I can sense my dad is somewhere behind me. His derisive grumble rolls through the store like a freight train.
“Oh, that’s pretty smooth,” the girl says, though the gleam of interest in her eyes is growing.
“I can be rough too.” Another grin.
This time she giggles and looks away coyly. “Okay, well, I was actually hoping to find another book. Do you have anything by Sylvia Day?”
I wince. Day is a prolific romance writer (with one hell of a rack). “No, sorry.”
She shrugs, as if embarrassed she asked. “That’s fine. I guess Stephen King it is.”
I do an internal victory dance.
I pick up the book and hand it to her. As her delicate fingers take it, I hold on, refusing to let go. “But you have to promise to be honest.”
“I will.” She chews on her candy apple lip for a second, staring up at me through her lashes. “What happens if I like the book? Can you still take me to dinner?”
“You’ve got a deal…” I trail off, hoping my frown prompts her for her name.
“Samantha,” she supplies.
Of course she’s a Samantha. All the Samanthas I’ve met look and act like her. Sexual, sensual, but unusually bashful in the sack. Not that I mind. I like making them blush.
“I’m Blake,” I tell her. “And I’ll never lead you astray.”
I ring her up at the cash register and write my phone number on the receipt. There’s no point in getting her number—I know she’ll be calling me soon.
She leaves the store and my dad follows her, locking the door and flipping over the “Closed” sign before whipping around to face me. “What the hell was that?”
I shrug, fiddling with the till. “What? I made a sale. Business as usual.”
“Business as usual isn’t propositioning the customers.”
“Yeah, I thought you were with that other girl,” Kevin says, and I jump, not realizing he’s standing right behind me, a stack of young adult fantasy novels in his hands.
I give him a tepid look. “What other girl?”
“I don’t know,” he says, practically whining. “When you drove me home the other day, we saw her walking down the street and you covered your face so she wouldn’t see you.”
My dad shakes his head. “What’s gotten into you, Blake?”
I take in a deep breath and keep my voice light. “Nothing at all. I’m twenty-three years old and I like the ladies, what can I say?”
“You weren’t like this with Rachel.”
My chest burns at that. “You didn’t even know Rachel. You met her once.” Stop trying to act like you know anything about me at all, I finish in my head.
He knows he doesn’t have a leg to stand on. He comes over to the register, clearing his throat. “So, how much did we do today?”
Oh boy, the worst moment of the day. Bracing myself, I look over the numbers.
It’s not good. It doesn’t even pay the expenses accrued.
“Well?” my dad says, and I step out of the way so he can look at them.
I glance nervously at Kevin, and we both seem to hold our breath as dad closes his eyes, his fingers squeezing the bridge of his nose again. He holds it there, trying to compose himself. Then he swallows and shakes it off.
“Thanks for your help today,” he says flatly, like he couldn’t conjure up any emotion if he tried.
“No problem,” I tell him.
He still doesn’t look at me. “School is going well? End of the year is coming.”
“It’s going great,” I tell him, even though that’s kind of a lie. But I don’t dare rock the boat. I know why he’s asking me. He’s reminding me that soon all of this will be mine, and if I don’t know what I’m doing, I’ll run the business into the ground. Just like he’s doing.
“Good, good,” he says absently. “I’ll take Kevin home. Thanks for getting him.”
“Anything for my bud.” I eye Kevin. He seems unreadable right now. Maybe he’s already fighting orcs or something in his head instead of watching his father worry about the money they’re losing. “See you soon.”
I get out of there and don’t seem to breathe until I’m at The Bard and Banker pub on the next block. I text Heath and tell him about the change of plans, to meet me there instead. I need alcohol in my veins ASAP. My dad, Kevin, the business, the pressure, the mention of Rachel are all swilling through my brain.
While I’m waiting for Heath in one of the small semi-enclosed booths or “snugs” as far away as possible from the band I know will start playing later, I get an email in my inbox.
From Amanda Newland.
