Sweet Girl (16 page)

“Exactly. I know it’s good.”

When the waiter drops off our wine, she takes a sip and closes her eyes in bliss. When she opens them again, she snaps her fingers and points a well-manicured finger at me.

“Did I tell you about the event I’m chairing for Elysium?”

“Is that the one next month?” I ask, taking a sip from my own glass.

The waiter might be obsequious, but his taste in wine is stellar. The Sancerre is, in fact, just as gorgeous as he predicted.

“No, this is set for the fall. Let me give you the details. I’m thinking of asking the girls to help.”

At some point over the last couple of months, my mom started to refer to Landon and Miko as “the girls.” She does her best to adopt them in everything but name, and they return the adoration with the kind of devotion little girls reserve for their favorite Barbie.

I listen attentively as she tells me the details of her event and marvel, not for the first time, at her ability to keep so many of them straight in her mind. Her favorite saying is “To whom much is given, much is expected,” and that belief is evident in the way she lives her life. My mother sits on the board of at least five charities, all of which have something to do with art (which is my dad’s second great love) or helping single mothers in struggling economic conditions (which is particularly close to her heart since she had once been one). She and my father have given millions over the course of my lifetime to causes important to them. Beyond financial support she is totally involved with each cause, donating as much time with her hands as she does with her wallet. She might drive me crazy at times, but they don’t make women any better than the one sitting in front of me.

They bring the salad to our table, and she chats on while we start to eat, pausing only long enough to praise the flavor of the truffle oil she added. I smile as we nosh, and I am once again reminded that she is the reason I love food so much. Maybe it is the wine or the gorgeous summer day or heck, maybe it is the truffle oil, but for one split second I almost tell her everything about Dolci.

“Sweetheart, please drink some more water,” she says, sounding concerned again. “You don’t drink enough of it, and you know you need to stay hydrated. If you don’t stay hydrated, you run the risk of wearing yourself out and having another accident. You have to be responsible about this.”

I smile tightly and reach for my glass. All thoughts of baring my soul wash back down my throat along with the Perrier.

Chapter Thirteen

“What’s on the menu tonight?” Taylor asks as he walks into his kitchen. He runs a hand back and forth through his hair, and sawdust flies out in every direction, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

“It’s some sort of black forest cake”—I tap the Post-it notes in front of me—“which doesn’t really make sense because I don’t see anything that might be chocolate on here. But that’s what she said, so here I am.”

Taylor looks over my shoulder at the mess of baking ingredients on the counter in front of me. He reaches around and taps a bag of chocolate chips with his finger in silent demand.

“It seems like you’re figuring these out faster each time. Last week it only took you three tries to get the trifle right.”

I fill a quarter cup halfway up with the chips from the bag and then turn to pour some into his waiting hand. He shifts to lean back against the counter, tossing some of the chocolate into his mouth.

“I think I’m just getting better at deciphering her handwriting,” I say, combining the dry ingredients into the batter.

“I don’t see how,” he says as he leans down closer to inspect the notes in front of me. “It looks like a toddler wrote this.”

His shirt moves the slightest bit, and I see a quick flash of black script on skin. I should not be so curious about all the different words inked underneath his clothes.

I force my eyes back to the whisk in my hand as I move it slowly in circles around the bowl.

Whisk, whisk, scrape the sides, whisk, whisk, turn the bowl a quarter to the right. If I just keep watching my hands work, then I won’t be tempted to look at him, or to notice how that white T-shirt clings to his chest or how good he looks in worn jeans or how the jeans are covered in varnish and dust or how he smells like sweat and the Douglas fir he just spent the last hour sanding down into someone’s conference table.

I don’t realize I’ve dropped my whisk until it crashes to the floor, flinging chocolate against the cabinet next to me.

“Hey,” Taylor says, reaching for me.

I crouch down to grab the whisk before he can touch me.

“Are you OK? Do you need to eat something?”

“No.” I shake my head.

I need to get a grip—and not just on the utensil in my hand.

I toss it in the sink with the other dirty dishes and grab a new one to work with. Taylor still looks concerned, but I wave him away.

“I’m fine. Go take your shower. I promise to still be upright when you come back.”

Taylor’s lips twist in annoyance.

“You know I hate it when you joke about your health,” he tells me seriously.

