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The Girlfriend Stage

Page 12

by Janci Patterson


  Then again . . .

  “I haven’t either,” I admit. “Until . . . well.”

  Josh glances over at the window. He unfolds his arms, but then stuffs his hands in the pockets of his cargo shorts. “So is Shane—?” He cuts himself off, shaking his head. “Never mind. It’s not my business.”

  “No, ask me. I’ll tell you anything you want to know. It’s okay.” And it is. I don’t want to hurt him anymore, but I find that I don’t want to keep anything from him, either. I decide to sit down on the floor rather than keep standing. Partially because my legs are trembling, but mainly because I think that if he sees me sit, he will. And then he might not be as likely to walk out that door and into his car and away from me.

  He seems to consider this, and I pat the carpet beside me.

  A small smile creeps onto his face and he comes and joins me in sitting cross-legged at the foot of my bed. “Okay,” he says. “So is Shane—do you guys have some kind of long-distance thing going on?”

  “No.” I have to tamp down my own smile, one forming out of sheer relief to just have Josh close to me again, at least physically for now. “Before yesterday I hadn’t even talked to him in five years. He was my high school boyfriend. We broke up for good about a year after we graduated.”

  “For good?”

  I shrug. “We broke up a lot in high school, too, usually not longer than a couple of weeks at a time. But yeah, the last time stuck.”

  There’s a flicker of him looking tempted to contradict this, or at least question it—which would be fair, given that I just slept with the guy last night. But he doesn’t, and I appreciate that.

  “Shane came over last night, a few hours after I got off the phone with you,” I continue. I figure if he stops wanting to know, he can tell me. Otherwise, I’m not going to make him ask. “I wasn’t planning on getting together with him when I was here, but he just came over and we started catching up, you know—talking about my job, and he was telling me about how his band is doing—”

  “He’s in a band.” Josh rakes a hand through his hair.

  “Yeah,” I say, not sure how that detail is incredibly relevant. “And then, I don’t know, we just decided to take off and go to these hot springs we used to hang out in. And then these Boy Scouts showed up and they all saw me totally naked and—”

  “What?” His brow knits together in confusion.

  “I heard a van coming and I tried to get out to put on clothes before people showed up but my shorts got caught in this scrub-brush, and ahhhhh, it was so horrifying.” I bury my face in my hands. I’d shoved the humiliation away, but talking about it again, I can remember that moment, caught in the headlights, bare to all the world. Or at least the world of Everett’s impressionable youth.

  I feel Josh’s arm around my shoulders—not possessive, like Shane’s, but comforting. “I’m sorry that happened to you,” he says.

  “It’s okay to laugh,” I mutter through my fingers. “Shane sure did. And I get it, it’s funny. I flashed an entire troop of Boy Scouts.”

  “It’s not funny if you don’t actually think it’s funny. Other people seeing you naked when you didn’t want them to isn’t funny. Trust me, I deal with that kind of thing pretty often in my job.” He smiles. “Not people being seen by Boy Scouts, so much . . . but still. It’s violating, even if it was an accident.”

  “It felt violating.” I lean into his side, closing my eyes. The humiliation lessens, like somehow knowing I’m allowed to feel that way makes it better. Then I remember the panic in the troop leader’s voice as he’s begging the boys to stay in the van, and I let out a little giggle. “And, okay, I do think it’s a tiny bit funny.”

  I look up at him, and he’s still smiling down at me. Not quite the full-on happy grins from our previous conversation, but we’re closer.

  It makes me hate that I need to continue the story.

  “So then Shane and I came back here and we . . .” I trail off, wrinkling my nose.

  “I really don’t need to hear details.” Josh rolls his eyes up to the ceiling, leaning his head back against the bed frame.

  “Fair enough. But you should know, it didn’t go well. We got attacked by a bat.”

  This time he does laugh, in surprise. “A bat? Like—”

  “Yeah. Like a giant flying rodent from hell. And I screamed and before I knew it, my whole family was in here and my dad and Shane had to get rid of it, and that pretty much ended that.”