Oh yes, I can’t believe I forgot to add her to my shit pile of worries.
I gulp down half of my dark lager before I can even look at it.
When I finally read it over, I can hear her voice in my head, throwing all these superfluous words my way, as if I would get confused and not understand her whole email. She must think I’m not only a total wanker but a fucking idiot. Actually, I get the impression she thinks that way about most people.
“You need to be taken down a peg, darling,” I say out loud.
“Are you talking to your phone? Or on your phone?”
I look up to see Heath peering down at me with amusement. “Or just having a spat with Siri?” he goes on. “I agree she needs to be taken down a peg. Talk about a know-it-all.”
“Ugh,” I say, as he sits down. “You don’t want to know the bloody truth of it.”
“Well, there’s got to be a reason why you’re looking to get drunk on a school night,” Heath says, then reconsiders it. “I mean, more so than usual.”
Heath is in most of my business classes and is in a similar situation to me. Meaning, pressure from his parents is the main reason why he’s getting his degree. With his carefree attitude and penchant for environmental causes, Heath would be much happier surfing his life away during summers in Tofino and snowboarding on Mount Washington in the winter. He’s also a pretty good wingman. There’s something about the shaggy-haired, perpetually tanned, surfer dude that the girls can’t resist. Might be the fact that he’s a pot dealer and they get their weed for free.
“There’s this girl in my writing class…” I begin.
“Again? How many of them are there? I should have joined that class,” he remarks, signaling the waitress for a drink.
“Definitely enough of them,” I tell him, even though that’s not why I’m taking the class. “But I haven’t slept with this one.”
“Hard to get?”
I grunt. “I have no doubt she is, but I’m not even trying. She drives me up the fucking wall.”
“And you’re saying you haven’t fucked her?” The waitress drops off his beer, giving him a dirty look before she heads back.
“No,” I say emphatically. “She’s not my type.”
“Anything with a hole is your type, Blake.”
“Fuck off,” I tell him, taking a swig of my beer. I can feel it slowly go to work, my nerves unkinking one by one. “Not this girl. You know those girls who refuse to smile or laugh at anything, who are born with a silver spoon in their arse?”
“I think you mean mouth.”
“It’s the arse with this one. Walks around with a sense of entitlement that they think they’ve somehow earned because they are so goddamn serious about life? Well, that’s her. I bet she doesn’t even need to wear glasses, she just wears them to try and look smart.”
Heath grimaces. “Damn. Is she hot? You know I have a thing for girls with glasses.”
I glare at him. “Listen brother, you just heard what I said. You don’t want to go near her.”
He takes a gulp of his beer and leans back in his seat, wiping his mouth. He gives me a lazy smile that I know all too well. “Just last week you were telling me about that annoying hostess from Earls you slept with, the one who started talking about her doll collection the minute you finished fucking.”
“Yeah, and in order to get out of
the rest of the date I had to pretend I was moving back to England the next day. Then I drove past her a few days later. I’m surprised Mr. Mean didn’t get egged.”
He points his glass at me. “You didn’t answer my question. Is she hot?”
“No,” I tell him, knowing that if I admit she’s hot in the slightest he’ll never listen to my plight. Oh, the fucking plight. So I decide to pull up the email and show it to him. “Anyway, I got paired with her for my last assignment and this is the email she sends me tonight.”
He squints as he reads it over. When he’s done, he looks almost impressed. “Thems some big words for a dummy like you,” he says in his best hick accent. “Seriously though, sounds like the rest of the semester is going to be rough. Good luck with that.”
“Nice to have your support.”
“Well, I don’t know. You going to answer her? You want me to write the email for you? I know this is the face of an innocent,” he says, stroking his jaw between his fingers, “but I’m pretty good at putting people in their place.”
“Heath, you can’t get her stoned through the computer,” I remind him, although I doubt she’d smile even if she was high. “It’s fine, I got this.”
