Dating the It Guy

by Krysten Lindsay Hager

  “Okay. My grandparents asked about you,” he said. “Then my cousin ate too much and puked at the table.”

  “Charming.”

  “Every year he and his brother try to outdo each other, and this year he spewed all over,” he said. “So anyway, how are you holding up?”

  “Still trying to get used to everything.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet. Oh, I gotta go. My dad’s serving dinner to the homeless downtown, and he wants Jayson and me to go. Talk to you later.”

  I wondered if I should have said something to him about feeling hurt he didn’t text me to say he wasn’t coming at the very least. But I didn’t have it in me to get into an argument. Things weren’t perfect, but at least he had come to the funeral home and was there for me when I was losing it.

  Chapter 27

  Rory’s family came to pick me up the next day, and we sat in the back of the van with her cousin, Heidi, who was seven. Rory and I couldn’t talk since Heidi kept interrupting, but at least her family wasn’t fighting anymore. Rory and I decided to get tickets for the carriage ride, and while we were waiting in line, I saw one of the carriages go by carrying Brendon and Lauren.

  “Emme, where are you going?” Rory asked. She ran after me and grabbed my arm. “What’s the matter?”

  “Brendon’s with Lauren,” I said.

  “You saw them here?”

  “In the carriage. They were sitting together,” I said as my stomach tensed.

  “But I thought you guys were back together,” she said.

  “So did I.”

  “C’mon, don’t let him ruin this,” she said. “I’ve got the tickets and we’re next. We’re going to go on the carriage ride and have fun. Maybe they’ll put us in with some cute guys, and you can forget all about him.”

  The last thing I wanted to do was to get into one of those carriages, but I knew Rory had been looking forward to it so I followed her. Why should everybody’s holidays suck just because fate had decided to dump on me? The driver helped us in, and we had to share the coach with a family who smelled like garlic. Not exactly the happy ride we hoped for. Why couldn’t Lauren have to sit next to the garlic family? I’m sure the other people in her coach all smelled like expensive cologne and had brought hot chocolate for her drinking pleasure. The ride was okay with the exception of the garlic and horse poop smell. The driver let us off near the nativity scene, and we walked around, looking at the lights.

  “Em, they have roasted chestnuts. We’ve gotta get some,” Rory said, pulling my arm.

  I had never had roasted chestnuts before, and they were mushier than I expected. I liked the smell and the way they warmed my hands more than I liked the taste. I was about to suggest we get some hot chocolate when I saw Brendon standing on the other side of the chestnut cart. I grabbed Rory’s arm and hid behind the giant snowman display.

  “Brendon’s right over there,” I said. “Okay, who is he with?”

  “Um, some blonde-haired chick, but I don’t see Lauren,” she said

  I peered around the snowman. “That’s his mom. I wonder where Lauren went.”

  “Can we go inside and get something to drink?” she asked. “My nose is about to fall off from frostbite.”

  I followed her inside a candy store, and she bought me a licorice rope and some taffy to cheer me up. We sat drinking hot chocolate and watching two guys make fudge.

  “Why does every tourist place in Michigan sell fudge?” I asked. “You could go to the gas station and it’s like, ‘Did you get any fudge?’”

  “I dunno, but I like to watch the taffy pull. See the blue kind? I’d love to dye my hair the same color, but I’d have to bleach it first, and it might dry my hair out too much,” she said. “Look, Brendon just walked in with his parents.”

  “Is Lauren with him?” I asked, and Rory stood up to see him better.

  “Yeah, I think she’s with her parents, and I’m guessing her brother. Her brother’s kind of hot,” she said, and I glared at her. “What? He’s hot in a preppy lawyer way. Not my type anyway.”

  “I’m going to the bathroom,” I said. I stayed in there until Rory came in and said Brendon and Lauren had left.

  “I can’t believe he took her on some family thing. I wonder if she had dinner with them yesterday. She was probably sitting next to him when he called me,” I said.

