“How’s that crazy?” Mindy asked. “Because they’re lesbians? Lesbians exist, Ella.”
I scoffed at her. Her joke would’ve been funny, seeing as we were all lesbians, but jokes were the last thing I needed right now. “Because the first girl feels like she betrayed her guy friend,” I said. “She was supposed to make the other girl like him, not her.”
“That’s not her fault.” Deena swayed in her chair. She was a lightweight, and it seemed like our first beer had hit her hard.
“No, it’s not,” I said. “But still, he’s going to be mad. Wouldn’t you be mad if something like that happened to you?”
“If I asked someone to text my crush on my behalf?” Mindy asked. “No, he was pretty much asking for this to happen.”
Deena nodded. “Besides, this would never happen in real life. It sounds like something from a TV show.”
“But even if the brother – I mean the friend – could accept it, the other girl would be mad. Wouldn’t she?” I asked.
“This is fake!” Deena slurred. “Let’s talk about something real. Like the real girl in Denver I started chatting with from OkCupid.”
“She might not even be a real girl,” Mindy muttered. “There are so many fakes out there. Besides…” She turned back to me. “How would the other girl even know anything happened?”
“I don’t know.” The same question had been plaguing me since I’d realized who Judi was. “She might notice they type the same way, or something.”
“Are you kidding?” Deena laughed. “She’d have to be, like, a CSI-level writing analyst.”
“It could be something else, though,” I said. Like if Judi found out Sam was my brother – then it’d be a thousand times easier for her to put two and two together. “I feel like these kinds of things always come out.”
“Sure, on TV, where they happen.” Deena drained her pint glass and waved to the waitress. “People keep secrets in real life. It’s not like this girl would be lying about cheating, or something. It’s not like she killed the other girl’s puppy.”
“Deena has a point,” Mindy said. “It’d be like a white lie. It’s not going to hurt the other girl.”
I looked from Mindy to Deena, my stomach churning. What they were saying sounded so wrong. It went against my sense of honesty and transparency, the values I’d been raised with. And yet, they were both so sure of their way being right.
If I were to do as they said, I could have a shot at my dream girl. If I told her what’d happened, I could lose that chance forever.
The waitress appeared beside our table. “What can I get for you ladies?” she asked.
“A refill for everyone, and a shot of tequila for me,” Deena said.
I thought about turning down the next beer – but fuck it. “A shot for me, too, actually.”
*
The rest of the night was an alcoholic blur. No wonder I found myself lying in bed for hours the next morning, groaning in pain from my hangover. My head pulsed, and I could barely open my eyes enough to see the time on my phone. There was no way I was about to talk to anyone, or text them either.
I finally dragged myself out of bed around two. Wrapping myself in my warmest bathrobe, I inched my way downstairs. Although my stomach was still a bit queasy, I thought I could handle a glass of water and some toast.
Sam was in the kitchen, laughing as he watched a video on his tablet. I stopped short when I saw him. Last night, I’d decided not to tell him I’d met Judi in real life. In the clear light of day, with him right here in front of me, I wasn’t sure if I could pull off that deception.
It’d feel wrong to keep something so huge from my brother. We were open with each other. We always had been. Even in our teen years when we were supposed to be so hormonal that we hated everyone and everything, we’d been close.
Our home life had been somewhat unstable. Mom always had boyfriends coming and going. I had no memories of my dad, and only vague memories of Sam’s. Mom had calmed down with her dating in recent years, but when we were younger, I sometimes felt like she cared more about her love life than about taking care of her kids.
Sam was only three years younger than me, so we’d been able to relate to each other for as long as I could remember. We’d relied on each other, for cooking and cleaning as well as for our emotional needs.
As different as we might’ve been, we were family. Nothing had ever gotten between us, and I liked to think nothing could. Not even a girl.
“What are you watching?” I asked, pouring myself some water and sitting down next to him.
He showed his tablet to me. “A reaction video about the game last night. See, they put Kyle Lennon’s face on a baby’s head because he acted like a baby when they lost.”
Typical Sam. “Funny. Um… I think I’m going to give you your phone back. Then you can watch videos on there.”
He paused the video. “I don’t mind watching stuff on the tablet. It’s actually better to watch stuff on the bigger screen.”
He honestly thought I wanted to give it back for his benefit. “The thing is, well, I’m not so comfortable with texting Judi anymore.”
“Why?” He looked at me sharply. “Did she start sexting me, or something?”
I choked on my water and spent a few seconds coughing before I could recover. With the way their date had gone, he honestly thought she’d want to sext him? The only reason she was even still talking to “him” was because of our amazing text conversation!
“No, I…” I’d been planning to tell him everything, and now I hesitated. I didn’t need to tell him about the coffee date, did I? He didn’t need to know I was interested in Judi at all. I could break it to him later. For now, I’d go with the gentlest option. “What happened is, I actually met Judi in real life. She’s a friend of a friend. Now that I know her in person, I feel weird about tricking her like this.”
What I’d said was true. She was a friend of Ian’s. I knew Sam would assume I’d met her at the bar last night and not at the Pride planning committee, but that wasn’t really relevant, was it?