And so that’s how we spend the rest of the night. Several pints later, the band is blaring shitty Celtic punk, we’re both sauced, Heath is high, and we’ve composed the world’s most ridiculous response to Amanda.
“Do I press send?” I ask him, my voice slurring a bit.
He doesn’t answer, just leans over and presses the send icon for me.
Whoops.
“Let’s get another round,” Heath says.
So we do.
CHAPTER THREE
Amanda
I wake up the next morning to Ana puttering around the kitchen and singing along to what sounds like an Estonian folk version of Mariah Carey’s “Butterfly.”
I groan and roll over, my head smarting a bit from the wine. It’s been a while since I’ve drank a whole bottle. That whole first two weeks after the breakup, a morning hangover, and puffy eyes were pretty much routine, along with waking up among discarded tissues and melted pints of Ben & Jerry’s, but I thought I was climbing out of the hole and finally getting used to being single. I guess not.
I check my phone, hoping to while away the time without getting up, but it’s dead. Somehow I manage to drag myself out of bed and slip on my plush robe (it says “Hollywood Tower of Terror” on it—Alan bought it for me on one of our annual trips to Disneyland, something that hits me low in the gut, that pinch of knowing something you loved won’t be a part of your life anymore). I sigh, trying to shake it off of me and then shuffle into the kitchen.
Ana is wearing my yellow apron and making pancakes, shaking her ample booty around to the song, which yes, is some weird foreign cover of “Butterfly.” Odd how Mariah in Estonian is still very much Mariah.
She spins around, spatula raised like a microphone, and beams at me with squinty eyes overdone with mascara and purple eyeliner, her puffy lips stretched across her teeth. “Good morning, sweet one!” she says, giving another shake of her hips. “I’m making pancakes!”
“I can see that,” I tell her, though when I walk over to the coffee maker and get a closer look at the frying pan, I’m not really sure what I’m looking at. “What are those lumps?”
“Oh, that is naeris and kaneel. Sorry, cinnamon. My grandmother’s recipe. It’s very good.” She waves the spatula at the table. “Sit down, it’s almost ready.”
“I was just going to have my shake,” I say, eyeing the cupboard where I keep my rice protein shake. It’s bland, but it does the trick. I usually don’t feel like eating a lot in the mornings.
“Sit,” she says again. “You need your strength to hear all about my wonderful date!”
Ah, that’s right. After I sent Blake the email last night, I ended up watching TV for a bit then passing out. I never got an email back from him before the phone died nor did I hear Ana come in last night.
“Okay, well, I’m going to need coffee for that,” I say. I pour nearly the entire contents of the carafe into a giant mug that says Jamie Fraser’s Sassenach on it, and sit down.
After a few sips, I start to perk up, and Ana slides one giant, fluffy yet somehow burnt pancake onto my plate. I poke it gingerly with my fork, a tiny puff of steam escaping like a bog of stench before smothering it in maple syrup.
“So how did it go?” I ask her, adjusting my ass on the seat to get comfortable. I’m going to be here for a long one. Good thing I don’t have class until this afternoon.
Ana practically prances to the fridge and back to get orange juice before sitting down across from me.
“He was a very nice man,” she starts off by saying. “Very nice. Not exactly what I thought he would look like but pretty close. Maybe three feet shorter.”
“Three feet? That’s a big difference.” Especially when Ana is like six feet tall.
“Yes, he could look my boobs in the eyes, no problem.” She pauses. “Also, he was bald. And Nigerian.”
“Was he not supposed to be a bald Nigerian?”
She shrugs and keeps smiling. “He said he was from Saskatchewan, but I guess you can be both. And the picture on his profile is of a tanned man with lots of dark hair. But looks change.”
“Sure,” I say slowly, cutting off a piece of pancake.
“He also wasn’t a teacher anymore. He was fired after he was caught selling drugs to the students.”
“Oh my god,” I say, glancing up at her. “How did you find that out? Did he tell you?”
“No, not really. The cops told me.”
