by LL Meyer
He hasn’t shown up yet, so I ignore my rumbling stomach and go over to the French doors. Opening them, I slip off my socks and pad across the covered porch, running my fingers along the back of a wicker couch as I go. Stepping out into the sunshine, I cross the stone pavers that lead to the pool. What a beautiful backyard! It’s got to be at least two acres, and most of it is carefully manicured lawn that leads up to a colorful wall of flowering shrubs at the back. And the pool area is huge. I can see the lawn chairs stacked up in the corner and I think how awesome it would be to sit out here and do nothing for an entire day. And the neighbors are so far away that it’s like there aren’t any at all.
There’s something in the back corner of the yard, so I head off in that direction. The grass tickles my bare feet, reminding me of being little. The idea of a cartwheel takes hold. I haven’t done that in years. As I go over, I’m hit with a surge of happiness. Laughing, I do another. And it feels so good that, after the next one, I do a few front walkovers, another cartwheel, and a back handspring. After the last move, I bounce up for my finish and then drop into a heap of giggles on the grass. I lie spread eagle on my back and let the sun warm me as I remember my days of gymnastics and enjoy the burn of my muscles protesting being forced into old habits.
Something blots out my sun and my eyes pop open. Dane’s smiling down at me, the sun creating a halo around his head. “You’re just full of surprises.”
I smile back.
“Now who’s trying to impress who?” He lies down beside me.
“In my defense, I didn’t know you were there.”
“Hmmm. And where did you learn how to do that?”
“Oh,” I tell him enthusiastically, “until the age of twelve, I was going to the Olympics.”
He looks impressed. “And what happened to that lofty dream?”
I shrug against the grass. “I was getting too tall, I was becoming a moody teenager, I sprained my knee . . . there were a million reasons. But hey, I took all that hard earned knowledge and poured it into cheerleading.”
He laughs. “You were a cheerleader, were you?”
“I most certainly was. I had myself a wide receiver and everything.”
He looks over at me, laughing even more. “Your three-minute guy?”
I shriek with laughter. “Yes!” I yell at the sky. “I loved him so much!” I roll over to face him with a huge smile on my face despite the pain of even talking about that jerk. “Do you think after five years I should move on?”
He pretends to think about it. “I think it might be time.”
“You didn’t play football, did you?”
“Definitely not,” he says, as if the idea is outrageous. “That wouldn’t have left any time to collect cheerleaders’ panties.”
“No! You were one of those?”
“I was.”
“How many did you get?”
He laughs. “I plead the fifth.”
I turn to look back up at the clear blue sky. “I bet you could have even talked me out of mine, and I was a very sweet and virtuous girl. It took that wide receiver almost a year to get into my panties.”
“A year?” He sounds horrified.
I giggle for a second, but then sigh. “I should have kept him waiting forever.”
He shields his eyes so he can see me better. “So, what? He just bailed after a year of waiting.”
“No,” I pout. “He went away to college.”
He groans. “Oh, Lil. Anyone could have told you the outcome to that little story.”
“I know, I know. But I loved him so much.”
“Is that why your senior year was so horrible?”
My good mood begins evaporating. “Not exactly.” I get to my feet. As I’m holding out my hand to help him up, I see why I was heading to this corner of the yard in the first place. “Is that a wishing well?”
“Yeah,” he says.
As I get closer to it, I can hear water tinkling. “It’s adorable.” The traditional wooden wishing well has a little roof and everything. It’s been set back into the landscaping with a stream that empties into a little rock pond.
“And why do you have a wishing well in your backyard?”
He looks at me warily. “It was my mom’s.”
My heart melts. “Am I allowed to actually throw a penny and make a wish?”
I look up at him and I swear it looks like I’ve punched him in the gut or something. I immediately start backpedaling. “I’m sorry, I was just kidding. I wouldn’t . . . I mean, not without permission. I . . .”
Without any warning, he pulls me to his chest and his arms wrap tightly around me. It takes a few seconds for my surprise to wear off before I relax against him. I put my own arms around him and I feel his chin come to rest on the top of my head.
After a minute, he apologizes, but doesn’t let me go. “Sorry. I just . . . no one’s made a wish since she died. I’m sorry, it’s stupid.”
I relax even more. Is that all? I thought I’d mortally offended him. “It’s not stupid. In fact, I’ve got a lucky penny in my sneaker. You want to share a wish later?”
He squeezes me tighter. “God, where have you been all my life?”
I laugh as I pull back to look at him. “Well, I was jailbait for a good portion.” I’m happy to see that he’s recovered himself and that he’s able to laugh with me. “Come on, pretty boy, I’m so hungry.”
We start back with his arm around my shoulders and it feels heavenly.
“Are you going to do some more of those twirly things for me?”
“Twirly things?” I laugh. “Sure. But I’m not going to do anything very impressive. It’s been a while, and I don’t have any health insurance.”
“Okay, no impressive stuff,” he agrees.
I move away from him and do a couple of walkovers. Again, I’m surprised at how much I like the rush. I’d truly forgotten. I give a little run and do a cartwheel into a back handspring. It’s so liberating.
