“We’re good,” Daniel croaks.
With a little nod and smile, London turns and walks back to the bar.
Daniel bursts out laughing and makes a wry face. “Oops!”
“Dude,” Dylan hisses, shaking his head at me. “If she heard you assholes I’m going to be pissed. London is a nice person, and you guys are dicks.”
“Fuck,” I whisper. “Fuuuck.”
Dylan nods at me, disappointment making his normally happy face more somber before he turns and heads toward the bathroom in earnest this time. I feel like a complete ass.
Andrew shrugs and immediately moves on, saying something about the U.S. Men’s Water Polo team, the Olympics, whether we’re all going together to Tokyo to watch them, but I can’t do much more than stare into my beer.
We came here tonight because you, Luke, banged the bartender where I wanted to go.
Luke banged the new bartender at Fred’s? I was talking about the redhead at Stone at Liberty Station.
She’s hot, in that single-serving kind of way.
Pretty soon we won’t be able to go anywhere without someone crying in the bathroom over Luke.
In the movies this type of moment-of-clarity turns into a montage of all the moments leading up to it. Maybe the music swells above the dialogue. And it’s true that the sound of voices falls away and my heart seems to have returned to my body and is pounding directly against my eardrum. But it’s the anxiety I didn’t expect. The panic that she may have heard, that I may have hurt her feelings. The fear that I just confirmed everything she suspected about me.
The problem is, it’s all true.
Dylan returns to his seat, and looks up at the bar behind me—presumably watching London—his brows pulled down in concerned frustration. Right as he seems to decide to go talk to her, pushing back again from the table, I bolt up, gesturing to him that I’ll take care of it and wiping my palms on my thighs as I walk toward the bar.
It’s a Tuesday and still pretty early; except for the five of us and a few groups standing over near the DJ stand, the club is mostly dead. London seems lost in thought as she opens two beers and sets them on a tray for another waitress, and so she doesn’t notice my approach until I’m right in front of her, rapping my knuckles against the wood.
Startled, she looks up. “Hey.”
“Hey.” I slide one hand in my pocket, trying to seem less like I’m coming over here to defend my indefensible actions and more like I just wanted to say hi. “Having a good night?”
London lifts one shoulder as she dries off a glass. “Sure. You?”
“Pretty good.” I smile but she’s not watching, and the words vanish from my head. It’s awkward, and she knows it’s awkward, and in perfect London fashion, she’s not coming to my rescue. “I didn’t know you worked here.”
She nods as she sets the glass down and lifts another. “Just started.”
“Ah.”
I’m just going to say it: girls are hard to read. Is she pissed? Preoccupied? Does she want to kiss me so bad she can’t even look at me?
“Did you quit Fred’s?”
“No, just wanted some more hours.” London turns, setting a tray of glasses down on the other side of the bar, and begins putting them away on a small shelf.
“So, London—”
“Did you want a drink?” she asks me over her shoulder.
“No, I . . .”
I what?
I have no idea what comes next.
She turns back around and looks at me, waiting patiently. Do I ask her if she heard? Do I tell her that I didn’t really think what Daniel said was funny? The problem is that I didn’t think it was funny but I also didn’t think it was that big a deal, either . . . until I realized he was talking about London, and—worse—that she’d heard. Would I be here talking to her if she had been across the bar, out of hearing range when he’d said it?
This is the kind of thing she would ask me, and this is what I would be unable to answer.
“I just wanted to say hi,” I say, smiling.
Her eyes flicker to my mouth and then she looks evenly back up. “Hi.”
“Do you want to come over later?” It comes out so bare; there’s no buildup, no easing in. My voice even cracks on the last word.
London’s eyes go tight before she slumps a little, giving me a tiny smile. It’s a genuine one: sweet, all-American, dimpled. “Your boys seem to prefer when you don’t bang the waitress, remember?”
