Not My Type : Golden Girls 1

  “Our hands fit together perfectly,” I mumbled absent-mindedly. I remembered an ex-boyfriend who had said that I didn’t have soft hands as a woman should. After years of beating on dough and rolling our fondant, my hands weren’t delicate and soft.

  I looked up at Daniel and found his mouth twisted up into a smile, his eyes soft. I wondered at my ability to feel so at ease with him. I knew I used my mother’s broken relationship as a crutch to avoid romantic entanglements and over the years the idea of falling in love just gave me anxiety. I felt very little of that around Daniel. The anxiety wasn’t as crushing as it used to be. Either I was getting over it or it was the Daniel effect.

  “You ready?”

  I made a noise in reply.

  “Don’t worry. This isn’t Titanic and I’m not Kate Winslet. I won’t let go.”

  I laughed and let him pull me into the water after him. I yelped as the cold water rushed over my legs. The sand was moving and shifting under my feet and it was making me nervous. My grip was so tight on Daniel’s hand, I must have been hurting him.

  “See, this isn’t so bad,” Daniel said.

  I shrugged. “It’s not ideal, but I am not having an anxiety attack.”

  It was kind of fun to be doing something that scared me. I felt a thrill of excitement with each wave of the water that rose to my legs. Off in the distance, I saw the long-haired surfer again, riding a wave and falling off again, only to pop back up and howl at the sky.

  “If I wasn’t here, would you be doing that?” I asked, motioning to the surfer.

  “Yeah. I was willing to try it now, in fact,” he said.

  “Why?” I asked, bewildered. “I don’t mean to sound judgemental or rude. I’m simply curious.”

  Daniel took his time to answer, looking up at the cloudy sky. He waded further into the water and I went along with him because I didn’t trust myself to let go of his hand and keep myself afloat. I knew how to swim, though I didn’t doubt that I could drown in waist-level water if I was afraid.

  “Because it’s fun. It’s the thrill of it. You feel it, right? It’s exciting to be on the edge,” Daniel said, his eyes lit with every bit of that excitement. “It’s that, and I get restless.”

  “Restless, with people or things?”

  He frowned, staring off towards the horizon. His thumb was rubbing circles on the back of my hand and I had a feeling he didn’t even know he was doing it. The longer he took to answer, the more I thought he didn’t want to answer at all.

  “With people, things, the routine of it, I guess,” he said, finally. “It started right before my parents’ divorce. They were fighting a lot, and I needed a distraction, to do something in which I had total control. It started with surfing and I could shut off my mind because just staying afloat required all my concentration that I forgot about my parents fighting. Of course, that got me into a lot of trouble because I was only thirteen when they got divorced and my mother believed I was hanging out with the wrong crowd. This was back when she was still pretending that she had any care about our family.”

  I felt inexplicably sorry about the little kid he used to be. I knew what it felt to be lonely at that age, to feel you had to essentially start over. I did it, first in the group home, then foster care, and then with my parents. I had turned to baking because it was all mine, and he had turned to adventures.

  “You and I are not as different as I thought,” I said.

  “Oh?” Daniel asked, arching an eyebrow.

  “Yes. Now, I’ve passed your stupid challenge, so can we please go back? The water is freezing.”

  I let go of his hand and turned to walk back to shore, only to lose my footing and almost topple over right into the water. Before I even hit the surface, Daniel wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me back against him.

  “You shouldn’t have let go,” he said in a low voice. His breath tickled my neck, causing me to shiver. With his body pressed against mine, I wasn’t cold anymore. I felt very, very warm. I looked over my shoulder at him and his gaze dropped down to my lips. It wasn’t the first time I had noticed him looking at my mouth, and I instinctively licked my lips.

  I took a breath and swallowed. “I will hold on to you, then.”

  “I promised to not let go to keep you safe. It would be best if you didn’t let go either.”