“Hey, hey, wait a minute,” he says slyly. “Can you do the splits?”
I laugh. “You made that sound dirty.”
“Does that mean no?” He’s grinning evilly at me.
“No, it means I have no idea. You can tell me.”
I carefully do a handstand and scissor my legs, laughing when I go over and land in the grass.
“Was I close?”
He’s nodding his head slowly. “Oh yeah, you were really close.”
He pulls me up and then I whack him on the arm. “You’re a pig.”
“I know. It doesn’t bother you too much, does it?”
I let him put me under his arm again. “Nah, you balance it out with your sweetness.”
He scoffs. “You forgot my generosity and hot ass.”
Again I’m laughing. I don’t remember ever laughing and smiling so much.
After a minute, he says, “Lil?”
“Yeah?”
“Even if you didn’t want me to be, I was pretty impressed.”
She was so happy doing her twirly things, laughing and smiling with her hair in pigtails like she didn’t have a care in the world. And her wanting to make a wish in my mom’s wishing well? That caught me totally off guard. I don’t think anyone even noticed that I got it out of storage and had it installed after Jason and I moved in. It’s just there for me – and now Lily. I’d seriously almost embarrassed myself, but she’d known exactly what was up and had smoothed it over.
I’m not sure what it means that she’s making these feelings about my parents come to the surface. I thought I was done with that misery. But I kind of like that she reminds me of my mom in this small way. It makes me think that maybe the misery could become something closer to endurable after all this time.
“Thanks for making breakfast,” I tell her when we’re sitting at the kitchen table.
She smiles. “Who needs IHOP when we can get fat at home, right?”
I give her a look. “You’re not one of those girls who’s alwa
ys on a diet, are you?”
She snorts. “Do I sound like one? It’s the pressure of society!” she proclaims. “If I say something like ‘I eat whatever I want, whenever I want,’ I’d be stoned to death in the street.”
She’s so entertaining. “It’ll just be our dirty little secret then?”
“Okay,” she says with a grin, taking another bite.
“So, we’ll go shopping and then I have to go to that thing at twelve. Will you come with me?”
“Well . . .” She rolls her eyes. “Is it going to take very long? Because I have an appointment to get my nails done.”
I burst out laughing, which makes her smile. “I don’t know about your nails, but we’ll be back in time for you to try out your new bikini in the pool.”
She frowns and I somehow refrain from rolling my eyes. I play dumb.
“What’s the look for? You don’t want to adorn my pool with all this.” I do the same thing with the fork and the squiggly line she did to me the first day we went out for breakfast. That manages to lessen the creases in her forehead, but not by much.
“It’s not the bathing suit exactly. It’s just you’re making me crazy with the buying me stuff.”
“Fine,” I say stonily. “Go barefoot and naked.”
I know she probably just needs a bit of sweet talk and coaxing, and I don’t know why I’m so against giving it to her. But damn it, we’ve already talked about this, and it’s seriously getting on my nerves.
The hurt look on her face is like a knife to the gut though.
She quickly recovers, and the hurt turns to determination. “I’ll borrow against the money you owe me for today,” she announces.
I want to laugh. I don’t know how much she makes or how much a bikini costs, but considering what I paid for my bathing suits, I doubt that’s going to work. She probably thinks I’m going to take her to Walmart.
“Fine,” I lie. “And how much, exactly, do you make in a day?”
“Before or after taxes?”
“Well, since I promise not to report you to the IRS, before.”
“$70.20.”
Fuck me. My brain starts adding it up and I realize that on a bad week I make more than she does in an entire year, maybe not profit, but definitely gross. Do I argue with her now or at the mall? Again the aggravation is jumping up and down on my last nerve, and I wonder why I’m putting up with this at all.
Because Jason was right about the short hairs.
To save my sanity, I decide to put an end to the whole thing.
“Listen to me, Lily. I make a lot of money.” She’s taking a breath to protest, but I put my hand up to stop her. “I mean a lot of money. And it’s not like you’re demanding that I take you to Tiffany for diamond earrings, which, by the way, I probably would if you asked. But can you please just swallow your pride a bit so I don’t have to feel like shit and you can pay your rent? It’s a win/win. And we can stop bickering about money and just relax and enjoy ourselves.”
She’s wavering. I can see it.
“Please, sweet Lily, Pretty Girl?”
She fights the grin tugging at her lips.
“Ah, ah. I see you smiling. Does that mean yes?”
“Fine.”
Her shoulders may be sagging, but I feel like a huge weight has been lifted from mine. My cynical side wonders if she’s using reverse psychology on me. It’s all a carefully laid out plan to get at my money, I think with a laugh.
“What’s so funny?” she demands later as we stand in front of the board with all the car keys.
“Nothing. Are you going to help me move all these cars?”
She snorts. “Not unless your insurance covers unlicensed drivers.”
“You don’t drive?” I say completely incredulously.
Her shoulder lifts in a shrug. “I had my permit once, but neither me, my father, nor my three-minute guy was very interested in doing anything with it.”
