Chapter Ten
The wind whipped around my building. I sat in the old wingback I found at a resale shop with my feet curled beneath me and a cup of chamomile tea warming my hands. A light snow fell. Under the streetlight outside my window it looked more like golden flecks. It wasn’t going to amount to much, maybe an inch or so. Walking to class tomorrow wouldn’t be so bad. I’d gotten off work at Stockade around ten and came home to study until my eyes blurred and even the word “the” seemed like it was in Greek. Staring at a computer screen didn’t interest me, so I pulled the chair to the window to just watch it snow. I didn’t even bother to turn on music. The quiet peace relaxed me.
Soon my thoughts turned to Devon Miller. The way his lips curved slightly. The way his eyes sparked with mischief. The way his breath mingled with mine. He claimed we didn’t have sex, but there wasn’t evidence to the contrary. I did wake up with his arms firmly wrapped around me. As nice as it was to feel wanted for two entire seconds, there wasn’t anything saying we didn’t get down and dirty. Except for his word and my lack of memory.
What if he wasn’t lying? What did he have to gain by sleeping with me? And what was the big deal if we did have sex? Neither one of us was in a relationship.
Maybe that’s why he couldn’t figure me out. Because I didn’t come running back for more. Like I could deny two simple facts about him: he was gorgeous and being close to him made my heart beat faster than an 8-cylinder engine. That wasn’t enough to start anything. Not that I wanted to. I hated him. Didn’t I?
Then there was the way he treated me at JenCar. He was manipulative. What was the play there? And at the bakery, he’d made another one-eighty. The guy had more sides than a set of Dungeons and Dragons dice.
I was so lost in my thoughts I almost didn’t hear the light tap on my door. It grew more urgent, desperate even as I set my mug down and hurried to answer it.
“Hey,” I said after opening the door.
Paige’s mascara ran down her face in clown-like proportions beneath her red eyes. Her clothes were disheveled. Protective instincts kicked in. I pulled her into my apartment and sat her on the daybed before hurrying to the kitchen to make another cup of tea. Paige sobbed into a napkin. She pulled my quilt over her legs.
“What’s going on?” I asked as I filled a mug with water still hot in the kettle.
She waited until I sat beside her then collapsed into my arms. “Jayce.”
I rubbed her back, waiting for more.
Paige sobbed until the timer went off six minutes later. She sat up as I stood to finish the chamomile tea, sweetening it with honey and adding a splash of milk. When I sat beside her again, Paige had composed herself enough to somewhat smile. I put the “Queen Bitch” mug into her hand.
“My favorite,” she said, warming her hands around the white-and-pink ceramic.
“What’s going on?” I wrapped my hands around hers, staring at her red-and-blue gloves.
She sniffled.
Something had happened. Something big. “You want to talk about it?”
Paige pulled the mug and her hands free from my grip, setting the cooling tea on the coffee table. I reached to put a comforting hand on her arm, but she stood before I could touch her. Our freshman year, after she started dating Jayce, she came back to our room angry with her mascara smeared under her eyes. She’d seen Jayce with another girl. The next day, everything was sunshine and rainbows by lunch. They’d worked out their problems and clarified the misunderstanding. Apparently, Jayce didn’t think they were doing more than dating. Paige made it clear they were exclusive or not at all. He committed pretty quick. Because who would be stupid enough not to? Jayce was the only person who could make Paige break down like this.
She was like the sister I never had. I just wanted to make her pain go away.
Paige leaned against the window sill by my chair. “Can I stay here tonight?”
“Yeah. Of course.” I wanted to ask again what was going on, but I knew better than to push too hard. That would only close Paige down.
Neither one of us moved for ten minutes. The tea had gone cold and silence filled the air like snow.
“He asked me to marry him,” she whispered toward the outside.
That was not what I expected. Of all the things Jayce could’ve done, proposing was the least offensive. Over the last two years, they had fought and made up more times than a politician has lied on camera. But they always got back together. I didn’t like Jayce, mainly because he was too much of a dreamer. Okay, and he was a complete asshole to me. Paige needed someone solid in her life, someone she could rely on when times were tough. Jayce wasn’t that type of guy.
“I told him no,” she added.
It was as if I’d been slapped then back-slapped in the span of two seconds. Paige was head over heels in love with Jayce. While I totally approved of telling him no, I never would’ve expected her to actually do it.