I put my fork down on the plate. She has my complete attention now. I’m immediately trying to figure out how to write this into my book, but with, you know, a fantasy slant. “The cops? How were there cops? What happened, are you okay?”
“Oh yes,” she says. She nods at the pancake. “Try it.”
“I will. Just tell me why you were consorting with the police.”
“They thought I was a hooker.”
Now I’ve heard everything. “And why the hell did they think that?”
She tosses her blonde hair over her shoulder. “Mister Nigeria thought that maybe that was something I would be interested in. We discussed it on the street corner, and I guess we looked suspicious.”
I raise my palm. “Hold up, Ana, hold up. Are you saying this guy was a pimp?”
“No,” she says quickly, almost defensive. “He’s trying to be one. He said he needed a new line of business since he can’t teach or deal drugs anymore.”
I blink, trying to absorb it all and come to terms with the crazy in the lives around me. First Rio, now her. “So then the cops busted you.”
“Yes, but they believed me, of course. Well, first they thought maybe I was a Russian mail-order bride, but I was able to prove my beauty school and everything. I showed them my portfolio on my phone and I even offered to do one officer’s makeup, but she said that would be against the law. They arrested Mr. Nigeria in the end because he had violated his parole.”
“Wait, wait…I thought you said you had a,” I make air quotes, “wonderful date?”
She grins at me, wiggling in her seat. “I did. Before all that happened, he took me out for dinner. I had the veal parmigiana. It was really good.”
I slowly nod, trying to find the joke in all of this, but I know she’s one hundred percent sincere. Which is sad. There’s being an optimist and looking on the bright side of life, and then there’s finding joy in a free meal because you haven’t had that kind of attention in a long time.
“Well, that’s good,” I say, picking my fork back up. “At least you enjoyed yourself.”
I pop the pancake into my mouth and take a tentative chew.
Very cinnamony. The syrup drowns out most of the weird flavor.
Then I crunch hard on something and pause, my gag reflex threatening me.
“Uh, what is this again?” I manag
e to ask, my hand coming to my mouth, the bits of pancake not sure if they should go down or back out.
“Naeris and kaneel. Turnip and cinnamon. Local favorite. Though I don’t think I boiled the turnips enough, sorry.”
I make a gurgling kind of noise in surprise but eventually chew and swallow. She’s watching me as I finish it off with a big gulp of coffee. “Well, there’s nothing worse than an overcooked turnip,” I manage to tell her.
She nods emphatically.
“So,” I say, pushing around the rest of the pancake and trying to eat around the turnip bits. “Do you think you’re going to give up on online dating?”
Her head jerks back as if I’ve said something totally disgusting. “And where do you suppose I’ll meet a man?”
“I don’t know. Like a normal person, out in the real world.”
She stirs sugar into her coffee and stares down at it with amusement. “Oh, sweet one. You’re so young, you should know more about this than me. Why don’t you give it a try? It has been some time since Alan, yes?”
I shake my head. “I don’t have time for guys.”
“Everyone has time for sex,” she says, her eyes gleaming. “Especially boys your age who blast off like a rocket.”
“Oh joy, what a pity I’m missing out.” I get up and artfully throw half the pancake in the garbage when she’s not looking. “Between hearing about Rio’s adventures on Tinder and whichever dating site you’re finding these Nigerian pimps, I’m quite okay with being my single self.”
All right, that’s kind of a lie, especially since I was having a pity party for my singledom last night, but I have to admit it’s sounding more appealing than Rio and Ana’s love lives. At least my company is predictable, and my growing collection of vibrators never lets me down, even though as I was replacing the batteries last week, one did fall off the shelf, smacking me right in the cheek. Try explaining that black eye to your mother.
I’m still feeling in a bit of a funk though so I get into my running clothes before I can change my mind. Normally I run to an ever-evolving playlist, but I fear if I wait for my phone to charge, I’ll lose my nerve, so I head out the door and start running.