Fuck. “London—”
“Luke,” she cuts in gently, as if wanting to be careful with my feelings still, after all of it. “I think I’m not doing that anymore.”
* * *
KEYS IN HAND, I’m halfway across the dimly lit parking lot when I hear Dylan call my name.
“You’re leaving,” he says, jogging to catch up. “You just got here.”
Scratching my neck, I look past him into the cone of light directly over my car. “I have some things I need to take care of before work tomorrow.”
“Look,” he says, leaning to the side so I’ll look over at him. His shoulders slump a little as he repeats, “Look, man. I don’t know how well you know her, but London isn’t like that.” He looks straight into my eyes. “She’s really cool.”
London isn’t like that, meaning: she’s not a girl you can just bang without looking back. I should tell him I figured that out almost immediately, but already this is too much drama for me.
“It’s cool, Dyl, I just talked to her.”
“I hope she turned you down,” he says, and his smile tells me that he means it, but feels bad for saying it.
“She did.” I look back toward the club. “How do you know her, anyway?”
“She’s a friend of a friend.” This is exactly the kind of information Dylan gives. Usually I drop it without thought, but tonight it takes Herculean effort for me to not ask more questions.
“All right,” I say. “I’ll see you later.”
“Later.”
I don’t feel like going home, to the dark empty house, the bright empty fridge. I climb in my car, turn up the music, and drive without thinking back on any of this to my sister’s apartment, letting myself in with my key.
It’s almost ten, so I know Margot is either asleep or in the lab, and her roommate is most likely staying over at her girlfriend’s house. The apartment is blessedly silent, the fridge is blessedly full.
I’m almost done making an epic turkey sandwich when I hear footsteps pad down the hall.
“Pa,” Margot stage-whispers behind me. “There’s a bear getting into our food box.”
I dig in the pantry for some chips. “You have better snacks than I do.”
My sister comes around the counter, and leans back against it. “Because I don’t wait until tumbleweeds are rolling across the barren shelves of my refrigerator before I hit the grocery store.”
I let out a grunt and turn with an armful of food toward the living room.
She follows me out of the kitchen. I can feel her right on my heels and know that if I wanted to give up conscious thought in favor of food and television, this is the last place I should have gone. I can’t help but spill my guts to my sister; it’s like a reflex.
“What are you doing here, though?” she asks. “Did you have a bad day at work?”
I settle on the couch and flip on the TV. “It was fine.”
“Did something happen with the team? I heard about Cody and Jess.”
“Yeah, but he seems to think they’ll be okay.”
She sits and pulls her leg up on the couch so she can face me. I feel the pinpricks of her stare on the side of my face. “Then what has you stress-eating junk food?”
“Hunger.”
“Luke.”
I sigh, taking a bite of sandwich and chewing it slowly while I think. Swallowing, I tell her, “I think I fucked up with a girl I like.”
Margot jerks upright, shaking her head quickly. “Sorry, what?” She laughs awkwardly. ??
?Funniest thing, it sounded like you said something about liking a girl.”
I rip open the bag of chips and reach for the remote. “Never mind.”
“Are you serious right now?” she asks, sitting next to me. “A girl has you eating chips by the fistful?”
“I’m just hungry, Margot. Lay off.”
I turn to Jimmy Fallon and Margot does, in fact, lay off. She digs her hands into the bag of chips, joining me in my late-night emotional munchies. But I can almost hear the interest build in her until she’s sitting upright again, hands clenched in fists at her side, just waiting for the commercial break.
When it comes, she releases a tight breath. “Tell me about her.”
There’s no avoiding this, there really isn’t. And maybe I came over because I actually wanted to talk. Who the fuck knows, but I’m here now, so I may as well let it all out. “Her name is London.”
“I don’t know a London. Is she from here?”
“She went to UCSD, studied art. I didn’t meet her there, though.” I scratch the back of my neck. “She works at Fred’s.”
“Sexy cocktail waitress?”