  Had he moved closer? It looked like he had tilted his head down and I tilted my head back in response. I wanted him to kiss me, despite promising myself that I wouldn’t think about it. This would just lead to trouble and I didn’t want to be the person who celebrated trouble all the while saying she avoided it. In this instance, all I could think about was the feel of his lips on mine, everything else was a distant memory.

  Was this… were we going to kiss? We were leaning closer, inches away from our mouths meeting. I found myself breathless with anticipation. His mouth brushed against mine with the softness of a butterfly’s wings.

  A splash of cold water cascaded over us and I gasped in shock. I pushed my hair out of my eyes and managed to hang onto Daniel’s arm.

  “Sorry!” A girl shouted from some way off. Daniel grabbed the big beach ball that landed next to us causing the splash and tossed it back to her. Our eyes met briefly, both of us knowing the moment had been ruined, probably for the best. I needed to remember that Daniel and I could only be friends. Not kissing friends. Just. Friends.

  Chapter 15 - Eve

  I was whisking harder than I had ever whisked anything before. I was whisking so hard that my buttercream had turned into goo. Using a professional mixer would be much easier. I did use a professional mixer when I needed to.

  Today just felt like a hand whisking kind of day. It was a great way to get the aggression and anxiety out of your system. And I had a lot of anxiety to work through. I was flying to New York tomorrow to shoot a week-long arc on a baking show for The Food Network. I had been invited weeks after the article came out and weeks before I realized that I was going through a block.

  I had spent the past week preparing as much as I could for the few days I was going to be away.

  Baking had always been a way for me to relax, even when I was little and we didn’t have the money to buy supplies. The owner of the diner my bio-mom had worked at would let me watch as she baked the most beautiful and exotic tasting pies. People would come in droves to eat those pies, and I imagined that if she had Logan doing her marketing, she would have been famous like I was.

  I knew then that this was what I wanted to do. My mother had wanted to be a singer and I wanted to be a baker. To create the most beautiful and exotic tasting cupcakes.

  “Evie, are you listening to me?” My mother said in my ear.

  “Yes.”

  “Really? Sometimes I feel like you’re just ignoring everything I say.”

  “You’re my mother, I can’t ignore you. It’s also hard to ignore someone who calls you every day.” My mother and I were having our daily chat. She had been calling me every day for the past two weeks—ever since her visit—, ‘just to talk’.

  She didn’t realize that I had no time to “just talk”. Summer had officially begun, which meant tourist and wedding season. Despite my worries about losing my business, Sugar Bliss was still one of the most popular stops in the city. I had already baked three wedding cakes in the past two weeks. Of course, baking those wedding cakes got me thinking about Daniel, for no discernible reason. We texted back and forth a few times since our little trip to the beach and that was it. Pretty exciting stuff, right?

  “Well, what other choice do I have?” Mom demanded. “You refuse to see me, and you refuse to call me on your own.”

  “I have a business to run,” I said defensively.

  “I’ve made you too independent. You don’t have time for your parents, you don’t have time to date. I don’t need you to date, but I do think it will be nice if you have sex once in a while,” Mom said.

  Good God, it was like the woman had a sixth sense or somet
hing. I would be freaked out if she didn’t bring up the same topic every month or so. She could care less if I was in a relationship; she just wanted me to have a healthy sex life.

  “I’ll take your concerns into consideration,” I said. The oven dinged and I grabbed the oven mitt to take out the strawberry-mango margarita cupcakes I had just baked. A new recipe! It had come to me in a dream because I was dreaming of a vacation in Hawaii. Everyone loved tequila and cupcakes, so I mixed the two. They smelled delicious and looked even better. I was getting my mojo back! Sort of.

  “Mom, I have to go. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “Oh, of course. Love you!” She said, uber casual. Before I could reply, she hung up. I stared down at the phone until the screen went dark. My mother was never one to hang up without dramatics and promises from me to go see her soon.

  I didn’t have time to think about her suspicious behavior. I put the cupcakes in the blast chiller and set the timer. I dumped out the buttercream I had ruined and started from scratch.

