She pauses for a few more cleansing breaths, apparently traumatized by my lack of knowledge regarding Austin lore. “This brings me to question number two. How, pray tell, did the person wearing this outfit walk?”
“Ummm…”
“He was strutting, wasn’t he?” she asks, hand confidently on her hip.
“Yeah, he did have kind of a self-assured gait.”
“No doubt.”
She shakes her head, faux sadness on her face.
Great. I’ve broken the only person willing to help me not look like an ass. “I just…I wanna becool.”
More head shaking and then a gruff hug. “Why do you want to be cool when you can just be yourself? You’resonot cool.”
“Gee, thanks,” I say into her shoulder.
She pulls away and gives me a sweet smile and a tousle of my hair. “Let me finish. You’re not cool, you’renatural. You’re delicate. You’re a hot mess. You’re fierce. You’re a grieving widower. You’re estranged from your entire family, and yet you are loyal as hell to the few people who you let get close.”
Ticking off points on her fingers, she continues. “You’ve managed to have a big career with the Air Force, a big love with Asadi, this big reset with your life. You’ve got a best friend who’s half in love with you, you hold back until you’re too far gone, and you’re hardly ever bound by reason. You’re like one of those geological fault lines miles underneath the water, mostly dormant, maybe even a little chilly, bubbling up in random places at random times, sometimes destructive, and sometimes warm enough to power a small ecosystem around you.”
Well, that sounds exhausting. Is that really how people see me? “No wonder I’m so fucking tired. And alone. Who would want to be around that? Why doyouwant to be around that?”
She brings me back into another tight hug. “Because you have boundaries. You’ve got a big box of crazy, but you try so hard to not make it anyone else’s problem that you never get the support you need. And the thing is…someone will want all of that crazy because 95 percent of it is fucking delightful and fierce.”
“Grrr,” I deadpan.
She laughs, her eyes going smiley. “You’re so tiny and so strong, and what was it Marilyn Monroe said? If they don’t like you at your worst, they don’t deserve you at your best. I mean, what the hell am I? Chopped liver? I love you to death, and in the three months we’ve gotten to know each other, I think you’ve shown more of yourself to me than almost anyone else.”
We sit down on the couch, and I lean my head on her shoulder. “Asadi was the only person in my life who could ever deal with all of this. Sometimes I feel disloyal when I think about maybe dating again, and then I feel like a real idiot for thinking anyone would want to date me to begin with.”
Parker grabs my hands, forcing me to look into her eyes. “I like the way you act like you’d have to go searching high and low for a date, as if there isn’t a guy already cued up for you. I’ve met the man once, maybe twice? He’s there, waiting.”
“Everett?”
She rolls her eyes and smacks me—gently—upside my head. “No, the Dalai Lama.Of course, Everett.”
I squirm in my seat and avoid her knowing eyes. “Do you really think he’s just waiting for me?”
She mutters to herself in Tagalog, then addresses me with a derisive head shake. “Have you seen him dating anyone else? And don’t say Darren because that didn’t count. He didn’t take his eyes off you, not even once, while he was in the middle of a date withanother guy.”
I make a face, fiddling with the lace on her throw pillows. “It was super weird seeing him with Darren. And no, I’ve never seen him date anyone else.”
Carefully pulling the pillow from my clutches, she grabs my hands again. “Buddy, I can promise you it wasn’t just weird for you, it was weird for him, it was weird for Darren. Hell, it was weird for anybody who was within a one-mile radius of that train wreck.”
Big sigh. “Then what do I do?”
“Well, let’s get you changed because if you keep on wearing that I’m going to keep on laughing at you, and let’s find some elements that might actually fit you a little better, okay?”
“Fine,” I sigh, slumping down to the couch, already demoralized. “I don’t even know where to begin.”
“First things first, you need to try to find a happy medium between Rick Moranis and gay club icon.”
“That’s probably pretty smart.”
“But there’s something else I want you to consider.”
“What’s that?”