I nod, only slightly chagrined.

“You know, it used to just be this thing I had. But since the accident it’s overshadowed every conversation I have with my family.” I start in before I can think better about revealing even more information to him. “It’s really nice to treat it irreverently. You’re the only one I’ve joked about it with. Ever.”

I roll my eyes at how moronic I sound.

“Man, I don’t know what it is about you. I keep telling you all of these ridiculous things!” I start combining the wet ingredients into the mixing bowl in agitation. “I am the least expressive person I know, and every time I get around you, the word-vomit just won’t stop.”

I am annoyed with myself now, because even the diatribe about word-vomit is just more word-vomit. Ugh!

Taylor doesn’t say anything in response, and when I can’t stand the silence anymore, I look up at him.

I can’t read the expression on his face.

“I get what you’re doing. Making fun of it, I mean,” he says, referring to my earlier joke. “I still don’t think it’s funny, but I get why you need to make light of it.”

He pushes off the counter and starts to leave the kitchen. I look back down at my recipe and exhale, releasing the tension of the unexpected serious moment with him. Taylor is always great about not bringing up my seemingly compulsive need to overshare with him.

I look up again when he calls my name.

He stands in the archway of the kitchen. I can tell he is searching for the right words to say, which is rare, since Taylor typically runs his mouth at ninety miles an hour.

“I’m—” He rubs his hand over the stubble on his jaw. “I’m really happy it’s me.”

“What?” I ask to save face.

But I know exactly what he means even before he clarifies.

“I’m happy I’m the one that you talk to.”

He holds my gaze for a second longer and then walks out. It would be easier if he’d wink or make a joke as he’d done a dozen times before, but he doesn’t. He leaves the weight of the moment to hang in the air around me, so I can’t excuse it away. It is a subtle shift, totally outside the parameters of our friendship, and so minute that no one else would have noticed. But I notice it, and it scares the hell out of me.

“Explain to me why we need an audience for this?” I ask as I spray the kitchen counter down to clean it.

Landon looks up from polishing our yard-sale coffee table. Miko is perched on the counter, working on her laptop.

“It’s not an audience,” Landon tells me cheerfully. “It’s just Miko. She came over to hang out with us.”

“You insisted we clean the apartment today and insisted we do it as a team—” I start to point out the obvious.

“Because cleaning is so much more fun in a group!” Landon interrupts me.

“You think everything is more fun in a group. Regardless, I can’t very well tackle the kitchen if someone is parked on the countertop designing an ice sculpture,” I gripe.

“It’s a martini luge,” Miko says, affronted. “As if we’d allow one of our clients to incorporate an ice sculpture.”

“And it’s a
Frozen
-themed party, so we had to incorporate ice in some way,” Landon agrees from the underside of a side table. She is clearly into thorough cleaning.

“You’re serving martinis at a little girl’s birthday party?” I ask them both.

“Who said it was for a little girl?” Miko asks, genuinely confused. “It’s a gay wedding reception. Rob and Martin have worked for Disney on Ice for ten years.”

“Oh, well, good theme then, actually,” I tell them both.

“We thought so,” Landon calls from behind the TV.

I toss my sponge down into the sink, having zero desire to clean the apartment in my rare time off.

“I need more caffeine if you expect me to commit to this,” I tell them.

Landon looks up from the rag in her hand.

“But you’ve had coffee already.”

“Not enough. I need something stronger. Either of you want to walk down to The Bean with me?”

“Road trip!” Miko announces with the slam of her laptop.

“If it’s across the street, it’s not really a—” I start to tell her.

“Don’t be unnecessarily confrontational. That line is in at least four of my all-time favorite movies,” Miko admonishes.

I grab my keys, sunglasses, and credit card off the counter with a roll of my eyes.

“This isn’t actually a movie, though,” I tell her.

“This is,” she says, running her neon-tipped fingernails through her messy hair, “whatever I want it to be.”

“You are—”

“Children,” Landon interrupts us both, “shall we?”

She gestures to the front door, and Miko and I both take the direction and head out to the hallway and then downstairs. The three of us trudge over the dirty streets and up to Sunset Boulevard, where our favorite coffee place is located.

