“Yeah, we might as well,” she agrees and then finally shoos him away again, but as the door shuts behind him, he can’t help but smile.
Nearly three hours later, he’s on the living room couch, dressed and ready to go, tapping out a halfway decent essay that might make an okay introduction to his thesis-turned-book one day, when she walks out of her bedroom.
Is it weird he misses the frizz paired with t-shirt and sweatpants?
This Bianca has her armor on, with a turquoise pencil skirt hugging the generous curve of her hips. There’s a sliver of skin at her waist showing between it and the bottom of a silky cropped white tank, looking just as good as when she wore it to dinner with her parents. Her towering, wedged sandals bring her up to at least average height, her makeup is done to perfection and her hair flows long and shiny, the curls once again a victim of her blow dryer.
She looks great, as always.
He still prefers the frizzy curls.
He thinks about telling her that, but . . . after the last three days, it feels like maybe he needs to start keeping some of that shit to himself.
When he stands up, she smiles at him and yeah, that was a losing battle.
“You look beautiful.”
She hesitates for a second and then another before the smile grows. “Thanks, you said we’re going to Nunziata’s, right? Nunziata’s is nice, I figured I should look the part.”
“You more than look the part. Fuck, boss . . . I . . .” He rocks back on his heels and rubs at the nape of his neck trying to extricate himself from this moment where all he wants to do is kiss away that shiny lip gloss she’s wearing and help her work upenough of a sweat in her bedroom to bring those curls back to life.
She shrugs with one shoulder, as if, somehow, she half knows what she does to him and half doesn’t quite believe it’s true. A long, dangly gold earring sways with the motion against her neck, where, if he squints, he can almost make out the small bruise his mouth created the other night while she arched into him.
“We better go, if we don’t want to be late.”
He wants to be late, very late, wants to text Paolo and tell him that they’re not coming, wants to scoop her up into his arms and carry her back into that bedroom and spend some time truly convincing her that she’s the most gorgeous fucking thing he’s ever seen.
As they drive toward downtown, her phone keeps buzzing and she taps out responses as quick as they come in.
“What’s up?” he finally asks, curiosity getting the better of him.
“It’s Lexi. She keeps sending me listings in Los Feliz.”
“So everything’s okay there?”
“Yeah, I guess it’s fine and I probably should look at some of these soon, if I want to get into a place before I start work.”
“What . . . what are you gonna tell them when I’m gone?” he asks, not really sure he wants to know the answer.
“I . . . think I’ll just tell them that it didn’t work out. That we couldn’t make the distance work. No relationship can survive seven thousand miles and what? A ten-hour time difference.”
“So you don’t want them to know it was fake? That this was a lie? Wasn’t that . . . wasn’t that the point?”
“It was, but . . . I guess I don’t even think I’m angry anymore. Not how I was, anyway. And I don’t want to hurt them.”
Her voice is flat, emotionless, and he knows there’s no way underneath it she’s not pushing down some strong emotion. He just can’t quite tell what it is.
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it? But – tell me if I’m wrong or to shut up, if you want – but it doesn’t seem like you’re all that happy about it?”
“I . . .” She starts then stops; he glances over to see her shoulders sag while she ignores the next text from Lexi.
“What?” he asks, training his eyes on the road.
“I don’t want them to . . . hate you, I guess? And they will for something that wasn’t . . . isn’t even real.”
“I wouldn’t want them to hate me either.”
He likes her friends, at least most of them, and despite the issues he has with her family, he knows they love her and would do anything for her, including loathe him for the rest of their days for breaking her heart. But there probably isn’t a way around it.
