“Are you two going to make out? Or are you going to get the fuck out of the way?” the same seventy year old woman says and Gavin and I give each other a look before walking away, both of us giggling.
He stays with me as we both check out, neither of us saying anything. He walks me to my car and places my groceries in the trunk and we both stand there under the hot summer sun for a long moment.
With his hands on his hips, a gray T-shirt stretched out against his large chest, and basketball shorts showing off his ridiculously hot calves I know that I’m definitely going to cave. When the hell would I ever have this opportunity again?
“Seriously, use my number. For anything. If your ex bothers you again, or like Ben said, if you want to be friends.”
“Friends,” I repeat.
“Good friends,” he says with a smirk.
“I’ll think about it. Thanks for helping me back there. I appreciate it.”
“Make sure you get your phone checked,” he says. He looks like he wants to say more, but doesn’t, instead he gives me a wave. “Drive safe.”
“Yeah, you too.”
Two hours later,while heating up my frozen Alfredo and drinking a sparkling lemonade, I finally send the text I knew I wanted to the moment I left the parking lot. Maybe I’m a fool, or maybe I’m just a horny bitch with a newfound twin fantasy. But I send it before I can change my mind.
Maybe we can be friends.
I expect a reply, and I get one, but this time it’s as a three-way group chat.
Gavin
A dinner between friends on Friday night?
Ben
Hi Kate!
Friday night sounds great.
Maybe it won’t be such a sad girl summer after all. There’s no revenge as sweet as forgiveness, right?
18
THE GROUND RULES
I’m nervous,but excited as Gavin and I sit and wait at the restaurant. We’re in the back of the patio, giving us enough privacy and a view of downtown as we wait for Kate to join us.
That’s if she hasn’t changed her mind and decided she was having a total lapse in judgment in forgiving us and starting…whatever the fuck it is we’re starting tonight.
“Will you stop bouncing your leg?”
“I either bounce my leg or I go into a spiral. Which is it?” I ask Gavin, and he rolls his eyes.
“She’ll come. It was her idea. You have nothing to be nervous about.”
I nod, and then continue bouncing my leg, thinking about all the things I’m indeed fucking nervous about. Kate agreed after seeing Gavin at the grocery store, not after I showed up at her house. What if it’s Gavin she’s interested in? What if I’m far more invested in this than everyone else? I know that Gavin doesn’t want a relationship, and I’m not really sure what Kate wants. From her being at Avalon, just getting out of a messy divorce, I can’t imagine she wants what I secretly want. It’snot something I’ve told Gavin, and shit, maybe it’s something I haven’t come to terms with myself.
Maybe it’s just Kate that I feel this way about, but the idea of something more, beyond a sex club, beyond casual, it doesn’t seem so scary anymore. Not with Kate, anyway.
“What’re you so nervous about, anyway?” Gavin asks.
Instead of spilling my guts, instead of being honest with the one person I’m always honest with, I hold it in.
“I just want it to work out, is all.”