I throw her a wary glance. “Sexy bartender.” I ignore her amused snort. “Anyway, our entire first night together I called her Logan and she didn’t bother to correct me. I don’t know if she ever would have. Dylan said her name when we saw her next and I was horrified, but she didn’t care.” For some reason, this detail feels important. It says so much about her, and about the “us” that has existed for the measly two weeks.
Margot snorts. “I like this girl.”
“Yeah, well, she likes you, too.” When I look at her, I see her eyebrows raised in a silent question, so I add, “I told her about your abusive role as my supervisor in Doll Salon.”
My sister smiles proudly.
“We hooked up a few times, and—”
“In one night, I assume?”
“No, asshole. Over a few different days.”
“Wow.” She rolls her eyes. “Long-term then.”
I take a sip of my water and set it back down on the table. “You wonder why I don’t like talking to you.”
“Oh, please. I’m the only one you like talking to because I don’t stroke your enormous ego.” Punching my shoulder, she urges, “Go on.”
“She’s wary of guys. Her long-term boyfriend cheated, and I get the feeling there’s been a long line of assholes in her life. The thing is, there’s attraction there, but I’m not sure she actually likes me. Said I was a cliché, a manwhore, douchebag, whatever.”
“I mean, I really like this girl,” Margot says, digging in the bag and taking another handful of chips.
“But she’s smart and funny and pretty and . . .” I’m so out of practice talking about girls and feelings in the same conversation that I flounder a little, settling on “there was something there. Between us, I mean.” But then I tell Margot about what Daniel said tonight, and about the guys teasing me about sleeping with every hot female bartender in town.
It’s a few seconds before Margot says anything, but when she does, she puts her hand on mine first, to soften the blow. “They’re not wrong.”
“Margot,” I say, turning to face her. “That’s not helping.”
She can tell in my voice that not only am I not in the mood but I really am feeling like complete shit.
“Sorry. I just want to be honest.”
“I know you do,” I tell her. “It’s just that, for the first time in a really long time I feel sort of weird about how I’ve been with girls. I always justified it like they were only after one thing, too, and maybe some of them were. But I know that wasn’t always true. And Cody made some crack about not being able to go anywhere where a woman wouldn’t be crying over Luke and . . . Jesus. Am I that bad?”
“You’re asking your sister if you’re as bad a player as your guy friends who are actually out at bars with you say you are?”
“I mean, does it seem like I’m that bad?”
She adjusts how she’s sitting on the couch so that her knee rests on my thigh. “Honestly?”
“Honestly.”
“Kind of. I mean, sometimes we’ll be out for drinks and your phone will be buzzing constantly. You don’t even notice it anymore. Or, we’ll be having a nice dinner and some girl will walk up and start talking to you and I can see you struggling to remember her name. It’s . . . I mean, I’m used to it now but, yeah. It’s sort of shady.”
I lean my head back against the couch, disengaging from the conversation and tuning back into the TV and whatever game Fallon is playing with David Beckham.
“I didn’t mean to make you feel bad,” she whispers. I know this conversation is making her anxious. Margot has a constant struggle with frankness and guilt when it comes to busting my balls.
“You didn’t.”
“It’s just . . .” she starts, fidgeting with her pajama top, “you went from Mia—and only Mia—to everyone. There was no in-between.”
“I haven’t wanted anyone the way I wanted Mia,” I argue.
“But someday you will,” she says. “Maybe it will be London. And you said she’s wary of guys, and then she sees you tonight at the bar? No wonder she keeps you at arm’s length. Would you trust you?”
A sour weight settles in my stomach. “I know.”
“Look, I’m not saying you need to go through the AA of players or anything, but maybe look at what you’re doing and who you are. Your life is this perfect combination of luck and ambition, but you treat women like gym equipment.”
I choke on a sip of water. “Margot. That’s horrible.”
She raises her eyebrows as if to say, Well?
“Just learn to treat a girl the way you want to be treated,” she says. “And I don’t mean by playing with their private parts.”
