Lie, Lie Again - Stacy Wise Page 0,37
this way with any guy she dated?
This time, fear didn’t scratch—it clawed. Maybe she was someone who preferred solitude, and no one would ever feel like the yin to her yang. It’s possible no guy could ever be the one. What if she grew old all alone? How would she feel with no one there by her side when the inevitable happened?
She swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. Don’t be dramatic and stupid, Riki. She stepped out of the hug and looped the towel over her arm. “I’ll hang this in the bathroom. There’s beer in the fridge if you want one.” And plenty of girls out there who aren’t secretly a mess, if you’d prefer one of those.
“Thanks.”
Chris was sitting on the sofa when she returned, a papier-mâché panda in his hand. He held it up. “What’s this ball thing for?”
She plopped next to him. “It’s a panda, not a ball.”
“Really?” he asked, spinning it from one side to the other. “A panda?”
“Yes. We’re doing an endangered-animal unit next month for Earth Week, and I’m having the kids make papier-mâché animals to go along with their reports.” Taking it from his hands, she said, “This little guy is my example. I spent a few hours making him the other day.”
He circled an arm around her shoulders and frowned. “Wow. It’s . . .”
“Is it that bad?” she asked as she placed it back on the table.
“It’s something. The good news is, your kids won’t feel like theirs suck because the teacher’s looks so much better.”
“Thanks a lot. Mrs. Fitzsimmons left her sample behind, but it was all dull and dusty. Even so, maybe I should just use hers.”
“No. Don’t. I hated it when my teachers made these amazing projects and mine looked like crap.”
“Thanks, I guess?” She playfully touched her shoulder to his. “Do you want to order pizza? It’s kind of too wet to go out, don’t you think?”
“It’s not that bad, and some of the guys are meeting up at the Lantern for drinks and appetizers. You love seeing everyone.”
Do I? Or did he just want to believe that? She didn’t even know his friends all that well. But then again, most girls would jump at an offer to go to a cool gastropub with their newly official boyfriend, wouldn’t they? Yes, Riki, they would. That’s what Rowan would say, and she was probably right. Rowan was always giving her advice on how to “act normal.” To be fair, sometimes it was helpful. Mostly, though, it was annoying, and she wasn’t in the mood to follow Rowan’s advice. She turned to Chris and patted his leg. “If you want to hang out with them, you should. I’m not up for it.”
He placed his hand on hers and sighed. “I’d really love for you to go with me. It’s Saturday night.” Tapping his thigh against hers, he smiled and said, “Come on.”
She struggled to come up with the right words. He was Mr. Personality, and she was a homebody. Which is exactly why I need to push myself, she thought. I’ll end up a complete recluse with an apartment full of cats. Not that she had one now. But she could see the path in front of her, and it was littered with cats. Or maybe she’d heard it enough from Rowan to start believing it was a real possibility. “Okay.”
“Really? You’ll go?”
She leaned forward to kiss him. “Yes. I’ll go. Give me a few minutes to change, okay?”
“Awesome. I told them we’d be there in thirty.”
She started to say something but instead headed for her room. What if she’d insisted on staying home? Would he have thrown her over his shoulder and strapped her in the car? She couldn’t imagine Brandon making assumptions about what Embry wanted to do. She sighed. It wasn’t fair to compare Chris to him. But it was like thoughts of Brandon had hijacked her brain. Maybe she could set up a point system for herself, and once she racked up enough points—earned by not thinking about Brandon as anything but her friend’s husband—she could buy herself a reward. Something she’d been wanting, like a new tote for her school things.
She pulled a black turtleneck sweater from the back of her closet and tugged it over her head. Her jeans were fine, she decided, and she slipped on a pair of black leather boots. They probably weren’t waterproof, but she didn’t have anything else to wear besides flip-flops and sandals.
She brushed her