Hollywood and the surrounding area are a study in juxtaposition. Fifteen years ago you couldn’t walk around here after dark; now it houses some of the nicest clubs and restaurants in town. It’s undergone a big revitalization, but the grime is still there, mixed in among the freshly painted walls and high-end hotels. Homeless men camp out in front of posh eateries, which butt up next to stores that cater primarily to strippers and slutty coeds looking for risqué Halloween costumes. No matter how hard it tries, Hollywood will always be a little bit of a mess—this city and I have that in common.

Once we’ve ordered coffee we find a table in the corner, sharing an unspoken understanding that we aren’t headed back to the apartment to clean anytime in the near future. I tuck one leg under the other and take a sip of my coffee just as Miko asks, “So how is everything with Brody?”

“Oh, because this won’t be awkward at all.” I scowl at them both.

I
so
do not want to hear the BTS of Landon’s and Brody’s relationship.

My tablemates are splitting what appears to be the largest blueberry muffin known to man, and Miko pops a bite into her mouth and looks at me sternly.

“Dude, you’re going to have to get over it. They’re dating and you’re Landon’s friend. I didn’t ask her to describe him in the sack—”

I make a gagging sound that doesn’t require any acting at all, at the same time that Landon squeals, “You know we haven’t—”

“My head will actually explode—right now—all over this table. You can’t seriously consider having this conversation in front of me,” I say in total annoyance.

“I’m not. Of course I’m not,” Landon says, reaching over to pat my hand like I am a little old lady. “I won’t tell you anything that will freak you out.” She looks back at Miko. “But things are really, really good,” she says wistfully.

Miko turns to look at me, the picture of practiced innocence.

“And what about you, Maxy-Poo? How’s your love life?” she asks me, grinning.

“Nonexistent,” I tell her pointedly.

I wondered how long it would take her to openly start insinuating things about me and Taylor in front of Landon. The answer, apparently, is eleven days. Truth be told, I’m shocked she lasted this long.

“Really? No one of particular interest? No special new friendships to speak of?” Her eyes twinkle with evil joy.

Landon looks back and forth between the two of us as if she was just clued into the possibility of the statement.

“What’s she talking about, Max?” she asks, leaning down to whisper across the table like we are sharing state secrets.

Miko is only barely not smiling in challenge, daring me to have the balls to admit what is going on.

To hell with it. Landon will find out eventually anyway.

“I’ve been hanging out with Taylor,” I say with a casual shrug.

Landon flies back against her chair with a gasp as if I physically pushed her. Her perfect French-manicured nails grasp at her T-shirt. If she were wearing pearls, she’d be clutching them.

“What?”
she screeches so loudly that everyone else in the small coffee place turns towards us, likely to see if she has Tourette’s.

Her shock is such a tangible thing that I feel sort of ridiculously embarrassed for the first time in years.

“It’s not a big deal. We’re just friends,” I tell her calmly.

Beside her, Miko takes half the muffin without looking away from the spectacle Landon is making. She starts to nibble the piece like a hamster.

“I can’t believe this!” Landon says, looking from me to Miko. “I just can’t believe this.”

“Seriously, we just hang out,” I insist, a little more desperately.

They are my friends, so surely they know me well enough to know I’m not actually doing anything serious with Taylor.

“We hang out. I, um . . . I bake for him sometimes.”

Miko nearly chokes on her muffin, and I start talking faster in an effort to cut off their thoughts at the pass. Our whole table is the center of attention now: the hamster, the drama queen, and an overemotional stork. We are like sideshow freaks.

“We go run together sometimes. Look, it’s just . . . we’re just friends!” I bark.

“I can’t believe this,” Landon says again in wonder.

“What is so flipping hard to believe?” I demand.

Landon looks from me to Miko in total chagrin. “It’s just . . . now I owe Miko a hundred bucks. She called the two of you, like,
last year
.”

The rhythmic tapping of fingers announces Avis’s arrival before her voice does. She carries a box of cigarettes around with her at all times, and even when she isn’t smoking, she’ll hold onto the box like a security blanket. Her fingers drumming against the edge of the cardboard is a familiar sound now, but that doesn’t mean it has any less of an effect on me than it did in the beginning. That harmless beat always makes my stomach drop because I am never sure what kind of mood she’ll be in when I hear it headed in my direction.