by Max Monroe
She’s also a real fucking mean girl, Regina George style, but that’s another story for a different day.
“Okay, class.” Miss Misty clapped her hands like a cheerleader. “Everyone skate to the center, and take your spots at the circle so we can stretch out! We want hap-hap-happy muscles!”
God, she was a peppy freak of nature. If you pictured Bob Ross but took away his paintbrushes and winter landscapes and added methamphetamines, roller skates, and spandex, you’d have a pretty good idea of Miss Misty.
I maneuvered my skates toward the center and skated to my assigned spot without a single wobble. See what I mean? Only three lessons in, and it was obvious these babies were paying off.
I sat down beside Lauren—not by choice—and waited patiently for Miss Misty to take us through our stretching routine.
“Lola,” Lauren whispered beside me, but I ignored her. The last time I’d fallen for that trick, Lauren had acted like I was the only one talking, and Miss Misty had scolded me for interrupting the class. Fucking Lauren.
“Psst, Lola.”
“Shut up,” I whispered back through gritted teeth. “You’re going to get me in trouble again.”
Miss Misty was all rainbows and unicorns until you interrupted the class. And if I was being honest, she was kind of scary. She might’ve been ten years younger than me, but she had one hell of a glare. For a twenty-one-year-old chick clad in spandex and leg warmers, she sure took her roller skating lessons seriously.
“Psst, Lola,” Lauren repeated. “I need to tell you something really important.”
“What?” I shot back with my best impression of a ventriloquist dummy.
“That boy is looking at you.” Lauren giggled.
I peered at her out of the corner of my eye. “What boy?”
“That boy,” she said a little too loud, and Miss Misty glanced in our direction.
Fucking hell, Lauren.
“Girls.” Our instructor quirked a skeptical brow in our direction. “Mind sharing with the class?”
Jesus. Chill out, Miss Misty.
“That boy over there is staring at Lola,” Lauren announced, and the rest of group started to giggle and point.
I followed their little fingers and found none other than Reed Luca staring back at me. His blue eyes shone with amusement, and his lips were fixed into a smile.
Just the sight of him made my heart skip three beats and then, as if defibrillated, jump-start into a pounding rhythm. Stupid heart.
But seriously, what in the ever-loving fuck was he doing here?
“Lola?” Miss Misty questioned, and I silently cursed Reed for showing up and getting me in trouble. “Do you know him?”
I sighed. “Yeah.”
Yeah, I knew him, all right. It was the guy who’d forced himself into my life like a fucking hurricane, and then, once I’d finally opened up and fallen head over heels, he pulled the rug straight out from under me.
The guy I’d told I needed time and who apparently didn’t understand the concept.
The guy you’re in love with…
“Will you go ask him to leave so everyone can stay focused?” Miss Misty suggested, but her words were the opposite of suggestion. They were as firm as her twenty-something ass in spandex. “We really need to get back to our lesson.”
“Yeah. Okay,” I answered and promptly got on my skates and started rolling toward the other end of the rink.
Reed continued to watch me with that stupid smile and those stupid shining blue eyes and I really just wanted to tell him to fuck off, but I didn’t want to find out the kind of power Miss Misty’s glare held when it was addressing foul language.
“Hey, Roller Skates,” he greeted once I’d reached the waist-high wall that separated the rink from the seating and concession area. “Looking good out there.”
I ignored the compliment. “How’d you know where to find me?”
“I’m stalking you,” he teased, but his joke fell like a lead balloon.
I didn’t want his jokes or his smiles, and the two of us knew all too well he hadn’t been anywhere I had been in the last week and a half.
I wanted clarity.
My lack of enthusiasm over his presence didn’t deter him. He reached across the wall, almost as if he couldn’t help himself, and brushed a loose strand of hair behind my ear before wrapping one of my pigtails around his finger like I’d done only moments before. Goose bumps pebbled my skin, and immediately, I hated how much I missed his touch.
“When did you start taking lessons?”
I shrugged. “A week and a half ago.” Around the time he’d broken my dreams of forever being a party of two.
His eyes looked out toward Miss Misty and the class who were halfway through our stretching routine, and that familiar smile started to settle into the corners of his mouth again.
I didn’t want his smile—it hurt too much to see it. “Seriously, Reed, what are you doing here?”
“I miss you,” he answered, gaze jerking back to mine, and it sounded like the most honest thing he’d ever said to me. “And I want to talk to you.”
He wanted to talk to me just like I’d wanted him to go to Santa Cruz.
The words you can’t always get what you want were on the tip of my tongue, but my mind put the kibosh on that, countering, but deep down, you want Reed, and he wants to talk to you…
Obviously, my bitterness had yet to fade.
“Lola!” Miss Misty called toward me. “Are you about finished?”
God, Miss Misty was a pain in my ass. Couldn’t she see I had some serious adult shit going on over here?
“Just a minute!” I yelled over my shoulder and then turned back toward Reed. “Uh…I’m kind of in the middle of something here.”
“I can see that,” he responded without argument, but a little sadness crept into his eyes. “Are you free after this?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “And more than that, I’m not sure I want to talk to you. I told you I needed time.”