  The bakery had closed an hour earlier and I had sent everyone home. Usually, at least two people stuck around to do a general clean-up before I did a deep clean. Today, I just wanted to be alone with my thoughts and my whisk. And based on the workout my whisk was getting, I had a lot of annoying thoughts bouncing around inside my head.

  I had gotten to the point where I was wondering why life couldn’t be easy. I was getting all philosophical and I didn’t even have Maddie to talk things over with. I had called her a few days ago to tell her about the kiss. She had not been impressed and wasn’t helpful with my dilemma. Her words of wisdom were, did I think I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Daniel or that I could spend the rest of my life with him? If I couldn’t answer those questions, I should maybe not date him.

  I understood what she was trying to say. I didn’t intend to spend the rest of my life dating around. I wanted to settle down eventually. Sure, I could say that I was twenty-six and still had plenty of time. However, when you factored in the time it would take me to meet a man, get to know him, fall in love, get the ring, plan the wedding, it would take years.

  I shouldn’t have asked Maddie for advice. Talking to her only made my anxieties worse. She was right in her thinking and it didn’t help solve the issue of whether or not I should give things with Daniel a try. My memories of Sheila’s birthday night were fuzzy. What I did remember of Daniel, and the kiss, made my heart race. I wanted to kiss him again when I was fully sober so I could experience it to the fullest. Until then, I had my fuzzy memories to tide me over.

  God, I was pathetic. Not only was I letting my fear hold me back; I didn’t have the titanium ovaries to just talk to my friend. I was being a coward and making up scenarios that were making me the bad guy. I wasn’t attracted to Daniel because I had malicious intent. Hell, I was surprised by the attraction in the first place. I had been inside his house, I had looked at the photos of his adventures, among which were mountain climbing, bungee jumping, river rafting, and obviously, surfing. The man liked adventure, whereas the most adventurous thing I had ever done was to start my business. I was worried that once he got to know me, he would get bored with what he found.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out, seeing a text from Logan.

  At your back door with food. And a hangry Clarissa.

  I smiled. Finally, some reprieve from my thoughts.

  What’s the secret password?

  8-) America’s ass.

  Lol. Coming.

  I put down the measuring cup I was using to pour sugar into the mixer for the buttercream and walked to the back door. I put in the password on the security system before unlocking the door. Logan and Clarissa stood on the other side, with Logan holding boxes of food from our favorite Italian restaurant.

  “I’m offended you only asked Logan for advice and not me, which is why I decided to tag along,” Clarissa announced. I sighed. After Maddie’s advice, I had decided to seek out Logan. She was only two years older than me, but there was something in those eyes that said she knew a lot about a lot. She was an old soul. Logan would have the answers.

  “I didn’t ask you because I already know what you would have said,” I replied, stepping aside and letting them enter. I closed the door behind them and set the alarm again.

  “You don’t know that,” Clarissa defended.

  “You’ll tell me to go for it.”

  “Sex is fun. What’s the harm in that?” Clarissa looked at Logan for support, who shook her head and walked out of the kitchen. Clarissa pouted and followed after her to argue further while I grabbed plates, forks, and three bottles of water.

  Logan set up the food on a table by the windows and once the food was plated, she looked up at me and said very seriously, “Tell me everything.”

  So, I told them everything. I told them about seeing Daniel at my brother’s restaurant, then again at the beach, then having dinner with him. The texts we had sent each other. How easily he had gotten me in the water. Definitely told them about the kiss and all the parts I could remember.

  “You are so fucked,” Clarissa said succinctly, putting a forkful of gnocchi in her mouth.

  “I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Logan added.

  I groaned. “You’re not helping. What am I going to do?”

  “What do you want to do?” Clarissa asked.

  “I think that’s obvious,” Logan said dryly.

