White is for Virgins (50 page)

“We’ll wing it.”

“Right, ‘cause we’re so good at that.” I sneezed and wrapped my arms around myself. Fox also wrapped an arm around me and I got to share his body heat for a moment or two before he steered me into an open doorway.

We knocked as we entered, and a dashing Carlos in a suit and tie looked up from the dozens of documents splattered around his desk. He seemed to have forgotten he was on the phone for a second.

“Alright, thank you, sir,” he said, bouncing back from our little surprise visit. “Yes, I’ll be seeing you soon with the final report. Have a good day.”

He placed the phone down; his eyes never left us.

“Hello,” I said awkwardly, clearing my throat.

“Emery, Fox,” Carlos nodded, narrowing his eyes in confusion. “…How are you guys?”

“Um, we’re
kinda sick, actually,” I chuckled, still awkwardly. Fox nudged me lightly in the ribs. “How ‘bout you? I see this is certainly a step up from the maintenance job,” I nodded with a smile. Fox nudged me a little harder this time and his face told me to stop talking.

Carlos laughed, scratching the back of his dark, curly-haired head and leaning back in his chair. “I’m doing alright, thanks. How’s uh, Nina doing?”

I was so ready to blow up. But obviously, “Nina’s pregnant! Kay, bye,” was in no way an option in answering his question. It was Nina’s secret to reveal – I was all for meddling, but there were evident limits. I let Fox answer Carlos.

“Nina’s… actually been a lot less like herself these past couple of months,” Fox shrugged nonchalantly. “I don’t know what it is but,
y’know, we don’t like to meddle.” I almost laughed at the irony of his statement.

Carlos nodded, staring off into the space behind us. He was definitely in love with her. I could see it in his eyes, sick and delusional or not.

“She’s probably just overworking herself; she’ll be fine,” he suddenly said, snapping out of his little reminiscent love daze. “So, what brings you two here?”

“
Uhh… we missed you,” I started. Fox stayed silent so I improvised. “We just, wanted to see how you were – you kind of just… up and left, you know? Without saying goodbye.”

Carlos smiled sadly. “Right, I’m sorry about that, Emery. It was a very spur of the moment opportunity for me.”

We all sat in silence for a bit. I was frozen in my chair, sitting stiffly in the awkward quietness of the office.

Carlos cleared his throat. He gestured to the papers all over his desk. “I’m sorry guys; I’m just really busy right now with my work…”

“Um, right,” I said, ready to get up out of the chair.

Then Fox spoke up. “Alright Carlos, can I be straight up with you?”

“Please,” Carlos smirked, seemingly that we were finally going to say what was really on our minds.

“You look miserable,” Fox stated. If I had been drinking a drink I would have spit it out dramatically. My face paled, if that was even possible. Carlos took on a very serious expression.

“We,” Fox continued, gesturing between the two of us, “know that you happen to love our friend, Nina.”

Carlos opened his mouth to speak, but Fox beat him to it.

“Denial is not an option,” he stated firmly, looking Carlos dead in the eyes, “you’re definitely in love with her and you hate your job, and you hate being so far away from her. Am I right?”

Carlos simply stared, flexing his jaw. I almost gasped as I saw him nod faintly.

“She is seemingly the only person that makes you happy, correct?” Fox continued. Carlos again confirmed. I was shocked at the words that he was saying. The butterflies in my stomach were fluttering; I couldn’t tell if I was nauseous from being sick or if I was simply excited at the love story unfolding in front of me.

“Then what are you doing here, in the middle of nowhere, sitting in this cold empty room with that ugly corporate tie cutting off your air supply, filing boring paperwork, when you could be with Nina right now?”

Boom. The big question.

Carlos angled his jaw, running a hand through hair that was no longer there. His hand dropped when he realized how short he’d cut his dark locks. He seemed so out of place in the business world, despite looking handsome in the suit.

“I get that you two want to help,” he started, making eye contact with us both and leaning forward in his chair, “but I think you know me well enough to know that if things were that simple, I’d have never left Hartford in the first place.”

“What’s the problem, then?” I asked, suddenly aware that I’d spoken aloud.

“She said no,” Carlos said quietly. “She told me about the job offer, and sent me away.”

“What do you mean, she said no?” I asked, leaning forward.