  We finished our drinks and went to meet Rory’s family. The kids had gotten candy canes from Santa Claus, and they were all sticky. We were walking back to the van when my foot slipped.

  “Ew-wie kablooey,” Heidi said, pointing at me, and I realized I had stepped in horse poop. I hated Thanksgiving.

  When I got home, I asked Caroline where Grandpa was, and she said he had already gone to bed.

  “Okay, I’ll just go say good-night.”

  “Don’t bother him. He might be asleep by now.”

  “Right,” I said, but I went to check on him in case whoever put him to bed forgot his nightlight and glass of water or put his glasses on the wrong side of the bed where he wouldn’t find them.

  I walked into his room, and his face lit up with a smile.

  “Hey, Grandpa,” I said, plugging in his nightlight and moving his glass of water closer. “You okay in here?”

  “Yes, sweetie. Oh, I forgot to tell you, Dennis told me at the funeral he’s going to call you because he had to leave early. It was nice to see him again.”

  My heart hurt as I told him thanks for the message. I closed the door behind me, and my dad was in the hallway.

  “Grandpa doing okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said, but my eyes welled up with tears. Dad hugged me and I sobbed on his shoulder.

  “It’s going to be okay. We’ll figure something, kid. I promise.”

  Chapter 28

  Caroline and George left early the next morning. I was exhausted, but I dragged myself out of bed to eat breakfast with them. Grandpa was going back with them for a few weeks, and I started to get emotional when I hugged him as they were leaving.

  “I’m going to miss you, sweetie,” he said. “You be a good little girl.”

  My eyes started watering. “Did you take those crystals with you, Grandpa?”

  I figured he wouldn’t know what they were or even remember I had given them to him, but he pulled them out of his pocket to show me. “I didn’t forget, Emme,” he said, smiling. He hadn’t called me by my name in weeks.

  I started crying as I waved from the window. It had been hard with him here, having to constantly show him where the bathroom was, telling him where Grandma was when he asked, but now with him actually leaving I felt sick. Would George and Caroline know how he liked his snack? Would they be patient with him when he got confused? George had zero patience, and I prayed he would understand Grandpa couldn’t help it.

  I tried going back to bed for a nap, but I couldn’t fall asleep. I got up and went for a jog to clear my mind, but it was freezing out, so I came back home and got in the shower. It felt good to be in a steamy room and just to be alone for a while. My skin was glowing when I got out of the bathroom. I slipped on my terrycloth robe and went downstairs to eat lunch. My dad made veggie patties and hash browns. I was on my third helping of hash browns when the phone rang.

  “Hey Em. What’s up?” Brendon asked.

  I hadn’t expected him to call. Maybe I either completely misread him the last few weeks, and we had never been back together in the first place, or else he was making a fool of me. I thought I’d have more time to decide how I was going to react. Part of me considered hanging up on him, but decided to act like I didn’t care if he was with Lauren.

  “Did you have fun on the carriage ride?” I asked.

  “Huh?”

  “I was there yesterday. I saw you and Lauren in the carriage together,” I said.

  “Em, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about Lauren and me. It was just a coincidence she was in Frankenmuth with her family,” he said, explaining how Lauren’s parents
played golf with his, and they ran into each other.

  “I’m in the middle of eating lunch right now,” I said.

  “Oh, okay. Well, call me later. Maybe we can go see a movie or something,” he said.

  I didn’t answer. I just hung up the phone, and Mom said I sounded rude.

  “Who were you talking to?” she asked.

  I shrugged. I didn’t want to get into it since she had been out of it since Grandma died. Plus, I didn’t want my parents to know Brendon might have been seeing someone behind my back, so I said it was Darren and stuffed another veggie patty in my mouth. After lunch, I called Rory to see if she wanted to get together. Her family was still in town, and she had to babysit for the kids. I was hoping she’d ask me to come over and babysit with her, but she didn’t mention it. Instead I went downstairs, and my parents were getting ready to go out.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “I forgot we had these stupid opera tickets,” my mom said. “My manager gave them to me weeks ago, and she’ll be upset if I don’t show up. Are you going to be all right here by yourself?”