She turned toward me, a fresh stream of tears staining her face. “I’m not ready to get married.” She tugged her gloves off and shrugged out of her coat before collapsing into my wingback. “I love him. And it’s not that I wouldn’t marry him someday, but he started talking about getting married this summer in Vegas. He talked about me dropping out of school to travel with him during basketball season.” She bent forward, her arms wrapped around her middle. “It’s as if he knows he’s going to go pro, Liv. He’s not.” She pulled her knees up, tightening herself into a ball. “I keep waiting for him to see the reality of it. But he won’t.”
I moved to the other end of the daybed, closer to her. My warnings, my need to point out all the ways their relationship could fail, had sunk in when I thought she wasn’t listening. But she was. A part of this, a very small part, was my doing.
Paige turned her head toward me, resting it against her knees. “Even if he did make it, even if he was drafted for the Bulls as their starting point guard, I would’ve said no.”
And yet another slap. Paige couldn’t have surprised me more if she’d come out of the closet.
“I don’t want to get married right now. I don’t want to drop out of school.” She let go of her legs and sat up, gripping the arms of her chair. “Remember how I told you I wanted to go to Europe, travel the world? That’s what I want. Not a husband or a house or kids. Not now. Maybe when I’m thirty.”
“Then that’s what you should do,” I said.
Her face lightened and a smile curved her lips. “Yeah, that’s what I will do. Join a group of missionaries to Africa or South America. Help people. That’s why I wanted a degree in sociology anyway.” Then the excitement was gone. “Why did he have to propose, Liv? Why did he have to ruin it? We could’ve parted ways after he graduated or just drifted apart like some people. Why did he have to ask me to marry him?”
“Because he loves you.”
She snorted. “Yeah, he loves me. But love isn’t everything, you know?”
I nodded, my thoughts drifting toward Henry. I loved him. But seeing his life now, and what I thought it would’ve been with me was different. He wouldn’t have stayed in Madison while I worked at JenCar. He wouldn’t have waited out my master’s degree. He wanted to start his life, start a family, and run a business back home. I wanted to live bigger. I wanted to live better than I did growing up. I wanted something different. Henry wanted the same life he’d known. Paige was right, love wasn’t everything.
Henry saw that. It was time I did, too.
…
The rest of the weekend was exactly as it should’ve been. I worked Saturday night, bringing in great tips, and I worked the Sunday lunch rush. Sunday wasn’t nearly as profitable, but somebody had to do it. Most of the patrons were fresh from church, and that’s where they left their money. Of course, as far as my father was concerned, I was also at church on Sundays and not bringing coffee and steak to people. Despite the projects I needed to work on at the lab, I managed to carve out enough time to run out to get another suit.
Paige drove, wanting to dress me appropriately and to get away from campus.
“Where’re we going?” I asked when she bypassed the turn to the mall.
Paige didn’t answer as she slowed her four-door sedan. The Tank was older than both of us and would probably survive the apocalypse better than a cockroach. It also guzzled gas worse than my truck. She turned toward HighSide, the hipster area of Madison. UnShelved, the used bookstore, was the only reason I came to this part of town. I could buy my textbooks for a third of the cost of the campus bookstore.
“Paige?” I asked when she parked in a small lot behind an art supply store.
She climbed out without looking at me. I followed, careful to push the lock down on her door. The Tank didn’t have remote keyless entry. It was annoying during arctic blasts and rainstorms, both of which were frequent Iowa weather patterns. Sometimes in the same day.
“What’s going on?” I stopped in front of her near the trunk.
Paige stared at the backseat of her car. “Do you know how many times Jayce and I had sex in this car?”
Ew. I don’t want to hear this. And now I don’t want to get back in that car.
She shook her head, as if that would displace the memories. “Anyway, we’re going to the resell shop.”
“Resell shop? What resell shop?” Paige had already turned and started her march to the sidewalk. I had to hurry to keep up.
“Yes, but it’s not just any resell shop, Liv.” She widened her eyes. “It’s the resell shop.”
“I don’t get it.” Being on a fixed income, I thought I knew every resell shop in Madison.
