She's With Stupid Page 4

  “How is Ethan?” she asked Kate in what she hoped passed for a casual tone.

  “Oh, he’s peachy.” Kate grinned evilly. “He always makes it a point to ask about Emmy whenever I talk to him on the phone, too.”

  Emilie’s lips thinned. “There is no way that jackass even remembers my name,” she declared confidently. Then her face fell as the probable truth of that statement hit her.

  Lana stuck out her bottom lip in sympathy. “I’m sure he remembers your name.”

  “Gee, thanks.” Not in the least comforted, Emilie continued her sulk by glaring at her friends.

  Kate threw her arm around Emilie and gave her a serious look. “I’m telling you, Em, all you have to do is flash him that smile of yours, maybe show a little leg, and he’ll be all yours again.”

  “Well, sure,” muttered grumpy Emilie. “He hasn’t seen a woman out of uniform for the last six months. An orangutan would be appealing at this point.”

  “Aw, that’s not true!” Kate pointed at Emilie’s bosom with an exaggerated waggle of her eyebrows. “I continue to maintain that you would have been able to tag and bag him years ago if only your boobs had been fully developed that last summer we all spent together. No red-blooded male could ever resist those babies now that they’ve reached their full potential.”

  They giggled when Emilie dryly said, “Isn’t that just my luck? Even my boobs failed to come through for me in my time of need.”

  Kate laughed even harder when Emilie shyly crossed her arms over her chest, and Lana refrained from mentioning the fact that teenage Ethan had been more than a little flummoxed by the mere idea of Emilie’s boobs. Once they’d reached their current generous size, he was a goner.

  “I still say Ethan is way better for you than Frog Boy,” Kate declared through her chuckles.

  Emilie put her nose in the air with a sniff. “While I appreciate your concern, it is entirely unnecessary. Frog Boy asked me out. Ethan hasn’t spoken to me in over a decade, which makes him nothing more than ancient history. Thus, I am going to dinner this Saturday with Leo, and then everything I have ever wanted to happen is going to happen.”

  Kate remained skeptical. “Whatever, Em, I just wouldn’t depend too highly on a guy who dissects frogs for a living turning out to be the man of your dreams.”

  Chapter 3

  As it turned out, Kate did not get to scold Will for abandoning his post at Emilie’s apartment because she did not actually see him for more than a few minutes over the next week. Her school schedule was crazy now that it was nearing the end of fall semester, and she had to start working at one of the on-campus psych clinics now if she wanted to get all of her required training hours in.

  Emilie was not exactly helping her stress level, either. She kept emailing millions of questions about dress silhouettes and color schemes and inquiring which seasonal flower selections “spoke to her.” Emilie was well-aware that these were questions Kate had absolutely no idea how to answer, so Kate had to assume she was asking them for the sheer thrill of annoying her.

  Will was no help, of course. He cared even less about wedding details than Kate did. And when they had a rare moment alone together, he was always skulking in corners or playing video games, and she could not drum up the energy to force communication about the wedding — or any other aspect of their relationship for that matter.

  All this wedding business and the pressures that seemed to go along with it were starting to weigh on her mind. She loved Will — she did. And she wanted to marry him — she did. But she hadn’t realized all the planning and attention to detail that would be required when she had agreed to a big wedding.

  A rueful grimace came to her face when Kate thought back to the day Will had proposed. He had dragged her to the Ribs King Inn for dinner, because wooing a girl at a barbecue-joint obviously screamed romance, and, after an inordinately long meal that had Will fidgeting and twitching with the arrival of each new course, he had ordered fruit for their dessert.

  Since Kate had been eyeing the chocolate cake and hated it when guys ordered for her, she was pretty annoyed with him by the time the sad little fruit plate arrived at their table. So she was understandably surprised when he shoved a couple of the grapes in her mouth, unceremoniously tossed a ring box into her lap, and mumbled, “Wanna get married?”

  Kate’s response had been to spit the grapes indelicately out on the plate, look at the ring for a few moments, and say decisively, “Um, well…okay, yeah… Sure, let’s get married.”