  And maybe the thought of me being caught naked against my will isn’t something Josh finds funny, but something about the bat story makes him chuckle. “Ah, yes. My attack bat.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “Your what?”

  “You haven’t noticed? I’ve had him circling around you for weeks, ready to swoop down and attack any guy who got too close to you.” That mischievous gleam is back in his eyes, and I love seeing it again.

  I grin up at him. “What took him so long? He should have attacked back at the hot springs.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he got lost on the way. Like your aunt’s UPS driver.”

  I laugh, and his arm tightens around me, his fingers trailing along my skin. There’s hope, maybe, that we can get back to where we were less than an hour before.

  Hope warring with fear, because I don’t know if that’s a good thing. Not really.

  “When he came back tonight, I was telling him to leave,” I say. “I was telling him you were here, and that I wasn’t going to—you know.”

  Josh pauses, and I feel this tension stretching out between us—not in a bad way, necessarily, but like a cord pulled taut. It could either pull us back together or snap entirely. “But if I wasn’t here,” he says. “If I was still back in LA.”

  He leaves that hanging, like it’s a complete thought, and I wince. “If you were still back in LA, I would be missing you, and worrying about whether you’re finding anyone you like better in my absence.”

  He smiles. “So, did you want to be my girlfriend?”

  There it is, the thing I’ve avoided like the plague for years: girlfriend. Commitment. The beginning of the road to pain and distrust and bitter public tabloid breakups (for the Hollywood set, at least). All things I never want in general, and really really don’t want with Josh. I should just tell him I’m just not looking for anything serious right now. I’ve said that to plenty of guys over the years. But he’s different than all those other guys. He was different even before today, and he’s sure as hell different now, but I can’t bring myself to say the words.

  “I don’t know yet,” I finally say. “Is that okay?’

  “Yeah, of course,” he says, but I can see the flicker of hurt in his eyes again, even as he squeezes my arm and holds me close.

  It doesn’t feel okay. It feels like shit. It feels like my chest aching and my insides twisting. It feels like fear and frustration. “I’m just not good at this kind of thing,” I blurt out, more forcefully than I mean to, and he looks kind of startled. But he doesn’t say anything, just waits.

  “Relationships, you know? It’s like the damn trophies.” I gesture at the shelf. “You have to come in first place or it’s nothing. Second or third doesn’t count. And even if you think you’ve gotten that first place, you think you have the one, and then, you know, it all falls apart and it turns out you had nothing. Worse than nothing.”

  He’s looking at me with a mix of confusion and possibly concern, and I realize I sound like I’m having some kind of mental breakdown, and hell, maybe I am. But I feel like I have to keep going. For myself, if not for him.

  “I’m just not sure how to do it. I’m not sure that I even believe in love, like the forever kind. I want to believe sometimes, but then I think of my mom, or all of my stepmoms. They believed, you know? And look where it got them. Look where it gets pretty much everyone.” Tears are forming now, burning at th
e edges of my vision, and I blink them away, looking up at the ceiling. “I just—I don’t know how to do it, and I don’t want to mess this up.”

  His mouth is gaping open a bit, and for a panicked moment I think he’s going to decide that there’s no amount of pretty that makes up for this level of crazy and walk out the door. But he swallows and pulls me in closer, so he’s resting his cheek against my head. “You haven’t messed anything up,” he says. “It’s okay.”

  I let out a breath. My heart is still pounding and I can feel his through both our shirts, pounding in a similarly fast rhythm. “Okay,” I say.

  There’s a beat of silence. Then he says, “So tell me, fellow geek Anna-Marie. Which episode of Buffy is your favorite and why?”

  I smile. “I actually have two favorites. And the why could keep you here all night.”

  He laces his fingers through mine. “Sounds good to me.”