“I asked her to marry me.”

I gasped.
She never told me that! Oh my
God,
she turned this guy
down
? Are you kidding me?

“I’m sorry, man,” Fox said in his raspy voice.

He then continued after a brief pause, “But of all people I thought you’d be the one to notice that she pushed you away right when you coincidently got this fancy new job offer… We all know Nina pretty well, in our own ways, and we can all agree she’s very real and straight forward. She wouldn’t spend time with you, Carlos, if she didn’t want to. It’s obvious she really, really enjoyed your company because she hasn’t been the same since you left.”

Carlos didn’t have anything to say to that one. I had to keep myself from telling Carlos the whole truth.

“I think it’d be worth it to come down to the center one more time,” I suggested, “now that you both have spent some time apart you can fully evaluate the situation and make better choices.”

“Right,” Fox agreed. “You should come by the center. She’d probably come running right to you.”

I eyed Fox at that one.

“Or maybe she’d walk,” Fox corrected. “You know, Nina’s
kinda stubborn sometimes…”

And
kinda pregnant.

Carlos nodded, holding his hand to his chin. He traced the chinstrap lining his jaw in thought.

“I really appreciate you guys coming by,” he finally said, standing up and hugging me. He gave Fox a manly half–handshake half–hug. “We’ll see what happens, okay?”

“Okay,” I coughed, stepping away and blocking my mouth with my arm.

“Get some rest, you two,” he suggested, sending us on our way.

Once we were a safe distance from his office, I freaked out.

“What if he never shows up?” I asked, pacing back and forth in the glass elevator. “I mean, I know it’s not up to us to tell him what’s up with Nina but what if he won’t grow the balls to come and see her? Then what?”

“Emery,” Fox said quietly, trying to calm me down, “it’s going to be fine. Did you see his face? He was ready to jump in his car and race us to Hartford, okay? He’s
gonna show up. I just hope that Nina’s condition doesn’t freak him out, you know?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “I also hope she doesn’t hate us for bringing him back.”

“Well she won’t do it herself, even though we all can see how much she wants to,” Fox muttered. We got back on the highway and headed for home. “You going back to sleep?”

“Nah, I’m too excited to sleep,” I sighed, crossing my arms. “I mean I’m tired, and all this meddling takes a lot out of me, but I just want them to kiss and make-up already.”

“They will,” Fox smirked. “We’ve done all the meddling we can do. Now all that’s left is to wait.”

“Can we reheat the soup while we wait?” I asked, painfully clearing my throat.

Fox’s laugh turned into a cough halfway through and he winced.

“Your place or mine?” he asked when he recovered.

If only we weren’t sick. And I had the balls to kiss him. And his question wasn’t designed in regards to where to reheat and digest chicken noodle soup…

“Yours.”

Chapter 32

For the duration of February vacation, Fox and I spent lots of time together; we had a week-long pajama party. Just about every day he would come over and pick me up. At his house we would bury ourselves in blankets and fluffy pillows on his heavenly couch and watch hours of mindless television. Because my father was still unemployed, we always went to Fox’s house so as to not create pointless awkward moments. While we were recuperating, we would make quick visits to the center to see how Nina was holding up.

Secretly though, we were hoping to catch Carlos stopping by.

As the days passed, we slowly got the hint that he was going to take his sweet time coming back to the center.

As weeks went by, and the shortest month in the year quickly merged into March, we slowly began to accept that he might not ever come back. Nina was getting bigger and bigger, but she was still sad as ever. School was a drag with last minute projects before upcoming graduation in May. Nick and Lily were still continuing their awkward friendship, if one could call it that. I had spoken to Lily about it, and she explained that after they had talked they simply decided to spend time with each other. There was no kissing, or hand holding… I could only imagine the thoughts running through their heads when they were together.

My parents were, as far as I could assume, good – better than before, for sure. Dad gave up his residence on the couch and the house was definitely much quieter. They seemed to have nicer things to say to each other. I sighed with relief; it was one less stress on my shoulders.

“Honey,” my mom said, knocking on the doorway of my bedroom one evening. I looked up from the computer screen with my fingers hovering over the keys. I was rushing to finish a very important essay.

“Your father and I have been talking,” she continued when she had my attention.