She rolls her big, beautiful eyes. “Oh, enough with the French, Frenchie.”
“I’m not doing it to impress you,” I explain and sigh. “I think I’m done trying to do that at all.”
She opens the car door but turns back to me before she gets out. “Look, you’re a great lay. I won’t lie about that, but that’s all this was. It was fun and satisfying, but I won’t date you.”
“You’re not telling me something. What is it?” I ask, but she just gives me a small, awkward wave and then gets out of the car. As she starts down the dark, damp street the half block to her apartment, I follow slowly in the car. She may have gone from the girl of my potential dreams to the biggest bag of crazy I’ve met in a while, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to abandon her. I told Trey I would get her home safe and I will. She turns once and glares at me, but I just ignore her and idle outside her building until she’s unlocked the door and is safely inside.
As I do a U-turn and begin back toward my townhouse I can’t help but feel like I’m going to miss her. I barely knew her but I still can’t help but feel that we had something that was more than just physical. I was going to miss getting to know her, as weird as that sounds.
Chapter 21
Shayne
I’m waiting at the bus stop, annoyed that the bus isn’t on time and annoyed with myself because I should have gotten out here early. The sun is fighting to make its way out of the heavy cloud cover. Every now and then it wins the battle, and I get a ray of sunshine to warm me, but it doesn’t last long. Where is the damn bus? I have a nutrition class to teach in forty minutes. I’ve been late twice this week already. Trey’s ready to fire me, no joke.
I had called Audrey last night and told her about what happened—and the conversation on the car ride home. She ate it up like it was a recap of her favorite soap opera.
“Where is he now?”
“I don’t know. On his way home, I guess,” I said and sighed into the phone. “I am not an expert in the migratory patterns of hotheaded French defensemen.”
“Key word in that was hot,” Audrey had replied. “You think he’s hot.”
Yeah, so she was no help in my quest to stay hockey-free.
“He turned down my bed buddies suggestion.”
She sighed into the phone. “That’s because he’s not a chicken shit like you. He knows this is more than sex. I was just trying to convince you to pretend it was all about sex so you’d at least keep seeing him until your brain caught up with your heart.”
“Excuse me?”
“I was lying about the orgasms,” Audrey confessed. “You’re attracted to him as a human being, but you won’t admit it because of your prior trauma.”
“Please stop using your psych degree on me.”
“Shaynie, he’s good for you, not just your clit. Try to come to terms with that, will you?”
I hadn’t answered her. I just told her I had to go and hung up. I had thought about Audrey’s little psychoanalysis all night long. I did like Sebastian. But I had liked Dustin too, and all that got me in the end was a twelve-day cycle of antibiotics. And Dustin wasn’t even a professional athlete. My dad was, and he probably slept with hundreds of women behind my mother’s back.
Besides, even if I liked Sebastian, after my little cryptic tirade on the drive home, I’m sure he is done with my crazy ass. For all I know, he could easily forget about me. Maybe that connection I felt, and needed now to ignore, was one-sided this whole time. That would make sense because my father was the same way. I watched my mom struggle for a connection to him my whole life. Sure, they are married, but he didn’t seem to really love her. He loves himself, for sure, and maybe Trey, but if he loved his wife, he rarely showed it. And although Trey has been slightly better with his emotions since rehab, I still thought I saw a glimmer of longing in his wife Sasha’s eyes sometimes. Trey isn’t one for outward signs of affection.
Sebastian may seem outwardly affectionate right now, but that’s because this is new and we are drawn to each other like bunnies in heat. Last night, to try to cure myself of the lingering longing I have for him, I surfed the Tumblr account dedicated to wives and girlfriends of NHL players and found his thread. In the last year he’s been photographed with three different women the blog called his girlfriend. I bet he was drawn to them too. And where are they now? I am not going to be girlfriend number four.
I sigh and crane my neck, looking down the street for any sign of the damn bus. I contemplate giving up and calling Uber or a cab, but I’m trying to save money. My car is toast. There was no saving the engine, so now I need to figure out how the hell to afford a new car. I am drowning in school loans and although Trey pays me well, Seattle is expensive and I just don’t have a lot in my savings. Certainly not enough to buy a car. Not one that’s worth owning, anyway.
A car horn honks and I look up. There in front of me is an all-too-familiar silver Audi. I contemplate turning and walking away, but she’s staring right at me through the windshield and I’m staring back. I can’t pretend I didn’t see her. She pulls right up to the bus stop and rolls down her passenger window.
“I thought that was you, Shaynie!” my mother says brightly, leaning toward the open window. “Are you heading to work? I can give you a lift! I wanted to check in with Trey anyway.”
I want to tell her I’d rather take the bus. I really would rather take it and if it had been on time, I would have, but the bus isn’t here and I am late. Very late. And I know my mother won’t take no for an answer anyway. So I pull open the passenger door and climb in.
She leans over the console between the chocolate leather seats and kisses my cheek. “So good to see you, sweetie.” She pulls away from the bus stop and toward downtown. “I feel like you might as well live in Malaysia with the amount of times we see each other. I mean, you’re literally less than twenty minutes from home, but you’d never know it.”
And the guilt trip has started before we even manage to move a mile. Fabulous. I try not to frown, or sigh, or groan or do anything that she can latch on to and use to become more of a martyr. “My car died and I’ve been working a lot. A ton, actually. I barely see Audrey, and the only reason I see Trey is because he’s at the gym.”
She nods and reaches over to pat my hand, which is resting in my lap. “I know, honey. Not judging. Just saying I miss you, I guess.”
Yeah, right.
