Page 105 of Hate You Later
“Oh, he ran out to get more food or something. I don’t know. Last-minute errand? Just leave it with me. I promise it’ll get to him.” She stands up and reaches out to grab the bag handles. I don’t let go. Neither does she. It’s like we are playing tug-of-war. Finally, I release my grip. She teeters backward as I let go but doesn’t give me the satisfaction of falling down.
“Tell him I’m looking for him if you see him?” I urge.
“You bet!” She flashes her veneers at me and sashays confidently toward the elevator, passing the bar on the way. I see Walker there. Like half the other men, and a few women in the space, he seems mesmerized, watching Ashley make her way toward the elevators.
The bar appears to be open, and I could use a drink.
“Hey, Walker.” I interrupt his reverie. He’s holding a green top hat with an orange wig attached.
“Some party!” he says. He slips a bill into the tip jar and palms his whiskey. “We should do this every year!”
“It would really make a difference for the shelter,” I say. I order a vodka soda and drink half of it down as soon as it comes.
“Have you seen Hudson?” Walker asks.
“Ashley mentioned he went on an errand?” I shrug.
“Georgia!” Lilly runs over and flings herself at me, ambushing me with a hug. “I love your look!”
“You look pretty cool too!” I say. She’s wearing Cheshire cat pajamas and carrying her little dog, who looks just adorable in the doctor scrubs Hudson purchased in my shop.
“I wanted to dress up like a patient fromBotched, but my mom wouldn’t let me. Whatever. I’m already in pajamas, and Dad said I can sleep over in his loft tonight.” Her grin matches the feline on her pajamas.
hudson
There’sa gas station and a convenience store in the warehouse district. Both of them have thirty-seven different kinds of spicy chips, but that’s not what I’m looking for. The corner market by the highway doesn’t have it either.
I have to drive all the way into the center of town to a proper supermarket.
I just hope that with this peace offering, Georgia will hear me out.
How had our morning deteriorated so quickly? When I replay the actual words that she said the other day, none of them make sense. One minute, we’re making out, and the next, she just wants to be friends because it’s the rational thing to do? And she pulls off her shirt? It’s the opposite of rational.
Frustration is still coming in waves, but I’m calmer now. Getting sent away had made me angry, but I’m angrier with myself for leaving and not sharing my feelings. I don’t want to be relegated to the rank of friend—with or without benefits. I want more.
But I’d been too chickenshit to tell her.
For the first time, possibly ever, I know exactly what I want. Without question, without hesitation, without excuses.
If I don’t tell her what I actually want, how I really feel, then I’ll never know for sure. Perhaps Walker did have one point.
When you know, you know.
* * *
I pull into the covered parking lot, making sure to leave room behind me for service vehicles. Then I exit onto the street. Xander corners me outside the building.
“We doing this?” Xander asks.
“We are!” I return his fist bump. “Where’s Georgia?”
“She’s in there, getting some ice for one of her vendors, I think.” Xander shrugs. “But I wanted to talk to you about her for a minute, just the two of us. Man-to-man.”
“Okay.” I don’t know why I’m suddenly nervous, but I am. Xander has been nothing but friendly to me, and he’s been a hero for Lilly. But suddenly, I get the feeling that as great as it might be to have Xander in your corner, he’s not someone you want to cross.
His sunny disposition is darkened by clouds of suspicion. If he wasn’t wearing a Ferris Bueller costume, he’d be genuinely intimidating.
“What’s going on between you two?”