  Ribs and grapes aside, Will had tried to be thoughtful. And the ring was perfectly acceptable — not as large a diamond as Emilie would have chosen and not as unique a setting as Lana might have preferred, but it was simple and shiny and good enough for her. Still, when she thought back on that day Kate couldn’t help but feel a twinge of…something.

  It wasn’t regret exactly, and it was definitely not doubt about the wisdom of her choices. No, it was more like uneasiness. Honestly, when she had accepted Will’s proposal the thought that she would get to be Princess for a Day for the first time in her life had been uppermost in her mind, not place settings or cake fillings or spending eternity with a man who was already starting to grate on her nerves.

  It’s just stress, Kate firmly told herself. She was fine, Will was fine, and she and Will were fine. Everything was fine.

  Lana was not fine. In fact, she was bored out of her mind. It was Saturday night, it was not even ten o’clock, and she was all alone with nothing to do and no one to do it with. Kate was at the library working on some paper for her Sexual Psychology class, Emilie had just left on her date with the Frog Prince —who had turned out to be attractive in a scruffy-frat-boy kind of way— and Lana was sitting alone on the couch twiddling her thumbs.

  This just would not do. She had used her time wisely this week and gotten a job at a funky little coffeehouse adorned with posters of local bands and advertisements for dog-walking services by University Plaza. She had finally unpacked and rearranged her room so it now felt like her space rather than merely a place to crash. And, albeit reluctantly, she had informed her mother that she was going to be home for a while in a dreadfully long conversation that had ended with her mother breaking down in relieved sobs to know that her baby was no longer living in the den of iniquity that was California.

  Lana flipped through the impressive list of channels twice and devoured a large bowl of cookie dough ice cream before it occurred to her that she was behaving like a loser. She really hated losers. Thus, determined to make something of this night, Lana turned off the TV, rinsed out her bowl, and went into her room to change into some appropriate going-out attire.

  This stumped her for a few moments, since going-out attire in L.A. was vastly different from going-out attire in New Bern. Feeling old and decidedly un-hip, Lana made a safe selection of jeans and a minimally revealing shirt that matched her new black and pink hair before heading out the door to look for some fun.

  Since her idea of fun was also slightly distorted lately, what with the whole struggling to make ends meet and figure out what she was going to do with the rest of her life situation she now found herself in, Lana ended up driving around aimlessly for half an hour before settling on the Pub Hub, a bar right next door to her current place of employment.

  The place was a typical college bar, smoky and loud. The patrons were an eclectic mix of artsy, emo, and punk kids sprinkled liberally with a handful of preppy, law-school bound yuppies trying to up their cool factor. Lana was a little uneasy at first — for a potential rock star, she could be kind of a wuss when it came to large crowds of strangers. But the shadowy interior and the raucous music blasting on the speakers felt familiar enough, and she forced herself to relax as she glanced around the room.

  She was pleased, and slightly surprised by the emotion, to see a familiar face eyeing her with interest from behind the bar. When she met his gaze, his eyes seemed to flash from across the room and he had a big grin on his face as he cas
ually waved her over.

  It was Brian Connelly. As in former high school boyfriend, man to whom she had lost her virginity, breaker-of-innocent-hearts Brian Connelly. Though she had known he might be here, having heard from a few old friends that he was the Pub Hub’s resident bartender, she certainly hadn’t been looking for him. It was sheer coincidence and, if Emilie or Kate ever happened to ask her about it, she would go to her grave swearing so.

  Lana maneuvered her way through the crowd and took a steadying breath. The last time they had met was two years ago, when Lana had drunkenly allowed him to take her home after a random concert on an equally random visit home, and they hadn’t done all that much talking then. So this wasn’t going to be awkward at all.

  Though Lana was unsure of how to greet the first guy who had ever seen her naked, Brian obviously suffered from no such hesitation. He simply leapt over the bar, grabbed Lana around the waist, and planted a very long, very wet kiss directly on her stunned mouth.