  I didn’t want to be alone, but I didn’t want to say I needed my mommy and daddy to stay home with me. Besides, my mom needed a distraction right now, and I didn’t want to ruin her night out. Dad said I could invite a friend over to watch a movie.

  “Everybody’s out of town, and Rory has to babysit,” I said.

  “How about Brendon?” Mom asked.

  I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, and I pretended I might call him. I’d much rather be alone than have him think it was okay to hang out with his ex all the time. However, fifteen minutes after they left, I was starting to get anxious. I hadn’t been home alone in a long time since Grandpa had been staying with us. Now I was all by myself and hearing creaks and groans I had never heard before. The home phone rang, and I checked the Caller ID, but it said “cellular call,” and it was a number I didn’t recognize.

  “Hi, Em.”

  Crap. It was Brendon. He had used someone else’s cell phone because he knew I wouldn’t pick up for him.

  “Do you want to see a movie tonight?” he asked.

  “I don’t feel like going out,” I said.

  He didn’t give up. “We could hang out at your house, or I could come get you and we could—”

  Something fell upstairs and made a huge banging sound. My whole body went cold.

  “I just heard a noise upstairs, and there’s no one up there,” I said. My eyes darted around the room.

  “Do you want me to come over and check it out?” he asked.

  I was furious with him, but I was more scared than I was mad.

  “Okay, come over,” I said.

  “On my way. Do not go upstairs.”

  Like I was going to run up there to investigate whatever made the sound. Just because he thought I was stupid enough to take him back and believe his lame excuses did not mean I was a complete fool.

  He was at my house in five minutes, and he went upstairs to check on what had made the noise. I tried to remember if my room was halfway decent. He came back downstairs and said one of the shelves in the guestroom had fallen, and all the stuff was on the floor. I followed him into the room and piled up the books.

  “Sorry, guess I was just a little nervous. I haven’t been home alone in a while,” I said.

  “It’s no big deal,” he said. “Do you want to rent a movie or something?”

  I nodded and went to get my purse. He followed me into my bedroom.

  I saw a pair of baby-blue underpants hanging on the arm of my chaise lounge. He sat in the chair, but didn’t seem to notice my undies until he leaned back and knocked them onto the floor. He glanced down to see what he had dropped.

  “I believe these are yours,” he said, handing them to me with a smile.

  I snatched them from him and tossed them in my hamper. This was just great. First, he thought I was dumb enough to believe he and Lauren “just bumped into each other.” Then, I acted like a baby over a noise. Now he got to embarrass me by finding my panties. Maybe I could accidentally set off the alarm at the video store to add to the evening. Why couldn’t I just be normal?

  We headed to Movie Mania, and he told me to pick out the film. Brendon didn’t like romantic comedies, but he didn’t say anything when I picked one out. He also hated it when girls drool over hot actors, so I purposely picked a movie with Rex Davidson in it. I’m not into Rex at all, but a lot of girls at school have pictures of him in their lockers.

  “I want this one,” I said, and he went up to pay for it. Normally, I’d ask his opinion, and I always offer to pay or at least split the cost with him, but not today. We got in the car, and I put on the radio.

  “I didn’t know you liked Rex Davidson,” he said, holding up the movie.

  “He’s hot,” I said, staring straight ahead.

  “Well, Audrey Macintosh is pretty hot, too, so I guess it won’t be too hard to watch.”

  I hadn’t even noticed she was in the film. Brendon never said stuff about any actress he thought was cute, and I figured he knew what I was doing. After all, he always said he hated it when Margaux would talk about how she was in love with the lead singer from Lone Shark right in front of Seth. He said it was rude, even if the guy was a rock star and it was just a fantasy thing.

  “Do you want to get some snacks?” he asked.

  “Don’t care.”