But I didn’t have to. Paige pulled me into a store with mannequins in business attire in the windows. And not just any business attire. Ralph Lauren, Halogen, Michael Kors, all the designers I’d love to own but could never afford. Above the mannequins, The Karma Exchange danced across the glass in gold lettering.
Paige pushed my chin up, closing my mouth. “The clothes are donated and the money goes toward scholarships for incoming freshman. It opened before Christmas, but last weekend I finally checked it out. Pretty cool, huh?”
“Perfect,” I whispered. A business that supported college students? That was amazing.
We stepped inside and it was like walking into a department store and Goodwill at the same time. Mannequins on black wooden boxes displayed clothes nobody on campus could afford off the rack. And some of the clothes looked like they hadn’t seen a rack until they ended up here.
“Come on,” Paige said as she tugged me toward the back. “Suits are over here.”
We spent an hour digging out jackets and pants and skirts and tops. I could’ve tapped my savings and had an entirely new wardrobe, but I controlled myself. The rust-brown blazer went back on the rack despite the thirty-dollar price tag. A pair of Calvin Klein slacks did the same. I picked out a red blazer, a houndstooth blazer, two black a-line skirts, and three tops. All of them would blend with what I already owned.
“Liv, look at this.” Paige stood on the other side of the rack.
I took my bounty with me and rounded the corner. She held up a blue crepe dress with a gathered waist and three-quarter sleeves. A thin silver belt circled the waist.
It was gorgeous.
“It’s your size,” Paige added, pushing the dress toward me. “Try it on.”
“Paige—”
“Just try it on, okay? Nobody says you have to buy it.” She pushed me toward the fitting rooms, taking the other clothes from my arms.
“It’s not like I could wear it to work,” I grumbled. The fabric was so soft in my hands.
“But you can wear it on a date.”
I didn’t get a chance to respond before she pushed me into one of the rooms and closed the door. After all these years, I knew better than to argue with her. Trying on a dress was harmless.
I stripped down and slid the fabric over my head.
“I want to see it,” Paige said through the door.
The dress was perfect. It hugged me in the right places, giving my average boobs some cleavage and making my wide hips seem narrow. The belt cinched my waist without making me look like I’d tightened it too much. It accented my natural curves. I loved it.
But I couldn’t buy it. I couldn’t afford the fifty-dollar price tag. Even if it was Kate Spade and a steal. Tears welled in my eyes. Growing up with six brothers and a dad, I never felt pretty or even feminine at times. This dress made me feel pretty. And that was stupid. I didn’t need to feel pretty. I didn’t need to feel girly or feminine.
“Liv?” Paige’s voice penetrated the door. “Let me see.”
I pulled open the door, keeping my face down. There wasn’t any reason for her to see me like this. And there wasn’t any reason for me to act like this, either. It wasn’t like Henry didn’t make me feel pretty or sexy or wanted.
That thought froze me.
Did he? Really? My mind flashed through all the times Henry and I had been intimate. All the times we’d been out on dates or alone. He never told me I was pretty. Or sexy. Or anything. He’d only told me I looked nice. Exactly the same thing my brothers would say or my father would’ve said.
“God, that dress is so you.” Paige snapped me out of my memories. “I love it.”
“Me, too,” I whispered. “But I can’t. I just can’t.”
Paige took my hands. “Now, don’t get pissed at me, okay?”
I nodded.
“I know you’re saving every penny you can, and that’s great. Considering I have thirty dollars in my savings, I think it’s amazing you’ve got the will power.” Paige squeezed my hands and I finally looked up at her. “But sometimes you can have a little fun.”
“Where would I wear this?”
“Out. With me. We’ll go to dinner then a club or something.” Paige smiled, and the corners of my mouth lifted, too. “Let yourself be twenty-one for a change.”
“You know, the last time you said that I ended up in Devon Miller’s dorm room wearing his clothes.”
Paige’s grin turned into a vixen smile. “You never told me how it was, either.”
I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped. Soon we were laughing so hard that the clerk came to check on us. I pushed Paige out of the fitting room and changed into my jeans and hoodie. The dress went into my purchases. With the extra money from the internship, I could afford to cut loose a little. Maybe I wouldn’t wear it anytime soon, but I wanted to be able to. I wanted to have something just in case someone did ask me out.
In the back of my mind a little voice added, “Or when Devon makes you dinner.”
I told that voice to shut the hell up.