“You met her?” He looked stunned, as if he hadn’t expected Judi to have a life outside the coffee shop. “How do you know it was her?”
“Well, she said her name was Judi with an I.”
“There are lots of girls with that spelling.”
“She said she works at a coffee shop.” And the phone number she gave me is the same one I’ve been texting for two weeks, I held back from adding.
“So you talked about Caffeine Hut?” Inexplicably, he looked excited now. “Did she say anything about me?”
“Oh… no.” Not unless he counted the part about the date she’d gone on being disappointing. “She didn’t say the name of the coffee shop, so I didn’t tell her I knew who she was. I thought it might be weird if she knew we were siblings.”
“What did you think of her? Isn’t she amazing? And gorgeous?”
I cringed. “Yeah, she’s pretty cool. We got along well.”
“Hmm…” I could see the wheels turning in his head. He pushed the tablet aside and leaned his elbows on the table. “Maybe it’s good that she doesn’t know who you are. This way, you can ask her what she’s thinking about me. Get some inside intel.”
My stomach got even queasier. He wanted me to collect information for him, like some kind of a double agent? “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” I said slowly. “She’s already pulling back from you, right? She said no to a second date. It seems like she’s losing interest.”
“But she hasn’t given me a firm no, so I still have a shot.”
I pursed my lips. “I don’t know what I’d be able to find out in person that I couldn’t have found out over text. We already know her interests and her hobbies, and a ton of other things you were supposed to bond with her over. Honestly, you didn’t use that as much as you could’ve. You already had a giant leg up on every other guy pursuing her, and you still got nowhere.” I was being a bit harsh on h
im, but he needed to hear this.
“That was different,” he said. “She still thought she was talking to me. She’d be much more open with a new girl friend. If you were to drink some wine with her and have some girl talk, I’m sure she’d tell you all about her old relationships and the guys she’s been into before. She’ll tell you what other guys have done right or wrong, and then I’ll be able to use that to make her mine.”
To make her his? That actually sounded a little creepy! And he didn’t even know her well enough to know he needed to worry about girls as well as guys. He obviously thought she was straight, so he didn’t know much about her at all.
“Sam, you already had your chance,” I said firmly. “If she’s not into you, you need to accept that.” And accept she was into me, when I eventually told him. “Besides, bonding over girl talk doesn’t work quite as well when one girl is gay.”
“Then tell her you’re straight!”
I glared at him. Did he seriously want me to go into the closet so I could “bond” with Judi? This would go way beyond a simple favor. He’d owe me, like, years’ worth of chores. “If you guys end up dating, she’ll figure out I’m your sister, and she’ll know I was helping you figure out how to win her over. She’ll figure out I’m gay, too.”
“We can cross that bridge when we come to it.” He’d perked up completely, as if this new development had assured him he could still win Judi’s heart.
“No, Sam. This has already gone too far. I’m not doing this for you.”
He looked at the floor. “What do I have to do to get you to help me?”
“I’m not going to. Period.” I pushed back my chair. “I’ll give you back your phone, and I’ll take over my chores again. This whole Judi thing is over. You’re on your own.”
“Wait. Ella…” The plea in his voice stopped me in my tracks. “I’ll take my phone back. You don’t have to text her anymore. But if you think she’s cool anyway, and you might want to hang out… you could try to befriend her, couldn’t you?”
“I’m not gathering information for you.”
“No, no,” he said. “Just be normal. You don’t have to lie or pretend anything – although I’d rather not tell her we’re siblings for as long as possible. Don’t try to force any girl talk with her.”
“What’s in it for you, then?” I asked, skeptical.
“When she finds out I have a cool sister, it’ll make me look better,” he said, sounding sincere. “And if you do happen to find out anything that’d help my case, you can tell me.”
“I don’t know, Sam. This feels funny.”
“You said she was cool, though.” He looked at me pathetically. “You said you liked her.”
Didn’t he see that was the problem? I liked her too much!
But he was begging me, and he was going to keep going until I gave in. How was I supposed to explain why I wouldn’t do it without giving everything away?
“Fine,” I said, defeated. “I’ll do it.”
Ten – Judi
Caffeine Hut felt different without Sam there. Even though he wouldn’t have been scheduled over the weekend anyway, I could feel the lack of his presence. Or maybe it was just that Wren kept harassing me about him.
“What’s going on with lover-boy?” she asked first thing in the morning. And then, “What’s my old friend Sammy up to?” during a brief moment of quiet.
I told her over and over that nothing was happening between us. Still, she kept pressing the subject. I guessed I sounded unsure of myself when I told her I wasn’t interested – which was the truth. As badly as that one date had gone, I was still intrigued by the Sam I’d been texting. I didn’t want to let that go.
By noon, I hadn’t heard from him. We usually said hi first thing in the morning. Maybe he was busy getting ready to start his new job – it had to be stressful for him. I tried not to care. If I wasn’t going to be his girlfriend, I had no right to expect him to text me all the time. Once I rejected him properly, he most likely wouldn’t want to text me at all.
