It was then I was freaking out in realizing I was totally falling in love with a guy I totally didn’t know named Tony, who was a friend of Lars.
“Time to go home,” I told my reflection.
I poured out the rest of the beer, threw the cup toward the bathroom bin without remorse, seeing as it was overflowing in a way that it’d clearly been doing that before the party, and I walked out.
I was heading down the hall toward the kitchen to go out back, thinking of excuses I could make to Maria that I had to leave, when Tony filled the mouth of the hall in front of me.
It wasn’t a wide hall, and even if he wasn’t a huge guy it was going to be a tight squeeze, so I stopped and stepped to the side, putting my back to the wall.
I skidded my eyes through him, suddenly shy, what with being alone with him in a hall, and I muttered, “Hey.”
He kept coming at me but stopped too, still filling the hall, and he replied, “Hey.”
When his shoulder (which was what I was focusing on) didn’t move, I raised my eyes to his and shared, “Bathroom’s free.”
“Cool,” he stated but still didn’t move, and this would be explained when he asked, “You okay?”
This question was unexpected, so I answered, “Yeah. Why?”
“Lonnie’s an open book, one that explodes, and what it spewed out just now spewed all over you.”
I stared up at him, speechless, mostly because I didn’t know what he was talking about.
I found my voice and said, “Sorry?”
“He’s got a thing for you. Big. Figure he’s into his girl and that’s why he doesn’t wanna hurt her, makin’ a move on you to be his side piece or movin’ from her to take on you. Still, even though he can’t do shit about it, doesn’t mean he wants anyone gettin’ in there, and he makes that clear. It’s gotta suck for you.”
I could not believe what he was saying.
“Lonnie doesn’t have a thing for me.”
His attention was to me but I could feel it increase after I said those words.
“Right,” he eventually grunted. “’Kay. Don’t know the guy well. Maybe reading it wrong.” He moved to pass, muttering, “Later.”
But I caught his forearm.
He stopped and looked down at me.
“Do you . . . ? Is that why he’s always . . . ?” I gave my head a little shake and then whispered, my gaze turning dazed. “Holy crap. Lonnie’s got a thing for me.”
“Probably shouldn’t have pointed it out,” he remarked, and I focused on him again.
“No. No. Absolutely no. You definitely should have pointed it out.”
I let him go and lifted that hand to pull my hair away from my face, noting but freaking out so bad, not letting it filter through how his eyes watched my hand move.
And then my hair when my hand dropped.
“Now what do I do?” I hissed, wanting to be quiet but I did it loudly.
He turned fully toward me and took a step into me, something I absolutely let filter through me because I felt my eyes get wide and my heart start to race when he did it because that put him close.
“You’re not into him. You don’t give off any vibe except that he’s your guy in the sense that he’s your friend. He keeps getting that vibe, he’ll get his shit together eventually.”
I leaned in and up and whispered, weirded out, so it was also loud, “I’ve known him since high school.”
He grinned.
I fell into it like it was the desired destination it absolutely was.
He then spoke.
“And how long’s that been? What, you graduate last year?”
Ouch.
That stung.
I either looked young or acted it and neither was good when you were twenty-three, on your own, making your way in the world.
Sure, I was doing it poorly.
But I had a plan.
I didn’t know how old he was but I did know he gave off the vibe of being older than Lonnie, who was twenty-five.
I’d put Tony at twenty-six, low end, thirty, high.
Which, at twenty-three, was the same as if I was fifteen and he was eighteen. Or I was seventeen and he was twenty.
In other words, it was miles apart.
I was still mostly a kid no matter that I was making my way (albeit poorly).
And he was past that.
When you hit the twenty-five zone, that was when you hit the adult zone and the age gap could be whatever it was.
But now, to him, I was still just a kid.
I rocked back to my heels and again looked at his shoulder. “No, like, five years ago.”
“A whole five?”
It sounded like a tease so I chanced looking at him to see it absolutely was a tease if the twinkle in his eye was anything to go by.
That looked good on him. It was awesome.
I was still nursing the sting.
“I’m gonna work in retail,” I told him, and his head jerked a bit with surprise at my change in subject. This did not deter me and I carried on, “I’m gonna work my way up to buyer.”
“That’s cool,” he said slowly. “What are you doin’ now?”
“I work at Sip and Save.”
I said it proudly, because it was a job. I was gainfully employed. I had been (for once at the same place) for some time. I didn’t show late. I didn’t call off. I did my job as boring and menial as it was like it meant what it meant—rent paid and food on the table, both important.
But even so, I watched his eyes close down.
That was how my parents reacted to me working at a convenience store.
“The manager totally bailed last week so the assistant manager is gonna get promoted then I’m gonna get promoted to assistant manager and I’ve been there eight months. That’s job loyalty. I stay awhile, get managerial experience, I can get a job at the mall and start my plan in action.”
“It’s good to have goals.”
It wasn’t said dismissively.
But I still thought it was dismissive.
“My second choice was being the president but politicians always wear red and I look crap in red,” I shot back, preparing to slide away from him and give him a “later.”
“Cady,” he called, halting me before I even began, and I looked up at him again. “I was being serious. It is good to have goals.”
I wanted to know what his goals were, being in this house, drinking beer from that keg, being someone Lonnie was excited to see, knowing Lars.
I didn’t ask.
I said, “I need to get going.”
And I did. Away from him and his association with Lars. Away from Lonnie and what Tony had told me about him. Away from Maria pressuring me to get shitfaced so I’d have no choice but to find someplace in that filthy house to pass out and sober up.
Away from all of this that was proving my parents right.
That Lonnie and Maria weren’t the awesome-cool friends I thought they were, not anymore. That with this entry into a world that creeped me out at best, scared me at worst, Lonnie’s goals were highly suspect and Maria had no goals except finding whatever good time or adventure and going gung ho into it.
It had all been fun and games when there wasn’t rent to be paid and food to put on a table and that had been a blast.
But eventually, everyone had to grow up.
Even Lonnie and Maria.
And me.
So I didn’t need to get caught up with a guy like Tony (not that he wanted me).
I needed to prove my parents wrong.
So I worked at a convenience store and lived in a crappy-ass studio apartment where I practically slept in the shower, it was so little (so little it didn’t even have a tub)
It was mine. I worked to pay the rent. I volunteered for overtime whenever it was available (which was a lot) in order to have a little extra to sock away to get a nicer place, a nicer car, nicer things.
I had a plan.
I had goals.
And a guy like Tony would probably derail those goals, because I knew just looking into those eyes in that face on that body that I’d forget my determination to prove my parents wrong, and I’d slide even deeper into the denial I was living in with Maria and Lonnie just to stay tied to him.
It wasn’t because he was hot.