“Please, Lola,” he begged and pulled both of my hands into his. “I know you said you needed time, but I don’t like the way our conversation went the other day. I had so much to say, and like a fucking idiot, couldn’t figure out how to say it. I hope you’ll give me a second chance to explain. I just need five minutes of your time. Name the time and the place, and I’ll meet you, whenever, wherever.”
It was so unlike Reed to put the ball in my court. He never wanted to live by anyone else’s schedule but his own, and now, he was leaving it all up to me.
Something about the gesture broke through my fortifications. “Fine,” I agreed on a sigh. “I’m free tonight.”
“What time?”
“Seven.”
“Where?”
I thought about it for a second, and then gave the best answer I could on the fly. “Golden Gate Park.”
He nodded a soft, thankful smile. I tried not to notice the way it transformed his face and failed. Before I could turn on my skates and head back toward the center of the rink, he leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to my cheek.
Lingering, right there, against my skin, he whispered, “See you tonight, Roller Skates.”
Golden Gate Park was one of those places everyone puts on their list to visit—and quite frankly, it wasn’t without reason.
The atmosphere was bustling and packed full of history completely unique to San Fran, and the microclimate was a thing within itself. It wasn’t that close to Lola or me, but as I pulled into the parking lot in my hardly ever used Corolla, I knew exactly why she’d chosen it.
We’d come there more than once to people watch and talk, and the Conservatory of Flowers was one of her favorite places inside its confines. She hadn’t said, but I knew that was where she would be.
I opened my trunk and took out the box with one of the weirdest gifts I’d ever gotten for someone and clutched it to my chest.
I was feeling a lot of things I wasn’t accustomed to—ner
ves, hope, and a threatening cloud of disappointment nearly as thick as the fog I knew would be here first thing tomorrow morning.
What would I do if we couldn’t find the words to understand each other?
I honestly wasn’t sure.
But I knew I couldn’t go back to the person I was before—at least not entirely.
Because Lola Sexton had done a real fucking bang-up job of teaching me it really was possible to walk through life not knowing you’re missing a goddamn thing—until the minute you find it.
Lola sat on a bench facing away from me, toward the flowers and steps in front of the greenhouse as I approached. It hadn’t taken me any time at all to find her in the crowd, hair now down in a curtain around her face. Gray Converse covered her feet in place of her roller skates, but she didn’t look any less interesting. Just like I’d known from the beginning—she stood out. And something about her called to me.
My unicorn.
A group of pigeons gathered at her feet, and I had to laugh at the perfect little picture fate had painted us.
I sat down carefully on the bench next to her and laid the box on top of my thighs. Two minutes passed without either of us saying anything.
Finally, Lola had enough. “Possibly two of the fucking chattiest people on the planet, and neither of us has anything to say?”
“I’ve got a lot to say, Lo.”
She shifted toward me and flapped out her hands. “Then say it.”
I gave a little laugh and smiled. But man, it didn’t feel all that happy. So much was riding on this conversation, and I knew neither of us could keep living in this limbo of torture much longer. We were either going to work things out or we weren’t, but this was probably the last chance. “I was just happy to be sitting next to you,” I told her honestly, the ache so deep from missing her, it had settled into my bones.
She looked away quickly, like she wasn’t expecting it, and sucked in a huge gulp of air.
“Why’d you pick this place?” I asked and she shrugged.
“It seemed appropriate.”
“Appropriate?” I didn’t understand.
“Appropriate,” she confirmed. “I feel like the ending scene in movies always happens in some pivotal location where they can take aerial shots of the whole thing. And I didn’t think they could fit a helicopter in either one of our apartments.”
I smiled again, and this time, I felt it in places other than my face. Lola had been picturing our happy ending.
“Yeah. You’re right. Pretty sure I’d have needed the two-bedroom.”
“Why are we here?” she asked, and in that moment, it was simple. All of the complication and expectation fell away, and all that was left was love. My love for her, and hers for me.
“Because you and I are better together.”
She sighed, and I wasn’t sure if she didn’t believe me or wanted something different, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t leaving here without her.
Turning to face her directly, I put two fingers to her chin and forced her to do the same. “We are, LoLo. My life is infinitely better than what it was, now that you’re in it. You make me laugh and reconsider, and hell, you make me forget to be such a thinker and just live.”
“I need you to do things—”
“And I plan to do them,” I promised. I didn’t care what they were. “Pencil them in on my calendar.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t have a calendar. Are you kidding me?”
“I’ll get one,” I teased. “It’ll have your picture on the front, and hey, maybe a naked picture of you on each month.”
She shoved me hard enough that the box fell off my legs, and I laughed. “Hey, watch it. You’re going to ruin your present.”
“Present?” Her whole demeanor perked up, and I was hit with the memory of mindlessly walking the streets of Chinatown hand in hand with Lola. It’d been a fun afternoon, perusing trinkets inside the various gift shops. And once she’d set her sights on this obscure little porcelain cat, she had been fixated. Lola had loved that kitschy little souvenir, and since I loved her, I’d purchased it on a whim when she wasn’t paying attention.
