Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating - Christina Lauren Page 0,66

cover. Sex I can do. But baring my emotional soul to Josh and watching his proverbial lip curl in distaste? Gah.

I think about Mom, and the way she reacted to Dad when he said those four words to her—you’re so fucking embarrassing—and how it didn’t seem to faze her at all. I used to think it was because she was so strong and was able to hide her pain, but now I know that it’s because his opinion didn’t matter. She didn’t love him.

And whether I love Josh as a friend or more, I do love him. Deeply.

“. . . so I took it to another shop,” Tyler is saying loudly, as if he knows I’ve spaced out and is turning up the volume to get my attention back where he wants it, “and the guy there agreed with me. Fucking timing belt. Who misdiagnoses a timing belt?”

“Right?” I say, giving what I hope is the appropriate degree of disbelief on his behalf. I add an indignant scowl at my plate, pushing the lasagna around a little. It looked so good coming out of the oven, but right now nothing has ever seemed so unappetizing. I wonder whether it’d be cool with Tyler if I just busted out some Cap’n Crunch for my dinner instead.

“So anyway,” he says, “that’s why I had no flowers.”

I look up. “Huh?”

“To bring you,” he says, leaning in and cupping a hand around my forearm. “I gave you a drawing of flowers? At the door?”

He did? “Right, right. It was so pretty, though.”

He ducks, smiles humbly. “Well, I wanted to bring actual flowers, and wine. Do the romantic thing.”

The romantic thing. To Tyler, that used to be a six-pack of PBR and the promise of some good ol’ fuckin’ later. I wonder if it’s still true, and he’s just upped his seduction tangibles a little. I push back from the table and out of his reach. “That’s so nice. You know I’ve never needed flowers.”

“No one needs flowers.” Grabbing his plate, he follows me into the kitchen, rolling up his sleeves like he intends to do the dishes. “But everyone likes them.”

Apparently, I’m right. Tyler turns on the water, filling the sink. I notice that he doesn’t get the water particularly hot before plugging the drain and filling it, and I mentally cover Josh’s eyes so he doesn’t have to watch such blatant disregard for proper cleaning technique.

“So tell me something about yourself,” Tyler says, reaching for my plate. He frowns at it before scraping the entirety of my lasagna helping into the trash. “Something that’s happened in the past few years.” He’s been here over an hour and this is the first question that’s been directed to me.

I lean against the counter, watching him.

He might be somewhat clueless, but he sure is pretty from behind. And from the front, too.

And he’s here, trying. Washing dishes, making conversation. My stomach feels like a houseboat on a rolling river and if I could just calm the hell down, I might actually enjoy his company.

“Well, you know I’m a teacher.”

“Yup. Fourth grade?”

“Third.” I reach for my wine, sniff it, and decide against it again. “This is my first year at Riverview. Let’s see . . . what else. My mom lives in Portland now.”

“Moved from Eugene, right?”

Okay. Maybe not so clueless after all. “Yeah.” A tiny flicker of light ignites in my chest. He remembers things about me. Things completely unrelated to my cup size or erogenous zones. “My closest friend here is a woman named Emily—”

“Josh’s sister? I think he mentioned her at dinner.”

I allow myself a mental knee-slapping laugh. Josh probably mentioned a lot of things that I missed entirely during my mental meltdown. “Yeah, good memory. And she’s married to our principal, this sequoia of a man named Dave, who—I swear to you—makes the best barbecue this side of the Mississippi.”

“That sounds awesome.”

“I mean, I’ll admit that I’ve never been east of the Mississippi, nor have I sampled barbecue at all that many places, but Dave makes good food.”

Tyler laughs at this. “Maybe we can have dinner over there sometime.”

And just like that, just when I’d been starting to relax, something tenses inside me again. The idea of sitting next to Tyler at Emily and Dave’s dinner table feels dirty. I imagine Josh across from us, sitting beside Sasha, and then I imagine throwing a sauce-slathered rib at him. In my head, it lands with a dark splat on his pristine work shirt and