“Yeah, but humor only succeeds if you make the people you care about laugh. If you hurt them, then it’s mean-spirited. Therefore, I’m an asshole.”
He smiled, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “This is when my dad would call me a wuss. I love the guy but he doesn’t always make it easy.” Then he seemed to recall my paternal situation. “Damn. I shouldn’t be complaining about how I have it when you—”
“It’s not a contest. Me having a sucky dad doesn’t mean nobody else can talk about theirs without me playing the abandonment card. So are we okay?”
“Yeah. Was that our first fight?”
“Only if we start yelling and one of us flounces off afterward.”
That night, Rob was quiet when we worked on the house, not unusual, but after the exchange in the car it had me worried. We ate dinner together, worked some more, and around ten, he said, “I’ll take you home.”
“Oh.”
It wasn’t like I’d assumed he’d invite me to sleep over, though I had been confident enough to give my mom a heads-up. Was this the opposite of the walk of shame? The walk of no-game? I lacked the courage to ask him why; I mean, we’d already fooled around once today. Maybe he just wanted to sleep, or he was tired from the renovations. Possibly he thought that would be rushing the main event or he was just sick of me.
“I won’t be around tomorrow,” he said, pulling into my driveway. “Or the next few days, for that matter.”
If things weren’t a little...weird, I’d have asked why not. But with the silent tension in the air—and I didn’t know how to fix it, other than apologize, which I’d already done—it felt like overstepping. So I just nodded.
“Okay. Have a good weekend.” I jumped out of the car, not wanting to learn the hard way if he’d come around to get me.
Wow. One day. This went pear-shaped fast.
I was unlocking the front door by quarter past ten, much to my mother’s surprise. “No dice, huh?”
“There’s something going on with him.”
With an inviting smile, she patted the other end of the sofa. “I have cookies.”
“See, this is why I eat my feelings. I’m following your example.”
“So talk about your problems instead. I will fall on this cookie-grenade for you.” Mom crammed a whole chocolate chip cookie in her mouth and mumbled, “Sehowmuckiwubu?”
It was impossible to brood when I had my cheerful, fun-loving mother back. After my dad left, it was literally years before I saw her smile again. At the moment, I could hug Stuart if he were responsible for this transformation. But no, Nadia’s mom had said the change started a while back, longer than they’d been together. So he was a happy side effect, not the cause.
In the end, I ate two cookies and watched a few episodes of Storage Wars. Though I felt like a dipshit, I kept an eye on my phone, but it never buzzed. That weekend I hung out with Krista, as promised. Feeling like a loser, I borrowed my mom’s car since she was with Stuart and drove to the nearest theater, half an hour away. Krista talked the whole time about the travails of pregnancy, which didn’t increase my desire to reproduce.
“Pull over,” she yelled, twenty minutes into the trip.
Worried, I did as she ordered and she opened the door in time to upchuck all over the gravel shoulder. I looked away, but the smell was horrific. “Should I take you home?”
“It’s fine. It’ll pass. For some reason, driving makes the morning sickness worse.”
“It’s almost four in the afternoon,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, it’d be awesome if the problem cut off at 11:59 a.m. sharp.” With shaky hands, she opened her purse and fished out some kind of hard candy. “Ginger. It helps.”
“Tell me when you feel better.” I was a little bit worried about watching a movie with her, but she ought to know her limitations better than me.
Five minutes later, she was okay to continue. Luckily there were no more issues and we managed to get tickets for a comedy starting in fifteen minutes. The film wasn’t awesome, but spending time with Krista was. Afterward, we had dinner at a chain restaurant nearby.
“Have you heard from your dad?” I asked.
“Actually, yeah.” She beamed.
“I told you he’d come around.”
But mine never did.
That made me kind of sad, though I didn’t show it. Midnight had come and gone when I dropped Krista off and headed home. My mom wasn’t back yet. A twist of melancholy tightened my insides as I headed upstairs alone. Everyone in Michigan was probably having fun with Courtney instead of me. I’m sure Angus and Nadia miss you, at least. After what happened with Max, I suspected he was glad I wasn’t around to remind him.
I didn’t hear from Rob all weekend. He’s busy, I told myself. But it was hard not to wonder if I’d given him the wrong signals by fooling around so fast. Yet if he was the kind of guy who’d hold that against me, he could fuck off. That burst of anger carried me through Wednesday when the manager from the car lot called to offer me the job.
“Can you start a week from Monday?” Davies asked.
“Sure, that’s not a problem.”
“Bring your ID and social security card. I look forward to working with you, Lauren.” God, until this moment, I’d always liked my name, but he said it in this trying-to-be sexy tone.
“Me, too. Thanks for the opportunity.”
That night, I celebrated with Mom and Stuart; he took us out for Chinese in Edison, a long drive just to eat, but the food was worth it. Overall I had a good time. And I still didn’t hear from Rob. Anger gave way to hurt. Yeah, I was kind of a dick in the truck, but if he gave Avery the silent treatment over every little thing, no wonder she thought he was cheating on her. Guys didn’t do that when they were emotionally invested.
I guess, in the end, it was easy for him to walk away.
On another note, I had no idea how I’d be getting to work since I couldn’t exactly demand a truck from somebody who wasn’t talking to me. Because I had no solutions to this problem, I followed the path of all true warriors—and got on the internet to play video games. That coping strategy lasted for two days, and I didn’t shower. My mom eventually made me by threatening to withhold dinner.
The woman knows how to motivate.
Friday night, my phone vibrated, but I didn’t look at it right away; I killed ten more fluffy bunnies with pointy monster teeth before pausing my game. 1 message. When I swiped the screen and tapped it, the text read: