The Promise of Lace (16 page)

Hailey was right about at least one thing: I did let guys go
for being inconvenient and this whole…vulnerable, sad, traumatized thing was
damn inconvenient.

I needed time. I turned my damn phone completely off. I went
to yoga. I got a latte. I came home. When I turned my phone back on a few hours
later I had four more texts from Hailey. I ignored them all and just called her.

“Hey, Roxanne,” she said. If her tone had been anything
other than put-upon and a little expectant, I might not have lost my temper.
But I did.

“Dieter had my phone all day and saw all those terrible
things you texted me about him!” I barked, hating the way my voice sounded.
“Like something as fucking stupid as liking lacy underwear makes him some kind
of
bloodlusting
, crazy, manipulative pervert all of a
sudden. Did you totally forget that you were the one that was pushing me to ask
him out back when he just had a girly job?!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!
He read your texts? What the
hell?”

“No!” Needing to explain this deflated me for a second. “We
have the exact same phone. He took mine by accident.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!” I snapped. “They are exactly the same damn phone.
They were sitting right next to each other and the home screens are so similar
that I didn’t realize that I had his phone until I tried to call you and your
number wasn’t there.”

“Still—why was he reading your texts?”

I gave her a brief recap of what had happened at the Art
Institute and the ‘can’t be humiliated or shamed in front of people issue’.

“So seriously, I can barely blame him for needing to look at
what other horrible things might have been said once you started sending him a
list of nasty
hypotheticals
.”

Hailey was quiet for a moment. “You
really
like this guy don’t you? You're jumping to his defense, and
you actually care what he thinks. You’re even mad at me about him.”

“Yes,” I said. Then everything she’d just said settled a little
more. “I’m mad at you on my behalf too. Just because I’m not engaged doesn’t
mean I’m wandering around in a hopeless fog, doomed to never understand men or
love or relationships.”

Another pause.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“Okay,” I said.
“Fine.
I’m going to
call him. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Are you still mad at me?” She asked.

I sighed.
“Yeah.
Hailey.
I really am. You pushed for this, then changed your mind when he didn’t turn
out to be everything you thought he should be, and some of the things you said
were just… mean-spirited and ignorant. I need to be mad at you for a little
while.”

“Okay,” she said. She sounded upset, but I had too many
people upset with me right now, and at least Hailey actually had it coming. She
could just feel bad for a little while.

“I’ll talk to you later,” I told her before we hung up.

I texted Dieter to see if he was off
work.
I
didn’t get an answer back, so I did some dishes. When I still didn’t have a
reply after everything was washed and dried and put away I tried calling. He
didn’t pick up.

I tidied up my desk and tried to watch some TV.
Buffy.
But I couldn’t concentrate. I tried to get some work
done, but couldn’t concentrate on that either. I told myself that I wasn’t
talking to Hailey because I needed some space away from her crap. Dieter
deserved that same space away from me too. I stopped calling him and tried to
keep myself from stewing on the whole thing. I finally talked myself into
getting some sleep, but didn’t sleep well.

By morning I was so agitated I decided to forgive Hailey
because I needed to talk to her about this whole thing. I couldn’t just keep
spinning my wheels by myself.

Chapter Twelve

It was the next day.
Still no contact from
Dieter whatsoever.
Hailey, Noah and I were all out to brunch. My phone
was perched next to my silverware, within easy reach if Dieter did just happen
to call after three days of radio silence. Noah and Hailey were making me walk
them through everything step by step.

Hailey was offering her opinion as a generally more empathetic
person than I was, (though the last few days had proven that there were odd
limitations on the qualification). Noah was offering his opinion as our
resident man-folk.

I told them about the Art Institute and the freak out after
we’d gotten caught in the bathroom. I told them about how, given the facts that
I’d assembled about Jocelyn, I had concerns about how subby he was with me.

Noah put his fingers in his ears and I gave Hailey a
detailed description of sleeping with Dieter. Hailey patted Noah on the arm
when I was done to let him know he could listen again and I told them all about
staying up all night talking.

When I’d finally finished and was cutting up bites of my now
cold waffle, Hailey and Noah exchanged one of their
Uber
-Couple-Mind-Meld
glances. This one meant. “Are you going to tell her, or should I?”

I wanted to get mad at them for being so damn smug, but I
had asked for their help.

Noah apparently won their little silent debate. He turned to
look at me with a very gentle smile on his face.

“Okay. I’m just going to point something that I noticed out
here, because I think you missed it. Dieter told you about this harmless little
underwear kink.” He gave Hailey a look that seemed oddly pedantic coming from
Noah. “He told you all this really serious stuff that made huge impacts on him.
His family, his friends, some of his lowest moments… he really opened up to
you.”

“And?”

“And you told him what you think about books, and movies and
your younger sister’s bad decisions. He was really vulnerable to you in a lot
of ways and you didn’t reciprocate.”

I let that sink in. “So, you’re trying to say that our long
night of talking only counted for him and that I’m… removed and uninvolved.”

“Not exactly,” Noah said. “But if I had told a girl
friggin
' everything and she didn’t reply in kind and then
she told a girlfriend all of the gritty details, and I was already the kind of
guy who had been burned really hard for trusting people…” Noah shrugged. “I
might decide that girl was more trouble than she was worth and just stop
calling.”