  “Okay then,” Lana said breathlessly. “It’s nice to see you, too.”

  Brian laughed at her, something she seemed to recall he was fond of doing, gave her another kiss —with tongue— and then leapt back over the bar with the ease of someone who did it often.

  Okay, so they were going to bypass Awkward and head straight into Hazardous to Her Heart and Loins. Neat.

  “Lana Tate, as I live and breathe.” Brian winked rather rakishly, causing Lana’s idiotic heart to go pitter-patter. “I thought you were off in Hollywood making movies. What the hell are you doing back in this hole?”

  “I was making music, not movies,” Lana yelled over the noise of the bar. “And I’m back for Kate’s wedding. You remember Kate, right?”

  “Sure — the big mouth, yeah? Who’d marry her?”

  “Well, you haven’t changed a bit,” she observed with a sigh.

  “Hey, I’m just kidding, sugar.” He laughed as he mixed a pinktini for a sorority girl who was giving him the eye. In an uncharacteristically classy move, he chose to ignore the airhead and remain focused on Lana. “What about your other friend —the snobby one— are you guys still close?”

  Lana eyed him for a minute, trying to gauge his level of sincerity. The Brian she remembered would not have remembered she had friends, let alone ask after them. But he looked expectant and not at all sarcastic. Weird.

  Strange new personality aside, Lana felt compelled to correct his aspersions on Emilie’s personality. “Em’s not snobby; she just has a low tolerance for stupidity.”

  Brian gave her a disbelieving smirk. He had never gotten along with her friends when they were younger, probably because they had seen right through him, but Lana quickly suppressed that unpleasant thought.

  Instead she shouted, “I’m staying with Emilie while I’m home.”

  Brian was looking at her intently, as if he remembered exactly what she looked like without her clothes on and was eager to see if the memory lived up to the reality.

  “So you’re gonna be here for a while, then?”

  “Why? Did you miss me?”

  She expected him to make a cutting remark about how forgettable she was because that was, unfortunately, that was the way he had always operated in the past. So Lana was shocked —again— when he reached across the bar for her hand and pulled her closer so he could whisper-shout in her ear.

  “Yeah, Lana, I missed you.”

  Lana suddenly felt a little giddy. This was her first clue that she was about to be in real trouble.

  Brian grinned cockily at her, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. “I get off in about an hour. Wait for me?”

  When he quirked his eyebrow and gave her a smug look, Lana felt a strange flutter in the pit of her stomach and she shook her head in bemusement. He definitely knew what she was thinking.

  Lana swiftly decided that the best way to handle Brian was by playing it cool, teasing and torturing him with her hesitation and showing the evil man just how mature and wise and sexy she had grown in the last two years.

  “Okay, sure,” she somehow heard herself saying less than five seconds later. “I could wait.”

  I really am a dope, she thought with a groan.

  The date was going well. Emilie kept telling herself this throughout the night. Leo had picked her up right on time… Well, he had only been ten minutes late, so she could forgive him for that. He was very sweet and gentlemanly… Well, he had asked her if she was too cold in his ice box of a car because warm fingers and toes were apparently not a priority for him, but it was something. And he had held the door for her when they were going into the restaurant… Well, he had after she stood back and gave a pointed look, directed first at him and then at the door handle.

  At least we’re talking, she tried to reassure herself. He had seemed inordinately pleased to inform her that he had once operated The Monster, an old wooden roller coaster located at the local amusement park by the Ohio River. It seemed that she was meant to be impressed, and Leo had gotten huffy when she had not been properly awed by this revelation of his masculinity and greatness.

  After that it took her a good fifteen minutes to coax him out of his sullen mood. But she had been patient, and the conversation was definitely flowing once again…even if it did seem to be remarkably dull and amphibian-oriented.

  Emilie, however, was determined not to complain because she was finally out with the object of her affection, and all through dinner he kept alternately brushing her wrist with his thumb and grazing her thigh with the back of his hand. That, she concluded, along with the sexy little half smiles he kept throwing her way, totally made all the awkward pauses in conversation worthwhile. Totally.