I hadn’t heard from Ella either, and that concerned me just as much. I still hadn’t figured out why she’d gotten so turned off and left our coffee date so suddenly. I’d mentally reviewed everything I’d said a million times, and I still hadn’t come up with anything that would’ve caused her reaction.
Midway through the afternoon, I found a moment to check my phone. To my surprise, I had a new message from each of them.
Sam: Hey cutie. What’s up?
Ella: Hi, it’s Ella from the other day. You know, the rude, awful one who told you you’re pretentious. How are you doing?
Sam’s message made me frown. He’d never called me “cutie” before, and if I was going to transition our potential relationship into a platonic friendship, I needed to nip that in the bud.
I dashed off a quick, curt response. Hello. I’m working. How are you?
Next, I reread Ella’s message with a smile. She sounded mildly flirtatious, which made me more relieved than it really should’ve. Maybe she hadn’t run away from me after all. Maybe she really just had to go home.
As if I could forget such a terrible person, I typed back. I’ve been stewing in rage since we parted ways. What have you been doing since then? I need more things to hate you about.
“Look at that smile!” Wren said. “Someone finally texted you.”
“Huh? Oh…” I glanced down at my phone. “Sam did text, but we’re just going to be friends. I swear.”
“That’s not a friendly expression on your face,” she said. “You look like the prince just rode in on a white horse and asked you to marry him.”
“Well…” I pulled out a tray of cookies and rearranged them neatly, even though they didn’t need it. “Someone else texted me, too.”
“There’s someone else?” she asked, her eyebrows shooting up. “Already? You don’t waste time!”
“Nothing ever happened with Sam, okay? It’s not like I’m moving on after a break-up.”
“Sure.” She sounded unconvinced. “So tell me about this new person.”
“Not yet. Maybe if things go anywhere.”
A customer came in, which meant she had to leave me alone. Almost half an hour passed before I was able to check my phone again. Again, I had two new messages.
Sam: Not bad. I was thinking we should get coffee sometime soon. As customers this time. He’d added a winky face.
I cringed. Hadn’t I turned down his last attempt at asking me out? Clearly I hadn’t been firm enough. I was surprised he’d even try to ask again. Normally we chatted and bantered all day, and now he was trying to meet up after one text? Maybe he was feeling bolder now that we were no longer coworkers.
I typed my reply carefully. Sam, I’m sorry, but I’ve been really busy lately. I won’t be able to meet up anytime soon.
I sent it, then immediately kicked myself. Why hadn’t I just told him flat-out that he wasn’t my type? I wanted to stay friends, but not if he was going to be lusting after me and hoping it’d turn into more. I needed to be upfront and clear with him – but at the same time, I didn’t want to hurt him.
Brushing away those thoughts, I flipped over to the other new text. I had a quiet weekend, Ella said. Kicking puppies, punching babies – you know, the usual. What are you up to this week? Maybe we could grab a drink sometime.
A flutter went through my heart. She was still into me, and her sense of humor matched mine completely. In fact, I liked her even more with every text she sent.
Cool down, Judi, I told myself. Hadn’t I learned my lesson about getting excited about someone based on their texts? For all I knew, she could’ve been Googling what to say to me, too.
But no, I couldn’t see her doing that. Her texts matched who she was in real life – they had the same voice, the same tone. She was clearly being genuine, whereas Sam… well, I had no idea what he was doing.
I think I can put up with you long enough to have a beer, I texted back. Maybe tomorrow ni
ght? I’m off work tomorrow and Tuesday.
Her reply came back instantly. Sounds like a plan. You can decide when and where.
I chuckled to myself. Wow, you’re so difficult. So impossible to put up with.
As I slid my phone into my apron, I noticed Wren’s eyes on me. “You’re going to have to tell me about this new person soon,” she teased.
“Maybe.” Heat rose to my cheeks. “We’ll see.”
*
The next night, I arrived on the dot of eight at the bar I’d chosen. It was one of the more openly LGBT-friendly places in town. While it wasn’t a gay bar by any means, the sight of two girls kissing wouldn’t be out of place. And I hoped I might reach that point with Ella by the end of the night.
I’d dressed in slim-fit jeans and winter boots, my short hair pulled into a tiny ponytail. With minimal make-up on, I looked much more boyish than I had for my date with Sam.
I only waited in the cold for a moment before Ella arrived, bundled up in her puffy olive-green jacket and a thick wool scarf with matching hat and gloves. Her glasses were dotted with melting snow, and she took them off to wipe them on her gloves before wrapping me in a hug.
“Look at you,” I said. “Are you on your way to Siberia?”
“I get cold easily.” She opened the door, letting me go inside first.
“You must have a hard time in the winter.”
“The winter? Like right now isn’t winter?”
“It’s mid-December,” I said. “The season’s still getting started.”
“Don’t tell me that,” she groaned.
The bar was nearly empty, so we took seats near the back so the draft from the door wouldn’t bother her. It seemed like we were getting along fine again, and while I still didn’t have a clue why she’d left so suddenly last time, the question was starting to bother me less as I became more confident of her interest in me.
We ordered drinks and nachos, then sat for a moment, just looking at each other. It would’ve been an awkward silence with someone else, but with her, I felt like she was doing it on purpose.
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