I lead her to the front door. “Oh, Lil, you have to learn. Driving equals freedom. It’s one of the best things in life. You should go get your permit and I’ll teach you.” Suddenly, I laugh. “You have to ask Jason if you can learn on his Porsche. He calls it his baby.”
She grins. “You’re mean.”
Outside, as I look around, I feel irritation creep up on me once again. This is going to take forever. “Here, you can be in charge of these,” I say, handing her the keys to the Mercedes.
I head for the Audi.
“Can’t I come?” she asks petulantly.
I turn and can’t help but smile at her ridiculous expression. “On a ride to the garage?”
“Why would I want to stay here by myself when I can be with you?”
My smile broadens. “Good point. Well, hurry up then. We haven’t got all day.”
She actually runs to the car, laughing as she goes and I have to shake my head. What have I gotten myself into? We take the car around the side of the house to the garage.
“Oh wow,” she says. “It’s almost as big as the whole house.”
“Hey, what you’re looking at is compromise. Jason didn’t even want the house, so I had to trade something to get it.”
She laughs. “So he got all these cars and a garage, and you got a house?”
“Exactly,” I say, not bothering to tell her we both got a playroom in the basement. A tinge of anxiety comes over me because I know eventually I’m going to have to fess up to some things that are going to make both of us uncomfortable. But that’s way in the future. The idea that we’d even get that far is almost laughable. Almost.
It’s faster to go through the house than walk all the way around the outside.
“It’s pretty smart the way you hid the garage by running it along the side of the house,” she tells me after the third and final trip.
“I know, right?” I’m holding open the door of the stupid GLK for her, and I’m doing my best not to sound aggravated.
When I’m settled beside her, I start the car.
“Dane?”
“What?”
“Are you mad?”
I want to say yes, because I am. “No,” I scoff. “I’m just annoyed.”
“Because you had to move the cars?”
She sounds hesitant, ‘annoying’ me further. “Why else would I be annoyed?”
Now she’s wincing at the tone of my voice. God, this woman makes me feel like a yo-yo. One minute I’m happy, the next angry. And then I feel worse, because I moved the cars for her and now I’m making her feel bad about it.
I take a deep breath and turn to apologize to her, but before I get the chance, she speaks first.
“Should we stop for coffee?”
My breath comes out as a bark of laughter, and just like that I’m back to happy. I hold my hand out to her and she’s more than willing to take it. I pull her knuckles to my lips. “I’m sorry.”
She smiles, and I’m such a lucky bastard that she’s so easily appeased.
At the mall, when she figures out we’re going to PacSun, I can tell she’s fighting to hold back a few choice comments, and I’m impressed that she succeeds.
The store has just opened and is completely empty, so the salesgirl spots us a mile away. She’s a cute little thing with blond hair and a fake tan who does her best to include Lily in her greeting, but she’s only got eyes for me. Great, a partner in crime.
“Hi there,” the salesgirl gushes.
“Hey.” I give her my best seductive grin. “We’re going to need your help. Lily here needs to find the perfect bikini.”
I watch her check Lily out. “Awesome.”
“I’m going to be over there.” I indicate the chair next to the change rooms. As they’re walking away, I reach out and grab Lily’s hand. “Do not look at the price tags,” I warn her gently.
She just sighs as she follows the girl into the store.
I answer some emails for work on my phone while I wait because it seems to take forever to start the trying-on pr
ocess. When they walk by with a bunch of options, I tell her that I want to see every single one.
The first two I veto because they’re covering way too much skin, and I give the salesgirl a look as Lily goes back in to try on the next one. She smiles and fades away back into the store to find something better.
The next one is an improvement though. It’s red and pushes her boobs up a bit. “I kinda like it,” I tell her, looking her up and down. “But that would be for actually swimming, not adorning my pool.”
“Dane!” she exclaims, completely embarrassed.
“What? There’s no one here. I sent her back out to get something with a little less material.”
Her expression is warring between mortification and amusement. It’s adorable. I crook my finger at her, and she approaches cautiously.
I point to my lips, making her smile. She pecks me on the lips. “Don’t be shy,” I murmur to her.
The salesgirl comes back and she hands over some new selections. While Lily’s changing, I tell the girl we’ll get the red one for sure. “Just don’t tell her, okay?”
She grins at me wickedly, like she’s completely delighted to be doing something behind another woman’s back. Huh, who knew it was possible to pick up chicks at ten o’clock at the mall? In the back of my mind, I wonder why I’m not even remotely interested in getting her number – that is, until Lily comes out in the next bikini. Because now I need every last brain cell I’ve got to take in what’s under the scraps of material that are held together with string.
“I don’t know,” she says. “I feel like I’m going to fall out of it.”
“Okay,” I tell her. “Next.”
After what feels like a very entertaining eternity, I pick a black one and a white one, both of which look smoking hot on her. I don’t tell her we’re getting three, hoping she won’t notice until we’re back home.
We move over to the shoes and she picks out a pair of flip-flops. She looks stressed out as she hands them over to the salesgirl who takes them to the register.
“You know,” she says dejectedly, “they sell those for a buck at Old Navy sometimes.”
“What?” I scoff. “The ones that broke?”
She trails behind me on the way to the register.