I snort. “‘Private parts.’”
Rolling her eyes, she says, “You were a really good boyfriend to Mia.”
This rattles me somehow. It’s easier to remember the end, when I was lonely and she was broken and we didn’t ever seem to get each other right. I turn to look over at her. “Yeah?”
Smiling, she says, “Yeah. You were. You were perfect. Everyone envied her.”
“Well,” I say, turning back to the television, “obviously I wasn’t perfect or she wouldn’t have stopped needing me.”
Margot goes still before she reaches for the remote control on my lap and mutes the show. “ ‘Needing’ you?” Her voice is sharp. “She shouldn’t ever have needed you. Wanted you, sure. Enjoyed being with you, sure. Desired you—gross—sure.”
Groaning, I make a grab for the remote but she holds it out of my reach.
“You know what I mean,” I say.
“I don’t think I do. Mia lost every one of her dreams in a single, horrible afternoon. It changed her, and that affected your relationship. That doesn’t mean that you fucked up somehow.”
“At the end of the day,” I say, sliding my plate onto the coffee table, “what we had wasn’t strong enough to weather what she was going through. End of story.”
Margot gives me a one-shouldered shrug. “True.”
I growl at this, wishing she had argued with me. This is why I hate talking about Mia. It just sucked. The whole thing sucked, there was no rhyme or reason to any of it—her accident, her distance, my heartbreak, our breakup—so it still feels like a raw wound. I hate uncovering it. But it was just a breakup. They happen every day.
“Luke, you were nineteen!” Margot says, raising her voice. “Sure, you said some shitty things to her because you were hurt, and she was terrible at talking about her feelings, but you guys grew apart.”
“I know. I just never saw it coming,” I tell her, leaning across her lap to reach for the remote.
“Do we ever see the big things coming, though? A predictable life never changed anyone.”
I turn on the sound, and turn up the volume to let her know we’re done talking, about Mia, about London, about me.
/>
Chapter SEVEN
London
I DROP MY KEYS in the bowl by the door, kicking off my shoes. They thump loudly onto the wood floor in the otherwise-silent loft. Lola and Oliver are either at his place or asleep, but for once I’d really love someone else to be here to distract me from my foul mood.
I don’t exactly feel like playing Titanfall.
I feel sort of queasy after what happened tonight with Luke and his friends. I’m not exactly upset by his behavior the way I was when I found Justin banging someone in his bed. And I’m not disappointed to see—yet again—that Luke is exactly the guy I thought he was.
But damn, I realize I wanted to be wrong about him. That feeling—the highly unwelcome desire for him to have been relationship material—makes my stomach feel twisty and gross.
I inhale a couple of bowls of Lucky Charms and crawl into bed, sleeping like a stone and silencing my alarm when it tells me it’s time to hit the surf.
Instead, I wake up much later—at ten, in fact—to laughter trailing down the hall from the living room, and the deep, overlapping sounds of male voices. Without bothering to put on actual clothes, I shuffle out in my Doctor Who pajamas to greet Lola, Oliver, Ansel, and Finn with a mumbled, “Hey, guys.”
They return my greeting as I move robotically to the kitchen. Bless her heart: Lola has made coffee. I pour myself a cup and then join them, curling up on the end of the couch beside Ansel.
“Where are the other two?” I say, meaning Harlow and Mia.
“They’re meeting us at Maryjane’s in a few,” Finn says, and I look around the room, wondering if it’s just me or if everyone else has gone oddly still.
I also register with faint curiosity that it’s midweek, they all happen to be off work, and no one has asked me to come along.
As if realizing this, too, Lola jerks into motion, standing and walking into the kitchen to refill her coffee. “No surfing today?”
At her question, I remember with a lurch why I didn’t feel like getting up—Luke and his unfortunate friends—and shake my head. “Too wiped.”
She nods, returning to us with her mug and settling back down on the floor next to Oliver.