  I blushed. “No. I mean, yes, I do want that. What I meant was, what am I going to tell Sienna. I can’t exactly walk up to her and say, hey, I dig your brother, you don’t mind if I have sex with him on the regular, do you? And that’s just one thing. Daniel is my opposite in every way, I can’t imagine any relationship between us lasting.”

  Clarissa snorted. “If you say to Sienna what you just said now, she will most definitely not say yes. As for you being opposites, honey, sometimes you have to date someone who’s not your type. You got along fine with your ex-boyfriends and none of those relationships worked out. Maybe things with Daniel will be different.”

  Logan put her fork on her plate and sat back against the chair, folding her arms across her chest. She looked at me with her no-bullshit face, which still scared me. Clarissa was the human lie detector, and Logan was the human bullshit detector—they would make a great superhero tag team. Nothing got past Logan, and I didn’t enjoy having that expression aimed at me.

  I swallowed roughly and rubbed my hands on the thighs of my jeans.

  “Be honest, Evelyn, with us and with yourself. Things with Daniel can get complicated because this also involves Sienna, which means that it involves all the girls. Daniel can’t be the guy you date for a few months before deciding you can’t be in a relationship ‘right now’. You can’t be half in and half out. I’m not saying you have to decide if Daniel is the one and you’re going to marry him, but you will have to give this thing a real try. So, is he who you want? And if so, are you willing to give your relationship a real try?”

  I chewed on my lip, my heart beating like Congo drums inside my chest. Physical intimacy was so much easier than emotional intimacy. I didn’t know how to share myself that way. Daniel had very easily told me that he wanted me. I was not able to do that; just the thought caused panic to rise inside my chest until I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

  “This is horrendously frightening,” I whispered.

  “Trusting someone always is,” Clarissa murmured lowly, playing with her food. For a moment, some dark emotion crossed her face before her hair fell forward and hid her face from me.

  I looked at Logan and she was watching me sympathetically.

  “I don’t know if I can do this.”

  “You also thought you couldn’t do this,” Logan said, waving her hand in a wide circle to indicate the bakery.

  “So not the same thing. I had been working towards this dream for years, I had the experience to back me up. I suck at relationships. Will I even survive the emotiona
l ruin?”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Clarissa said, a little harshly. Logan and I both turned to her with wide eyes. Clarissa was always lighthearted and joking, it was shocking to hear her talk like that. Her eyes burned with intensity.

  “You’re a woman, and women can survive anything. Getting your heart broken will hurt like a son of a bitch but you’ll survive. We’ll help you.”

  I reached out and put my hand on hers, squeezing once. If nothing else, I will always have my friends and that alone was the most comforting thing in the world.

  “You scare me when you get serious like that,” Logan said, trying to lighten the mood. Clarissa smirked. “But you’re right.”

  I took a deep breath, and then another. My brain felt fried and I felt emotionally drained. This wasn’t a choice between apples or oranges, vanilla, or strawberry.

  I gripped the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger, squeezing my eyes shut. I didn’t recall dating being this hard. I also hadn’t met someone in person for a while now. All my dates came from dating websites. It was so much easier to just talk to someone without knowing how they looked or how they would react to what you were saying. If the conversation was great, you moved it to phone calls and then a meeting. It gave you time to prepare yourself.

  I opened my eyes and looked at Logan and Clarissa.

  “So, tell me more about this kiss,” Clarissa said, putting her elbow on the table and her chin on her fist. Logan looked up from an email she was reading on her phone, interest clear on her face. She placed the phone on the table.

  “I don’t remember much. It felt nice, I think?”

  “Nice?” Logan made a face.

  “Better than nice,” I clarified. I couldn’t remember much of it, just flashes of our mouth moving together, the feel of his warm skin under my hands, his hands on my body holding me close to him. Clarissa’s question did get me wondering what Daniel thought of our first kiss.

  “He must have enjoyed it because he came here the next day to ask me out,” I said. Both Clarissa and Logan raised their eyebrows in surprise.