking me?”

  “Yes. I had Sienna share your entire schedule with me so I could sneak up on you when you least expect it,” she said, laying on the sarcasm. There was something off about her. She didn’t sound like her normal, erratic self. Not that she was a clown or a comedian. She just sounded different today.

  When she lifted a large travel mug to her mouth and took a hearty sip, I thought I knew what was wrong with her.

  “Are you drunk?” I asked. I walked around the hood of the car to stand in front of her. She lowered the mug.

  “It’s 7:00 am. So, yes. Want some?”

  She offered me the mug and I looked between it and her, wondering what was going on.

  “I’m kidding,” she said, cracking a smile. “About sharing with you.”

  I crossed my arms and gave her a stop bullshitting me look that had worked so well with my sisters.

  “And about the alcohol,” she said sullenly, rolling her eyes. “It’s just coffee in here, I promise.”

  She offered me the mug again and this time I took it, for purely scientific reasons. I kept my eyes locked on hers as I took a small sip, tasting nothing but good Italian roast coffee. When I lowered the mug, her eyes remained locked on mine. They were the color of chocolate and while I had never liked brown eyes, there was something in her eyes that made it impossible to look away. Color bloomed across her cheeks and she looked down, taking the mug from me.

  I cleared my throat. “That’s a really good coffee.”

  I winced inwardly. It sounded so lame, but it was the only thing I could think of to say.

  “Uh, yeah, thanks. Maddie orders it especially for me. Her family knows the family that owns the coffee company.”

  “How do you become friends with a movie star?” I asked. “Where would you even meet one? I grew up in LA, and I haven’t met a single one yet.”

  Eve smiled widely. “I didn’t meet Maddie in Los Angeles. Or as she calls it, City of Undead. We met in Paris. I was eighteen and won a baking competition that gave me the chance to spend a summer there learning from Phillipe Guillaume.”

  Eve said the famous pastry chef and chocolatier’s name reverently. This man was a god to her. I could see it in the way her eyes lit up.

  “He’s the best. Seriously. I know it’s gross, but I had the biggest crush on him. Anyway, there were about five of us in the group and I was the youngest. The sessions were held in the first-ever Guillaume Chocolate shop and Maddie used to hang out there all the time with her best friend, Jack. He was the first one to talk to me because I looked lonely. The next thing I knew, I was hanging out with Madelaine Guillaume in her family’s maison watching reruns of the Golden Girls. Now, it feels like she’s always been a part of my life.”

  “Hey, if my idol had a kid my age, I would friend them,” I said, shrugging.

  “That’s not what it was! I can’t pretend to be friendly with someone and live with them for as long as I have with Maddie. We may be different, but something about us just fits. Just like it does with the rest of the Golden Girls.”

  The mention of her Golden Girls made my smile vanish. For a moment, I had forgotten that she was my sister’s friend. That Sienna would disown me for even entertaining the thought of…Eve, just Eve. I needed to get out of here but I was stuck to my spot like my feet had grown roots.

  “So…why do you come here every day?” She asked. A light breeze blew the strands of her hair across her face and she pushed them back.

  “I come here to surf.”

  She made a noise of distaste that caused me to smile.

  “Not a fan of surfing?”

  “I didn’t say anything,” she said, blinking innocently.

  “Uh-huh,” I said dryly. “And what are you doing here?”

  Eve sighed dejectedly. “I am waiting.”

  “For someone?”

  I looked around, searching for someone who looked like they belonged with her. For some explicable reason, I wondered what kind of man she would go for. Fuck, I knew exactly wh
y I was thinking that. I wanted her to go for me. For one shining moment, I wanted to forget that she was my sister’s friend and that she wasn’t my type. I wanted to pretend all of that didn’t exist.

  “For something,” Eve clarified.

  “A seagull?”

  “An epiphany.”

  I opened my mouth to reply and closed it, shaking my head.

  “I’m lost.”

  Eve chewed on her lip, looking past me to the ocean and beyond. And I realized what was off about her. She was sad. I didn’t know how I knew because I didn’t know her. Yet, I was certain that something was making Eve sad.