  He pulled into the Stop-N-Go, and grabbed a bag of potato chips. They had a bunch of organic chips, but I pretended I couldn’t find anything. He got a bottle of soda and asked me what I wanted. I stood in front of the cooler and said they didn’t have the juice I wanted. He grabbed a bottle of water for me and went up to pay. He gave me the water, and I held it but I didn’t open it. I was upset he thought he could make a decision for me, like I was being too difficult. We got back to my house, and I went into the kitchen. I poured myself a bowl of chips and got my own bottle of water from the fridge. Even though it was the same brand, I left the water he had bought for me sitting on the counter.

  “Should we start the movie?” he asked.

  I shoved the disk into the DVD player, and the previews started. The movie was bad from the beginning, and the acting was horrible. Brendon made a joke during the film, and I picked up the remote and rewound the part he talked through, even though I didn’t care what I missed. I got up to get something else to eat and noticed we had the same brand of chips he had bought at the store, so I brought my bag into the family room and poured them into my own bowl.

  “My chips too dirty for you?” he asked, and I shrugged. “Okay, someone’s mad at me. Mind telling me what I did?”

  “Shh, I want to see this part,” I said, picking up the remote to turn up the volume.

  “Em, what did I do?” he asked.

  “Are you going to talk through the whole movie?”

  “I told you I just ran into Lauren at the festival. Obviously you don’t believe me.”

  “Whatever,” I said.

  “I should go. I thought things were going to be different this time, but if you can’t trust me then I don’t know what to do,” he said, but he didn’t get up.

  “Fine, go.”

  He got up and walked out of the room. I heard him close the door behind him, and I went into the kitchen. He had left the water bottle on the counter. I went to lock the front door behind him, but saw he was sitting outside on the porch, so I opened the door.

  “Forget your keys?” I asked.

  “Can we please talk?”

  “Fine,” I walked back into the house, and he followed me. It had started snowing, and there were snowflakes melting on his collar.

  “I’m not interested in Lauren,” he said. “I had no idea she was going to be in Frankenmuth. My dad just ran into Mr. Hartnet—”

  “I’m not a jealous person, but I don’t like being replaced every time I’m not around. You know, I wasn’t the one who started dating as soon as we
got into a fight,” I said.

  “Yes, you did,” he said. “You started hanging around that one guy.”

  “Darren? He’s just my friend from class.”

  “Well, Sam overheard Darren telling some guys you had been all over him at some party.”

  “What? I never even—I hate when guys imply stuff. Ugh, I want to kill him.”

  “Yeah, my reaction, too,” he said.

  “But you were the one throwing your girlfriends in my face,” I said. “I mean, you and Lauren kissed right in front of me.”

  “She kissed me, and honestly it caught me off guard.”

  I rolled my eyes. “What about the mermaid?” I asked.

  “Who?”

  “The girl who dressed up as the mermaid for Halloween,” I said.

  “Nicola was my co-chair on the planning committee…and I might have offered to drive her because I wanted to make you jealous,” he said with a smile.

  “How mature,” I said.

  “You have no idea how upset I was when I heard about you and Darren,” he said. “At first, I didn’t believe it, but you were always with him. It made me sick to think you were already over me.”

  We stood there staring at each other in the hallway. The phone rang, and I left him standing there. It was Kylie calling from her grandmother’s house. I pulled the phone into the pantry and whispered that Brendon was here and told her what had happened.

  “Oh wow. Do you have your copy of Being You around?” she asked. “There’s a whole section on this.”

  “It’s upstairs in my bedroom. What do I say to him?” I asked.

  “Do you still like him?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you trust him?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “And are you finally over the I’m-not-good-enough crap?” she asked.

  “Thank you, Kylie. You’ve been a tremendous help.”

  “Just tell him you want to…um…you know Margaux would know exactly what to say,” she said.

  “And Margaux would have him buying her a present at the end of the argument, too,” I said. Biting my lip, I realized I didn’t have it in me to handle another loss in my life. I felt so empty now with Grandma gone and Grandpa going through so much and not being at our house anymore—I physically couldn’t handle any more drama or pain. “Okay, I’m going to go in there and pretend to be Margaux.”