He grabbed the strings from her shoulders and finished looping them around the walls of the shop, stepping back to survey the effect. “Looks good.”
“Mmm.” Gina’s noncommittal answer bordered on irritated, and Erik jammed his hands into his pocket.
“What?”
“Testy,” she said. “I can’t help but notice that since I got here, all we’ve done is talk about grand-opening stuff.”
“I asked you how the new job is going.”
“Oh, sorry. Five minutes on my exciting career debugging laptops, and the rest on grand-opening stuff.”
“Right, because you came over to help me get ready, and it’s happening tomorrow,” he grumbled.
“No, I came over because you’ve been hurting for days, and when you finally reached out, I came running over to let you pour out all your troubles. But all you’ve done is deflect and avoid.”
Erik growled and stalked to the kitchen, where he continued to deflect and avoid by grabbing a tray of unfrosted key lime cupcakes from the fridge and banging them onto the countertop. Gina followed and calmly handed him the icing bag. He snatched it from her and started aggressively piping green-tinted icing onto half a dozen naked cakes before she spoke.
“I actually did have better things to do with my Friday night, you know,” she said. “New gal in town. Lots of social options. I turned down a date with a lawyer to hang out with you.”
He slammed the bag down, unconcerned about the icing that shot out to cover the countertop in a sticky layer of sweetness.
“Ah, so you’re pissed,” she said calmly.
“Yes, I’m pissed. She didn’t stop to think about me. Only herself.”
Gina moved around the counter to grab a towel. “Oh yeah? Because she’s the one who benefits financially when this place earns a profit?” She moistened the cloth and began wiping away the green smears.
Erik’s jaw tightened, but he refused to acknowledge her point. Instead, he recalled yet again the sick dread of looking into the lens of the camera and knowing he was being broadcast across the city in all his tongue-tied awkwardness. And then the even sicker dread when he realized that Josie needed a partner who would happily step in front of a million cameras for her.
“She doesn’t want to be with someone like me.” He bunched his shoulders and pushed the words out even though they hurt to say out loud. “I can’t make her happy.”
“She said all that? ‘Erik, you’re a big, silent man-ape, and I hate it. What I need is a silly, shiny, shallow man to make me happy.’”
“Of course not.” He nudged her aside and grabbed the cloth to finish wiping up the icing explosion. Gina’s sarcasm burrowed under his skin. It was minor league compared to Josie’s MLB-level skills, but it still rankled. Then again, he hadn’t seen Josie lose control of her temper at all recently, and in that last, awful conversation, she’d looked downright defeated. The Josie he’d met four months ago probably would’ve lunged for his eyes.
“She’s always going to be chasing some new kind of validation.” He addressed his words to the green streaks of icing on the towel. “I can’t be with her knowing I’ll never be enough.”
And fuck, he’d known that from the beginning. Known that women like her craved something more exciting than men like him. He’d just let himself forget for a little while.
Gina wrapped her arm around his waist and gave him a squeeze, her head barely clearing his shoulder. “Listen, the girl isn’t stupid. She knows a good man when she sees one, and you’re a good man. She’ll come around.”
“Maybe.”
“And if she doesn’t, that just means more grand-opening leftovers for me.” She released him and selected a cupcake, peeling away the wrapper with a grin.
“Remember when I said I was glad you were here to help? I changed my mind.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t actually have any better plans tonight. That lawyer seemed totally boring. Although…” Her face reddened.
He tossed the towel into the sink. “Although?”
“Christine left me a voicemail.” She too casually adjusted the strap of her overalls and didn’t meet his eyes. “She wants to talk about things. Relationship things.”
“That’s good,” he said, glad that one of them had positive news to share. Then he noticed Gina’s frown. “That’s good, right?”
“Yeah. I love her. I miss her. It’s… complicated.” She looked up, a wan expression on her normally friendly features. “I’m hoping we can move past all our shit, including my post-breakup rendezvous with Closing-Time Timmy.”
Chagrined at the reminder that he wasn’t the only person in pain in this kitchen, he pulled her into a hug, sticky green icing be damned. “I’m sorry.”