  Eleven

  Josh

  I leave Anna-Marie’s room after telling her I’m going to get some sleep. She was beginning to droop against my shoulder, and after the long drive and the Boy Scouts and me showing up out of the blue, she probably needs sleep, too. I’m not sure how much she’s had since she’s been here, because of, you know.

  Shane.

  I’m tired, too, and I haven’t even checked out this store room bed, which is definitely not how I imagined spending my nights here. I’m tempted to go get a hotel, but my phone isn’t finding one for thirty miles, and I’m not driving that far tonight.

  Or that far from Anna-Marie. I wanted to stay with her tonight, but at the same time, I was glad she didn’t seem too certain it’s what she wanted. I’m lightheaded and things have changed so much in the last few hours that I feel like I have whiplash from trying to keep up.

  So I amble quietly through the empty house and out to my car, where I call Ben.

  “Hey,” he says. “Do you know what time it is?”

  “I think it’s midnight here. Are we still in the same timezone?”

  “We are not. But now telling you this is the second night you’ve called me past eleven seems anti-climactic.”

  “Be glad you don’t live in New York,” I say. “There it must be two in the morning.”

  “Hang on,” Ben says. “No, of course I’m going to ask him. Give me a minute.”

  I gather none of this is to me. “You haven’t, though. Asked how it’s going.”

  “I know! Jeez. How am I supposed to with the two of you pestering me?”

  I can hear Wyatt talking on the other end, but I can’t tell what he’s saying. After a long silence, Ben sighs. “So you made it to Wyoming? How’s it going?”

  I take a deep breath. This is what I called to talk about, but I’m still not sure how to answer. I decide to start from the beginning.

  “Well, I showed up and sat in my car down her street for thirty minutes wondering what the hell I was doing here.”

  “Ha,” Ben says. “You drove away without talking to her, didn’t you? After all the hell you gave me about not talking to Wyatt.”

  It had actually been the thought of this moment that had finally gotten me out of the car. “No. I knocked on the door and her aunt showed me down to the basement where Anna-Marie was doing a one-woman fashion show in what looked like an Ice Capades costume and makeup that had been done by her ten-year-old future stepsister.”

  “Wow,” Ben says. “I bet that’s not what you were expecting.”

  I smile. “I wasn’t what she was expecting either. Her embarrassment was kind of adorable.”

  “Okay,” Ben says. “But Wyatt notices that you’re not in bed with her right now, and he makes a good point.” He pauses for a second. “That was me asking why not. No, I didn’t ask it as a question, but I’m pretty sure he understood.”

  We’ll get to that, but since he didn’t ask a question, I don’t answer. “She likes Buffy,” I say. “And Full Metal Alchemist. And Death Arsenal.”

  “Wait, whaaaat? How do you know?”

  I close my eyes, and I’m back on Anna-Marie’s bed, holding her in my arms with her legs wrapped around me, kissing her and kissing her and feeling things I’ve never felt before in my life. “Because she told me. I’m not sure if it’s because I drove all this way or just because it came up, but I told her about my crush on Leia and she told me about her fan fiction and, god, it was the hottest conversation I’ve ever had in my life.”

  “Huh,” Ben says. “I didn’t see that coming.”

  “Yeah, me neither.” It all feels a little bit surreal, like maybe I’m still back in LA in my recliner having the most fantastic dream. I’d already been wanting more with Anna-Marie, but the idea that I could let her in the basement and she might still kiss me like that . . .

  If I’m dreaming, I wish my subconscious hadn’t conjured Shane.

  “I told her my lobster joke,” I say.

  “That joke is not funny.”

  The memory of the look on her face when she heard it makes me smile. “She thought it was. And she snort-laughed and then died of embarrassment, and I’m pretty sure that’s the moment I fell in love with her.”

  “Yeah,” Ben says. “Diva Josh would fall in love when a girl laughs at his jokes.” I hear a squeal that can only be Wyatt. Ben sounds a little stunned, which is reasonable, because I’ve never been in love before, not even back in college, and Sandy and I dated for two years. “I figured you were already in love with her when you drove all that way.”

