“I don’t date,” I explain. “If that’s what you’re looking for, you’re wasting your time. It’s nothing personal. You’re fun, you’re obviously attractive, you’re nice, you make damn good cookies—I just don’t want to date anybody. I’m in sort of a weird place in life. I know that sounds like a bullshit, fuckboy explanation but I actually mean it. I won’t even let a girl come over to my apartment. That’s literally too much for me. The idea of someone spending the night in my bed makes me legitimately nauseous.”
“Because you enjoy your random hook-ups too much to part with them?” she asks lightly.
“No, I hate those. I just… get lonely sometimes.”
Her casual smile slips. I immediately regret saying it. I didn’t mean to. Jesus. That was—I don’t know how that made its way out. Now I really want her to leave.
Taking a step back, preparing to flee her company again, I tell her, “Thanks for the invite, but—”
“Wait. Don’t…” She trails off, but takes a step closer, not letting me close the door on her. Her seamless playfulness seems to have taken a hit in light of my stupid fucking share, and she seems to be debating what to say. I hate this. This is exactly why I avoid shit like this. Vulnerability is the absolute worst thing in the fucking world, and even a sliver of it is too much. I don’t know what possessed me to tell this girl I get lonely. Jesus Christ.
After thinking for a second, she takes another step closer. Because I want to flee her more than anything, I take a step back. Her eyes narrow, but there’s a hint of amusement coming back.
“Don’t run from me,” she says, simply. “Maybe you wouldn’t get lonely if you let yourself have a friend. That’s all I’m looking for. Nothing scary. No commitment. Just a friend.”
“Do you talk about your break-in fantasies with all your friends?” I ask her pointedly.
“All the hot ones, obviously. You should hear the naughty conversations Gus and I have.” She shakes her head. “They’d make you blush.”
Cracking a reluctant smile, I roll my eyes. “I somehow doubt you’re capable of making me blush.”
Her blue eyes widen like that’s an absurd claim. “I wouldn’t be so sure.” Nodding her head, she turns her back to me and heads toward her apartment. “Lock up, Superman. Come have pizza with me.”
—
Three hours, two episodes of Smallville, and almost a whole pizza later, I’m sitting on the floor in front of Carly’s couch while she relaxes on her belly above me.
“This show isn’t good,” I inform her.
“Shush, you. This show is wonderful. At least, my 16-year-old self believed it was when I watched it with Laurel. On the basis of every other opinion I held at that tender age, it’s completely infallible.”
“You talk about her a lot. You guys are close, I take it?”
She twists her index and middle fingers together. “Super tight. The only thing I hate about Connecticut is how far away from her it is. I’ve never lived so far away that I’ve had to go weeks without seeing her before. It’s weird.”
“How old is she?”
“She just turned 19 a month ago.”
“How old are you?” I ask.
“I’ll be 23 in May.”
Just a little younger than me. I nod my head. “Where’d you live before?”
“Chicago, born and raised. That’s where Laurel goes to school now.”
I turn to look back at her. “No shit. That’s where I’m from.”
She smiles and nudges me in the shoulder. “Look at that. We could’ve met already. When did you move away?”
“Few years ago.”
“Is that where your family is?” she asks casually.
I go quiet at that one. I’ve never really talked about my family with girls more than I had to, but it’s a whole different category of off the table now. There’s something about her weird interest in my criminal side, though, that tempts me to share. One of the things that’s always created distance for me with girls since Mia is how none of them know about my past. If I could look at my old life as something I’m completely removed from, as another life, maybe it wouldn’t be such a big deal.
I can’t, though. I wouldn’t be who I am now without my past. Maybe I don’t live that life anymore, but it was 19 years of my existence—and it’s just been wiped out since I left. It’s even worse since Vegas, when I threw myself back into it, when I took Mia. I stood no chance of feeling authentic with anyone after that because I could never tell anyone about it.
“Sorry, sore subject?” she asks, gently. “You don’t have to share; I was just curious.”
“We should probably hold off on that one.”
“Okay,” she says, easily.
Unease moves through me all of a sudden. That she brought it up at all, even though she dropped it easily enough, makes me edgy. She’s from Chicago, born and raised, she said. She knows my last name. Unless she’s troublingly sheltered, surely she’s heard of my family.