Page 18 of Sparks Like Ours

“Saucy conflict,” Isabel amended, matter-of-factly. “You guys havethe recipe. You’re the ones with the rivalry. I just pointed it out. I can’thelp it if the romantic and the busybody have both run with it.” She shrugged.“Not on me.”

“Totally on you.”

Autumn raised her hand. “Which one am I?”

“The busybody,” Isabel and Gia said in unison.

She nodded. “I own that. The busybody would formally like to pointout that this one just got out of Elle’s white convertible Beetle. Saw it withmy own busybody eyes.”

“Get out of town,” Isabel said, intrigued now. “The story heatsup.” She squinted at Autumn. “What else did you see? Report.”

“Nothing,” Gia told them. “Because there was nothing to see. Stopbeing dumb.”

“I saw them laughing,” Autumn said. “Most definitely. And smiling.Gia touched the car fondly like this.” Autumn imitated the tapping of the hood,but drew it out in exaggerated fashion.

Gia rolled her eyes.

“Wow,” Isabel said nodding, as if taking it all in. “That’sprogression from wanting to kill each other. Right on schedule, too. I couldn’twrite this any better.”

“I hate you both,” Gia said calmly, and headed to the outdoorstaircase that would lead to her second-floor apartment. Let them speculate allthey wanted. In fact, let them drown in curiosity. But then…she couldn’t hatethem for long. In fact, it lasted about ninety seconds. Her ability to hold along-term grudge against her friends was embarrassingly lame. “Ms. Pac-Manin twenty?”she called down to Isabel, who glanced up. They’d bonded hard over their lovefor retro video games and never looked back. Isabel was not only competitive,she understood the treasure that wasMs.Pac-Man. A rare find.

“Done. My place. I’ll tell Kate.”

Barney, the beach bum who lived next door to Isabel, strutted fromhis apartment and looked up at her. “Surf chick?”

“What’s up, Barney?” Gia called down.

“Can you introduce me to your surf friend in the car?”

She stared at him. “No.”

“She’s the girl of my dreams,” he said happily, and ran his handthrough his shaggy blond hair. “Got her calendar on my fridge. She’s in aswimsuit.”

Isabel and Autumn exchanged a grin and a fist bump on the couches.Their muscle-bound neighbor was generally a happy-go-lucky individual, if alittle random. You could always count on Barney to lend a hand when you neededone, making this the first time that Gia wanted to murder him. She took amoment to gather enough energy to not do just that.

“She has a date tonight, with a guy named Christopher, so I’mthinking she’s not in the cards for you, Barn.”

“Boo, Christopher,” Autumn said.

Isabel nodded. “We hate him.”

“Who is this dude? I’ll take him down,” Barney asked, flexing.Seriously? Did the guy ever wear a shirt?

Gia lifted a shoulder. “Got me. I just report the weather.” Shepointed at Isabel. “Pac-Man with a bow in twenty.”

“Eighteen now.”

“Do you at least have her digits?” Barney called.

Gia chose to ignore him. She let herself into her apartment andcrashed temporarily on her couch. With thirteen minutes to veg, and five tomake sure her car was brought to the shop, she used the time to relax andunpack her psyche from such a weird and unexpected day. The shoot hadn’t beennearly as awful as she’d expected. She and Elle had sparred a tad, but nothingovert. The one detail she couldn’t shake, however, was Elle’s assertion thatGia had gone out of her way to be unfriendly. While true to a certain extent,hearing it played back was like a punch in the gut. She wasn’t raised to be a mean-spiritedperson. She didn’t want to be. In fact, she’d always tried to be kind. Yetshe’d let her sense of competition override those instincts when it came toElle and her bubbly shtick. Yes, Elle and her perfection annoyed her no end,but she didn’t deserve poor treatment.

Gia sat up and ran a hand through her hair as self-recriminationswept in. She’d have to find a way to change her behavior where Elle wasconcerned. And you know what? Maybe Elle wasn’t as bad as Gia had built her upto be. Today they’d actually had fun together on the ride home. Sheseemed…genuine during their conversation.

Gia would focus on the good. She could do that. She lay back downand gave it a shot.

Okay. Elle could be warm on occasion, like today when she’d goneout of her way to help Gia out. She was a killer surfer, with the kind of shredand precision Gia worked long hours to emulate. She was definitely pretty, andwhen she stood near Gia in a swimsuit, like today at the shoot, it was hard toremember the annoying stuff. She visualized that moment now, taking note of herown very acute reaction. Gia covered her eyes and shook her head. What acomplicated scenario she had herself in. She gave her face a scrub to wash awaythe image of sparkling blue eyes and the swell of cleavage, and reached blindlyfor her phone.

Time to rescue her car and forget about the rest.

---