  “Maybe I was. Or getting there, anyway. But that’s when I knew.”

  “Damn,” Ben says. “Did you tell her?”

  “No. I’d already said something earlier suggesting that maybe she could be my girlfriend and she kind of blew me off.”

  Ben groans. “So she doesn’t feel the same?”

  I think maybe she does—I wasn’t the only one grinning like an idiot through that entire conversation—but there’s an elephant in this conversation and the elephant’s name is Shane. “I don’t know. Because then her high school boyfriend showed up.”

  “Her what?” Ben asks.

  I hear Wyatt say something in the background that sounds suspiciously like plot twist and I realize my love life has now turned into a soap opera.

  Fitting. “Her high school boyfriend. Who is six-one and in a band and dresses like Jared Leto and is probably hotter than me.”

  “Wyatt says nobody’s hotter than you,” Ben says. “Hey, what do you mean? Damn right besides me. And Ryan Lansing. And—”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Anna-Marie apparently slept with him, too.”

  “Who?” Ben asks. “Ryan Lansing? Yes, he says she slept with him. No. No, Wyatt, I doubt he knows the details.” Then, to me: “Wyatt is texting you a list of questions to ask Anna-Marie about Ryan Lansing in bed.”

  I don’t see how this could make the situation more awkward. “Great. I’ll see what I can do.”

  “But this Shane guy. Are they together?”

  “No. But they did sleep together last night.”

  Ben lets out a low whistle. “Bet you regret not calling her first.”

  I do. God, I do. If she’d known I was actually serious about driving out here, the whole thing with Shane last night might not have happened at all. “So once that became clear, I asked her if I should leave, and she basically begged me to stay, and then got tears in her eyes and said that she’s not sure she can be my girlfriend because she’s scared to believe in love that lasts forever, but she’s terrified that she’s messed things up with me. And something about trophies and how she doesn’t know if she can get first place and even if she does that someday I might cheat on her . . .” I sigh. “It made more sense when she said it.”

  Ben is quiet. “Do you think she’s playing you?”

  “I don’t think so. She’s never seemed like she�
�s into me just to be seen with me, and she didn’t seem like she was putting on a show of being upset. But she is an actress.”

  It’s that last part that haunts me. I like to think I’m pretty good at sniffing out women who feel like I’m just a rung in a ladder, or a nice ride. But it’s my job to spot good acting, and she’s got it. I can’t rule out that she might be using it on me. “But for what?” I ask. “She’s already been seen with me. She’s probably got what mileage she’s going to get out of that.”

  “Maybe she wants you to rep her,” Ben offers.

  “Yeah, I already offered. She turned me down.”

  “Really?” Ben says. “Wait, Wyatt, are you on the forum? No, you definitely can’t say anything about Buffy. Because she’ll know exactly where it came from, that’s why.”

  “I don’t know what to do,” I say. “They’ve got me staying in the storage room, apparently, and I don’t think this Shane guy is totally gone. And he seems like an asshole but Anna-Marie obviously likes him, and shit, I’m the nice guy, right? I’m the nice guy who’s hanging around wishing that she’d give me the time of day while she’d rather be with the hot drummer. Or singer. Or whatever he is.”

  “Dude. You’re jealous.”

  “I am.” It hits me then, how much, and not just because of last night. “He knows her in ways I don’t. I bet he got to hang out with her through Buffy marathons and play Death Arsenal. He probably wrote songs for her and she sat in front of the stage and swooned while he sang them. God, how am I supposed to compete with that?”

  “Um, dude,” Ben says. “You know I don’t follow your public life that closely, but aren’t you some kind of celebrity?” There’s muffled talking in the background. “Wyatt tells me you are. And he’s Googling this Shane guy. Wait, I think he found him. Is his band called . . . Accidental Erotica?”

  “Probably,” I say. “Are they from Everett, Wyoming?”

 

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