The present would’ve been inconsequential to anyone else. But not Lola. She’d been so damn excited, bouncing around and screeching her happiness like an adorable little ball of quirky.
I took in her curious eyes, and my heart made itself known with each pounding thump thump thump inside my chest. I needed her. I wanted her. I loved her more than I’d ever loved anything in my life.
Her eyes glanced down at the box and then back up at me. She was all but vibrating with impatience to know what was hidden inside.
“Do you want to open it?” I smiled, and there was no denying my heart was honestly in my eyes. It belonged to her.
She searched my face, and I saw the instant realization set in. She shook her head in an attempt to regain her composure—and her distance. “Reed—”
I wasn’t ready for her to get either of them back. “Just open it,” I interrupted. “I’m pretty sure it’ll answer all those questions swirling in your eyes, and I won’t even have to strain my voice.”
Swiping the box from my lap, she pulled off the lid and gasped.
“Oh, my God!”
I didn’t know what she’d been expecting, but I was ninety-nine percent positive it wasn’t that.
“Yep,” I confirmed.
“Oh, my God!” she shrieked again.
“Yep,” I repeated through a laugh.
“It’s—”
“Us.”
“A really fucking creepy version,” she muttered. You couldn’t have melted the smile off of my face with a microwave.
“I know. Aren’t they great?”
She stared down at them, shock turning to wistfulness, but everything else about her was frustratingly quiet. “Lo?”
“You got us marionette puppets,” she whispered roughly.
“I did.”
“Of us.”
I nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“At eighty years old.”
“That’s right.”
“Oh, my God.”
I pulled the old man puppet version of me out of the box and handed it to her. “Now, I know your dream was to have one of yourself, and you still can if that’s what you decide…”
“But?”
“But I think this is better.” I shrugged and spoke around the emotion clogging my throat. “My strings are yours to pull, Lo.”
Her hand went to her mouth, but I pulled it away and linked it with mine, trapping the other one against her thigh with the weight of my own. “I should have gone with you to Santa Cruz. I should have really listened when you asked, and I should have known that when it comes to you and me, none of the rules I’d created for myself on my own would apply. New us, new rules.”
“Reed,” she whispered, and the way she said it filled me with everything I needed to know I’d done it. I’d broken through the barrier I’d made with stupidity, and I had no plans to ever build it back.
“I thought I knew best, but as it turns out, Sex really does say.”
She melted at the mention of my unused column. “I loved the column.”
I shrugged. I didn’t care about the column, but I did care about her. “I love you.”
Her lips hit mine, and I had just leaned in to enjoy it when she pulled away, grabbed both puppets, and ran up to stand on the brick wall overlooking the flowers.
I stood and watched her.
“Come here,” she demanded with a gesture of both full arms and a jerk of her head.
“I’m good right here,” I told her with a smile, settling into my spot and crossing my arms over my chest.
“You’re so weird sometimes,” she called back, and I laughed.
That was really rich coming from her. My weirdo.
“Come up here and look at the fucking view.”
“I am,” I replied.
She tilted her head in annoyance.
I was actually surprised she didn’t get it. But I was more than willing to tell her. “Don’t you know, Lo? The best view includes you.”
The best view includes you.
I looked down at Reed.
I looked out at the breathtaking view.
And then, I looked at the ridiculous marionettes hanging down at my feet from their strings. They were miniature versions of exactly what I imagined the old, eighty-year-old Reed and Lola would look like. With their too big smiles and painted-on wrinkles and beady little eyes, I couldn’t deny these damn puppets were a far cry from being easy on the eyes.
In fact, they were downright frightening.
But, despite their faces’ ability to possibly give nightmares, they were the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for me. Because these marionettes weren’t just marionettes—they were a symbol of something more. They were fitting of me, the thirty-two-year-old roller skating, pigtailed woman from San Francisco, the extremely eccentric version of the ultimate gesture. Let’s spend our lives together, they said.
A declaration of love.
A promise of more, of everything, that had come straight from Reed’s heart.
And I knew that’s exactly why he had done this. It wasn’t just for me and my crazy life goal of feeding squirrels in the park with my mini-me marionette.
It was for us. Reed and Lola. And a proposal to be standing there together, still doing this obscenely absurd thing, when we were old and gray.
When I looked up to find him again, he wasn’t more than a foot away. His blue eyes searched mine, and I didn’t hide what I was feeling—surprise, warmth, acceptance. I didn’t hide the happy tears his gesture had spurred, and I definitely did not hide my love.
Vulnerable and exposed, my heart was on my sleeve, and for the first time in my life, there wasn’t any fear or uncertainty. No discomfort or tightening inside my chest.
Just happiness.
And love.
Sweet, sweet love.
“I can’t believe you did this,” I whispered.
“I can.” His hands cupped my cheeks, thumbs sweeping out to disturb the perfect, tiny rivers of tears.
“This is what a man, who is hopelessly, endlessly, and deeply in love, does for the weird, whimsical woman he is hopelessly, endlessly, and deeply in love with.” His blue eyes shone with tenderness. “And, Lola, I love you.”