  And if Emilie kept hearing Kate’s annoying voice in the back of her head yammering on about her equally annoying cousin, then Emilie was determined to ignore it. Ethan had occupied her mind far too often lately for her peace of mind, and she refused to let the distant memory of a green-eyed boy ruin this date.

  “I’m having a great time, Emilie.”

  Leo’s voice wasn’t quite as low as she had first thought it to be. Actually, it tended to get squeaky whenever he spoke of anything frog-related, which meant it was nearly always squeaky. She wondered if it sounded like that whenever he was excited about something.

  “Emilie?”

  Startled to be caught in the middle of her musings on what said squeaky voice would sound like in the dark, Emilie’s gaze quickly shot up to meet his expectant one. Smiling sweetly, she replied in what she hoped was a placating voice, “I am, too, Leo. I love this place you brought me to.”

  She hated this place he had brought her to. It was one of those cheesy chain restaurants with sombreros on the wall and mariachi music playing on the overhead speakers, the kind of place that could be found on any street in any town in America. Emilie was more of a “classy and unique eatery” type of girl. Still, he had been steadily coming out of his prickly mood, and she did not wish to burst his fragile ego’s bubble at this critical juncture.

  Leo threw his arm around her shoulders and to cast a self-satisfied look around the room. “Yeah, I thought you would like it.”

  He was so busy admiring his find that he did not see Emilie’s involuntary look of disbelief. “Good call,” she said with barely veiled sarcasm. “So, what do you want to do after dinner?”

  Leo gave her one of his slow smiles. “I thought we could go back to your place for a drink.”

  She was again startled by Leo’s sudden shift in mood. An hour ago, they had spoken to each other barely a dozen times. Half an hour ago, she had been hard-pressed to get him to forgive her for her failure to understand the importance of wooden roller coaster operators in a world full of computer-driven rides. Now he wanted to go home with her? Guys were so confusing.

  Emilie must have looked as uncertain as she suddenly felt because Leo quickly placed his warm hand over her chilled one.

  “Just to talk, Emilie. I like you a lot, and being with you feels, I don
’t know, right.”

  Leo smiled softly at her and she was glad that the shy, sensitive guy she had been so fond of before seemed to be returning.

  “We can take this as slow as you want to take it,” he reassured her. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Emilie smiled in relief; she knew she had been right about him. “Slow is good,” she agreed.

  “Not too slow, though, okay?” Leo smiled slightly as he leaned down to kiss her neck. She turned her head, allowing him easier access to her collarbone.

  Emilie was so caught up in the fact that she was finally getting what she wanted, she was able to ignore the slight twinge of uneasiness that settled in her stomach and whispered that something still didn’t feel quite right.

  ***

  Two weeks. Things with Leo had been cruising along at a nice, steady, uneventful pace for the last two weeks, and Emilie did not want to screw it up by unleashing Kate on him at this point in time.

  So how on earth had she ended up agreeing to a stupid double date with Kate and Will? She was a dope — that was the only logical conclusion.

  Her left leg kept bobbing up and down, despite numerous attempts to still it. She looked around the crowded Q’s Café, which served the best burgers in New Bern, and wondered for the umpteenth time how she had allowed herself to get dragged into this mess.

  So far, Leo seemed to embody everything she was looking for in a man. His golden hair, dark eyes, and perfectly decent features lent him an air of harmlessness that she found appealing, he was shy and unassuming, and —bonus— he exuded none of the potentially lethal charm that Emilie was so wary of in men.

  If he was sometimes difficult to read —broody, Lana called it— Emilie didn’t mind. In her experience, the more open a man was with you, the more open he expected you to be in return. And since she had never been all that fond of pouring her heart out to the opposite sex, his reticence was fine by her. It was generally her belief that the more vulnerable you allowed yourself to be with a man, the more it hurt when they inevitably pulled the rug out from under you, so she felt as if she’d basically hit the jackpot by finding a man who didn’t seem to expect her to fall all over him with her feelings.