My throat tightened and I felt my eyes get a little misty. I
took a sip from my coffee mug to cover it.

“Well,” I said, heaving out a deep breath. “I guess that’s
just a taste of my own medicine then.”

I grabbed my phone off the table and dipped into my purse.

“Don’t throw in the towel yet though,” Hailey urged. “He’s
mad, but it’s not like anything’s been officially broken off yet. We’ll all
just
…
 
put
our
thinking caps on.”

“Not right now, guys.” They both pushed it, but I was tired
and I’d been obsessing about this for two days. I was just sick to death of the
whole thing. I needed a break.

The three of us awkwardly finished our breakfast, and went
our separate ways.

I went home and tried to work. I got less done than I wanted,
but it wasn’t a full-scale waste the way it had been before. I did try calling
Dieter again, and felt something a lot like a stab to the heart when the ring
cut out after half a tone and I knew I’d been declined.

I did some laundry.

And as I was going through my wardrobe, putting away some of
my heavier winter things, I saw the nightie that Dieter had picked out for me,
hanging, still unused in my closet because I hadn’t been willing to be exposed
and vulnerable in it.

And that’s when the light bulb went off.

****

“This is a terrible,
terrible
,
plan,” Hailey said for the millionth time. “And that’s coming from
me
.”

It was a terrible plan. We were sitting outside the mall in
my car. We were taking turns watching the food court through binoculars and
under my long, but not nearly warm enough spring coat, I was wearing nothing
but a short purple nightie with totally visible matching panties and high
heels.

The terrible plan depended on a ton of variables that we
just could not control:

1. That we didn’t get picked up for suspicious loitering

2. That we didn’t get picked up for soliciting

3. Dieter actually took his break somewhere that we could
see him, or at all

4. Dieter accepted this as an apology and as a willingness
to be vulnerable in a way that I realized that I never showed anyone

5. I didn’t get arrested for indecent exposure

“I know it’s not exactly D-day, but this is your penance for
your part in this whole mess, so shut up and recon.”

Hailey gave me a mocking solute and lifted the binoculars
back up. After a while she chuckled. “Roxanne.
Doing
something crazy for a guy.
I never thought I’d see the day.”

“Well. Everyone’s got to go crazy sometime.” I sighed.
Shivered.
Thought about all the ways that this could go
wrong and tried to make a list of anything I could say that might still sound
convincing when preceded by “Hello, Officer.”

Hailey’s phone rang. I could see on the screen that it was
Noah. He was staked out in the little atrium area where Dieter had been getting
coffee the last time I’d seen him.

Hailey picked the phone up and my heart started to pound as
I heard Noah announce “The Eagle has landed. The Eagle has landed.”

We hadn’t actually set up a code, but that’s just what Noah
was like, and it was pretty clear what he meant.

I turned they key in the ignition and hurried as legally as
I could toward the mall entrance closer to their location. There had been a
great deal of debate about the most logical stakeout location for all of us,
and I had finally convinced them both of our current arrangement by pointing
out many times that I needed a dramatic walk up and that I couldn’t just sit
around in my spring jacket and underwear at the coffee place for a couple
hours.

I parked and shrugged out of my coat so quickly that I
nearly dislodged a boob in the process.

“Alright.
Time to rock and
roll.”

It was sleeting. Not ideal weather for a plan that did not
involve pants.
But desperate times and all that.

It was impossible to feel heroic doing that weird
hoppity
run that you have to do while you’re trying to move
quickly in heels, especially when an unnecessary amount of your butt cheeks are
hanging out, but I did feel strangely… strong.

Did I ditch out of relationships easier than every single
girl I knew? Yes. Could I be cold and utilitarian sometimes?
Maybe.

But here I was, with numb ankles, walking into a public
place in the most revealing thing I owned, to prove that I believed in love and
chemistry just as much as everyone else, and that I was just as willing to take
a chance on something that I believed could become great as I was willing to
bail on something that wasn’t good enough. In the terrible RomCom of my life,
this was my big dramatic moment.

I got a lot of looks as I rushed through the crowd inside
the entryway, but I just kept moving until I saw Dieter sitting at the same
little table I had seen him at before.

He saw the nightie before he saw me. I could tell by the way
his eyes bugged out. Like a cartoon character’s. They narrowed a little bit
when they made it all the way up to my face, but not by much.

I went up to him doing the best I could to strut in
four-inch heels that I’d only worn once. I pulled out the empty chair in front
of him at the teeny café table and tried to ignore Noah, who was sitting behind
Dieter and very carefully not looking at me.

“I’d really like you to give me another chance,” I said to
Dieter. His jaw, which had been hanging open, shut.

“I’m… why the lingerie?”

“I made you feel exposed. Now I’m exposed.
And asking for another opportunity.”

He stared for a moment. Then crossed his eyes and leaned
back in his chair. “I’m not sure.”

“Look.” I set my hands over his, where they were crossed
over each other on the tabletop. “I know you feel like me telling Hailey
everything crossed a line. And I’m sorry. But you said it yourself—you liked
that we trusted each other that much. And she’s really not malicious. And
neither am I. She is honest and overprotective, and maybe I am too. I was never
trying to hurt or humiliate you. I really like you. I want to be the kind of
person that you can trust. I’m really hoping you’ll take all of this as an
apology.”