“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she says after a few minutes, her finger running over the glass in her hand.
“How did you meet her?” she asks, her eyes following her finger. I walk over to the small table and sit down. I’m supposed to be leaving. I’m already late but how can I not answer her question. Maybe it’ll show Jenna in a better light than she put herself in earlier.
“When my mom got sick,” I start and let out a sigh. It’s still hard to talk about. She walks over to me and takes a seat beside me. “It was like life had crapped on me. After everything with me and my condition, the medical bills, the stress of it all. And then my mom got sick.”
She nods as if she understands. I guess she’d have some idea.
“Our house was like a funeral. My mom’s the one that held our family together. The thought of not having her killed me and my dad,” I say honestly.
“He was stronger than I was, but I could tell it hurt him and I didn’t know how to deal with it. I couldn’t cry because I felt empty and lost, completely lost. No one could bring me out of what I can only describe as barely living.”
“The only time I left the house was to go see my mom at the University Hospital. Jenna goes to school near there,” I explain hesitantly. She nods, encouraging me to go on. I sigh.
“We went to high school together but we didn’t really know each other then, you know? She saw me and spoke to me but I didn’t answer. I guess I was in a daze or something and she thought I was being rude so she started yelling at me,” I explain. Lauren looks at me, a little confused.
“Before that, I stopped seeing people. I was in a fog that I couldn’t shake and I started laughing at her. At that point I hadn’t laughed in months.”
Lauren nods, a small smile on her face.
“I’m glad you had someone there for you,” she says softly.
“We were friends for a whole year. I couldn’t be with anyone while my mom was sick.” I shrug.
“When did you start dating?” she asks curiously.
“About five months ago, once the doctors said my mom was in remission,” I say, still hating to even say the word ‘cancer’ aloud.
“Jenna pushed me to not sit around being miserable. I went back to school, finished my degree and started working again. If it weren’t for her not letting me feel sorry for myself, believing the world was ending, I don’t know what would have happened,” I say honestly. Lauren’s gaze returns to her glass.
“Jenna can come off different than how she really is. I don’t know what she said out there but... she just feels… threatened” I say with a sigh.
She picks up her glass and finishes half of it. “Are you excited about tonight?” she says, changing the subject.
“No. I hate these things,” I admit.
“Your tie,” she says quietly, gesturing to it.
I laugh. “I feel like a valet parker,”
There’s a grin, a small one, but it’s there. I’ll take it.
“It’s too dark for your suit. Do you have any other colors?” she asks.
“Yeah, not a lot but I just picked one that matched,” I say honestly. She laughs, and my heart skips a beat.
“I can help you, if you want,” she says hesitantly.
“Please!” I beg.
She lets out a light laugh. “Okay,” she giggles. I head up the stairs and she follows me. Once we make it to my room, I flip the light on and walk over to my drawer where I have about seven or eight ties my mom bought. I sense her behind me and I move out of the way so she can look through them.
“Sorry, you don’t have much to work with,” I say and she smiles up at me.
“Do you have any other suits?” she asks. She must really not like this one. I nod and walk to the closet, showing her the other choices.
“I think the black,” she says with a shrug.
She goes back to my tie drawer and picks up a red one. My mom bought it for me for Christmas last year.
“You’re sure?” I ask skeptically.
“Trust me,” she says with a grin.
“Okay. I’ll be right back,” I say. I head to the bathroom, change into the black suit and reappear. She’s sitting on my bed leaning on a pillow. She looks so comfortable, like she belongs in it.
“Actually, do you have another shirt? The collar on this one looks a little weird,” she says with a grin. I laugh, walk over to my closet where my collared shirts are and she stands beside me. She shuffles through them, pulls one out and inspects it. “Can I see the tie again?”
I hand it to her. She puts it near the shirt and gives a nod of approval.
“Okay,” I say skeptically. I start to unbutton my shirt and there’s a moment where I wonder if I should turn around or if she’ll leave the room.
She doesn’t. She actually folds her arms as if waiting for me to change.
So I do.
She glances around the room so as not to stare. I quickly remove the other shirt and throw on the one she chose. She’s staring at her feet but I catch her glancing up at me before she quickly looks away.
That makes me smile and I have to bite my tongue to stop. I don’t know how successful I am. After I button my shirt, I throw the tie around the collar and knot it.
“How about now?” I say, doing my best GQ pose, and she bursts into laughter.
“You tied it all wrong,” she says, stepping toward me. The closer she gets, the more difficult it is to breathe, I think my temperature has suddenly gone up. She keeps her eyes on my tie. I want her to look up at me but I’m praying she doesn’t.
That line between us, the one that’s supposed to be thick and wide, is getting just a little thinner. She’s probably done this for him a thousand times but that doesn’t explain why her cheeks are flushed. Each time her fingers brush against my chest I feel anxious, calm, nervous and excited all at once.
It’s taking every ounce of self control to keep my arms at my sides. I draw on every ounce of determination to stamp out the urge to wrap my arms around the small of her back, pull her against me and kiss her lips that are barely open, but begging me to taste them.
This isn’t good…
When she finishes, she steps away from me, and I let out a breath, hopefully not an obvious one. She grabs my jacket and hands it to me.
“For the full effect,” she says lightly. I laugh to release some of my nervousness. She’s shifting her weight back and forth. When I look in the mirror, I have to say I look much more put together, more comfortable, and for a minute, I wonder if I look like him.
“Much better,” she says as she looks at my reflection in the mirror.
“Thank you,” I say, and she nods as she heads out.
“Lauren.”
She turns back towards me.
“Did you do this for me a lot?”
She pauses and a reminiscent smile spreads across her face. “He wouldn’t let me anywhere near his ties.” She snickers before leaving the room. I can’t help but smile to myself. That means that’s a first.
My first with Lauren that Cal didn’t have.
The fund raiser is exactly what I thought it would be. Boring, long speeches, bad food, dull conversation, and stale jokes. I want to crawl out of my suit and hang myself with my tie. At least the suit was a hit; Jenna even complimented me on it. My stomach’s growling, my mom didn’t let me have seconds of her meatloaf since I was coming here. And tonight’s main course is Salmon. Fish is the one thing I don’t like, especially when it looks undercooked.