  “I don’t want to bore you with the details,” she said, looking at me again. “I’m sure you’ve got places to be.”

  I shrugged, taking a seat next to her on the hood of her car.

  “It’s one of my two days off. I’ve got nowhere to go and nothing planned. It’s the best feeling in the world.”

  Eve smiled again. It may have been a trick of the light but her eyes seemed lighter. More milk chocolate than dark chocolate. She took a deep breath and followed it with a drink of coffee. For one breathless moment, her mouth was pressed to the very place mine had been just minutes before. I groaned silently for being such a sappy fucking idiot. She didn’t need that and neither did I.

  Eve took another deep breath and began talking.

  Chapter 9 – Daniel

  “You know in movies how the main characters go on this self-healing trip just before you hit the climax?” Eve said. “They’re searching for answers. Like, what does it all mean? Can I love again? Can I trust him even though he did something shady? What’s going to happen to my business? I need answers and ideas. An epiphany.”

  “More often than not, they end up at this beautiful spot, be it the beach or just driving down a scenic highway or hiking through a forest. It’s just them and their thoughts and nature. They ask questions and nature answers. The next thing you know, they make it back to their home town with this brilliant idea that’s going to save everything. They’ve found themselves, damn it. Everything has to work out. And it does. The people are saved, the town is saved, and what do you know, they can trust the guy because turns out, he didn’t do that shady thing.”

  “Ergo, I’m waiting for my epiphany,” Eve declared, waving her hand in a broad gesture towards the beach and ocean.

  She looked up at me in askance, eyes wide. We were sitting close enough that our shoulders brushed against each other and I could see the freckles along her right cheekbone. Her skin was smooth, clear and she wore no make-up.

  “Eve, I don’t know how to tell you this but life is not like the movies. I mean, movies are written by people and life is…well, that depends on your beliefs, doesn’t it?” I said.

  “I know life isn’t like the movies, Daniel. But wouldn’t it be awesome if it was and everything worked out in the end?”

  “Sure. Then again, the fact it’s unpredictable and isn’t over in ninety minutes is what makes life so fun.”

  Eve scowled at the ocean. Whatever was going on with her, I was not helping. And I knew it wasn’t my responsibility to help, to make things better for her. She could do that herself. I couldn’t leave her here like this.

  “Why don’t you tell me what has you seeking this epiphany?” I asked. “If you want to, that is.”

  Eve looked at me from the corner of her eye and debated something. Her feet tapped an unknown rhythm. She shook her head and leaned back a little, pulling her phone out of the pocket of her sweats. She unlocked it, pressed a few more things, and handed it to me.

  I took her phone and looked down at the screen. She had opened up the browser to some blogpost. The title very dramatically read ‘Sugar Bliss or Sugar Blah?’. I looked up at her. Sugar Bliss was the name of her bakery—I’d done my research. From the almost-about-to-cry look on her face, I knew what I was about to read had hit her hard. Without wasting another minute, I read the post.

  Alright, folks. I’ve heard your requests and finally decided to try out Sugar Bliss. For those of you who don’t know or are new to my blog, Sugar Bliss is owned by Evelyn Darling, the so-called Cupcake Queen of San Diego. Darling has been on the baking scene since she was fourteen, has won numerous awards and competitions. She even spent a summer learning with chocolatier and pastry chef, Phillipe Guillaume.

  You would think all those things make Sugar Bliss the spot to hit when you’re craving baked goods or planning a big event. I’m here to tell you to save your money or better yet, go to a bakery owned by someone talented.

  Jesus Christ. I looked up at Eve to check that she wanted me to continue reading this. I imagined she didn’t want anyone to see this trash. She swallowed and nodded.

  “Keep reading. It gets better.”

  Her words dripped sarcasm. I hated to think how this faceless person, who’s probably never baked a thing in her life, managed to shred Eve’s confidence to ribbons.

  I continued reading. Leslie A. Roth went on to explain how she had tried Eve’s famous cupcakes and found them wanting. They were bland, the look was mediocre and Eve had failed at trying to make an old thing new again. Then she went on to explain that Eve was best friends with actress Madelaine Guillaume and all her father would have to do was place a call to Home & Garden magazine to have the actress’s BFF, aka Eve, to be featured in it.

