A laugh jumped from his mouth, and then he read his. “Being dependable is a desirable trait.”
“There’s obviously been a mix-up.” I held out my hand and we traded fortunes, crunching on the cookies and grinning like we were still those twelve-year-old kids.
When the bill came, he grabbed it first and I went to protest, but he held up his hand. “You can get it next time.”
I liked that there might be a next time. Maybe now as adults, we could be friends for real. Without parental interference. My stomach tightened painfully. All these years later, I was still pissed about how it all went down.
As we walked out to the parking lot, I noticed we were about the same height, both of us with smaller frames than the guys I normally dated. Not that we’d ever date—he wouldn’t go for it anyway—just that I’d crushed so hard on him back then, and could appreciate his beauty now even if he wasn’t really my type.
He lifted his phone to order a car service.
“Hey, I could’ve—”
“Nah, we live on opposite sides of town, and it’s only a five-minute wait.”
True, but I still wouldn’t have minded the extra time with him. I’d enjoyed myself and was glad to have reconnected.
After waiting with him a couple of minutes, I motioned to my car, not wanting to hover. “Okay, well, I’m just over there. Let’s do this again. It was fun.”
“Sounds like a plan,” he said with a wave, then seemed to hesitate. “Hey, Fancy?”
“Yeah?”
“What happened back then?” he asked in a tentative voice. “Why’d you drop out of gymnastics?”
Ah, the proverbial elephant in the room. I wondered if either of us would bring it up, but I’d been too chicken—and maybe a little embarrassed.
“I don’t know the true reason my parents pulled me out.” My jaw tightened. “Dad gave the excuse that I needed to be involved in lots of different things, such as baseball. That it would look good on my college application. But I could tell he was smoothing it over for my mom, who was always the decision-maker with those sorts of things.”
I noticed Skylar tensing, but didn’t know the reason why. Still, I needed to tell him the rest.
“I was so angry, I threw a huge fit, broke stuff in my room…” I admitted, and his eyes widened in surprise. That was one of the only times in my life when I’d really lost it. “I was grounded for a long time after that.” I’d cried into my pillow that night and refused to speak to my mom for days. But I’d learned from the best, so eventually I wiped my tears and got on with it.
5
Skylar
“Holy shit, man. I’m sorry.” The thing was, as bad as it sounded, I wasn’t surprised. Mrs. Havemeyer had always been the kind to have a very specific idea of what she wanted Clark to be. Even as a twelve-year-old kid, I’d been able to see that.
“It is what it is. Nothing I can do about it now. What about you? Do you still perform?”
A sharp pang hit me in the chest. “No, not really. I still love it. I stopped taking official lessons after I graduated high school. I was good, but never good enough for the Olympics or anything. Wasn’t like I could have a future in it, and by then I was working and that had to come first. A few of the gyms around here have open practice sometimes, and I go do that just to fuck around and keep my skills up, but not as often as I could.” I couldn’t believe we hadn’t talked about any of this earlier. And it was sort of embarrassing, but I wasn’t ready to end this…well, not-date. Definitely not-date, but hang-out session. I wished I hadn’t called for a car so soon.
Clark said, “I’m probably super out of shape. I don’t know if I could do any of it now.”
My eyes scaled up and down his body. “Fancy, there’s not a thing out of shape about you.”
His cheeks flushed a pretty pink, and I almost commented on it, but then was a little annoyed at myself for flirting with him. It would be cool to be friends with Clark again, really friends with him, but that’s all it could ever be. He was the marriage-and-kids type, while I was of the run-screaming-from-commitment variety. So I said, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
“What? No. You didn’t.” He didn’t say anything else, and for a second I considered getting flirty with him again before I remembered I couldn’t bang Clark.
My ride pulled up then, and yeah, I still wasn’t ready to bail. “You still free?” I asked him, and his brows pulled together, but he nodded. “Wanna hang out? I have an idea.”
“What about your ride?”
I shrugged. “He gets a freebie, I guess.”
“I couldn’t ask you to do that. You’d still have to pay.”
“You didn’t ask, and I’m taking that as a yes. I’ll be right back.” When Clark didn’t try to stop me, I walked over to the car and told the driver I changed my mind.
“You’ll still be charged,” he told me.
“Yeah, man. I know. No worries.”
He pulled away, and I returned to Clark. He was looking at me with this pinched expression, like he couldn’t figure me out, but not in a way that said he didn’t want to.
“Am I driving, or are we walking?” he asked.
“My place, real quick. You can leave your car there.”
Clark hesitated a moment, then led me to his car. When we got in, I gave him my address, which he typed into his navigation.
“Damn, Fancy. You don’t play, do you? This is a nice ride. I feel like I’m a hooker and you picked me up or something.”
I was joking, and I hoped he knew it. When he gave a loud, throaty laugh and said, “You’re such a dork,” a relieved breath escaped my lungs.
“Today I feel like a high-priced rent boy.” I winked at him, and he laughed again.
We got to my apartment, which I knew was probably a shithole to him. Clark wasn’t the type to ever say so, though.
I was on the bottom floor. My complex wasn’t one where you went into my unit from inside a lobby, and my door was about fifty feet from the parking spot I directed him to.
“Let’s go.” I felt a giddy excitement deep in my gut. Twelve-year-old me was stoked right now, actually getting to hang out with Clark outside of gymnastics. I’d wanted to so badly when we were younger. I was a whole lot less cynical about love then.
I unlocked the door and went in. Suddenly, I wished I’d been able to clean up before he came over. My clothes were thrown over the back of the couch, and the outfits I wore to the Playground hung in the hall closet that didn’t have a door.
“Excuse the mess and follow me.”
He nodded, his eyes darting around and taking in my space. The complex was old, the carpet not dirty but just…well, old like the rest of it. I was sure his place was way better, but I also didn’t care. This was who I was, and that wouldn’t change.
When we got to my room, he said, “Holy shit. Do you run a clothing store out of your apartment?”
I laughed. “Clothes are my guilty pleasure.” Rummaging through my things, I found two pairs of shorts and a T-shirt. Luckily, we were the same size. I threw the top and one pair of bottoms at him. “Here, put these on.”