  Basically, she was saying that Eve was talentless and she had bought the spread in the magazine as a publicity stunt.

  The article went on and on but I’d read enough. I handed the phone back to Eve.

  “This is the opinion of one person,” I said.

  “One person who has millions of followers,” Eve said bitterly.

  “I can start a cult tomorrow and get millions of followers within a month. There is no shortage of crazy people in this world.”

  Eve released a choked laugh. “You have never even tried one of my cupcakes.”

  Sure, but my family raved about them. Sienna always had a few in her fridge. A few years ago, Emily had insisted that if I was planning a trip to LA, we had to drive out here just for Eve’s cupcakes. My family was notorious for being way too specific about the things we liked and they liked Eve’s cupcakes.

  “I bet you don’t even eat cupcakes,” Eve accused.

  “Why would you say that?”

  She waved her hand up and down my body.

  “What is this?” I asked, repeating her gesture.

  “This is zero body fat,” she explained. “Which isn’t to say that only big people eat cupcakes. It’s just that people like you rarely do.”

  “Eve, how dare you? You’re being racist against physically fit people. You’re a fitist.”

  She threw her head back and laughed. A surge of something like pleasure ran through me, all because I had made her laugh. I felt as if I was sixteen again and had a crush on the prettiest girl in high school.

  “Stop, that’s not what I meant,” Eve said. “What I was trying to say was you don’t get a body like yours by eating cupcakes.”

  “Eve, have you been checking out my body?” I teased. A soft blush rose across her cheeks and down to her neck. She turned her head to look ahead.

  “Pfft, no. That’s ridiculous. You’re the guy who spilled coffee on my favorite dress. You’re Sienna’s brother. You,” she said firmly. “Are not even my type.”

  She said the last bit attempting to take a jab at me and I was ashamed to say that it worked. Was I disappointed that I wasn’t her type when I had been thinking the same thing an hour ago? Of course, I was because I was a hypocrite. I almost opened my mouth to ask her why she thought I wasn’t her type, so I could fit myself into the mold of the person she wanted. Experience dictated that it would never work and end up hurting us both.

  I decided to go with the truth.

  “Well, that works out perfectly because you are not my type, either.”

  Eve’s eyes cut to mine, some unfathomable emotion in their depths before she lo
oked away again.

  “Good.”

  “Great.”

  An awkward silence descended between us, punctured only by the cries of seagulls and surfers. I wondered how we got here. One minute we were talking about cupcakes and the next, we were sitting next to each other like strangers on a train, the silence between us so thick it could be sliced with a knife.

  I could get up and leave. I shouldn’t have even walked over here in the first place. If Eve was sitting out here alone, waiting for her epiphany, then she had clearly wanted to be alone. I willed my legs to move but they stayed rooted to the ground. Eve, to her credit, wasn’t moving either or telling me to leave her alone. I saw that as a sign of hope.

  We may not be each other’s types. Who the fuck says we had to be? Even if we were, there’s the matter of her being my sister’s friend. If she was Emily’s friend, I could have maybe gotten away with dating her. Sienna was a lot harder to handle. It didn’t matter either way, though. All Eve and I were going to be was friends. My best friend still lived in Los Angeles and I needed more of them.

  I turned to her at the same time she turned to me, our mouths open and ready to talk. We closed our mouths and Eve gave me a tentative smile.

  “Go ahead,” she said.

  I rubbed my palms on my shorts.

  “I was just going to say, don’t worry about this Leslie A. Roth. You can prove her wrong. You’re still the Cupcake Queen.”

  She flinched a little. I realized that she had done the same thing the first time we’d met and I had called her the Cupcake Queen.

  “You don’t like your title?” I guessed.

  Eve hugged her knees to her chest and rested her cheek on top, turning her head to look at me.

  “It’s not that I don’t like it. I don’t like its side effects,” she said slowly.

  “Fame? Some random blogger is so jealous of you she has to bring you down so publicly?”