Broken Girl(26)
“You want me to say you were right? Okay, so I underestimated the room,” I said, intentionally brushing my lips against his skin as I spoke. “Just promise me you’ll never leave me alone next time we have lunch.” I tightened my embrace before I pulled back and took in his expression. Goose bumps rose across his exposed skin as a smile broached his lips.
“What? Why are you smiling?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he mumbled.
“Come on, what’s up?” I playfully banged my fists against his hard thick chest as I stepped back out of our embrace.
“Just happy that you agreed to go to lunch with me again,” he mumbled as he cocked his head and smiled.
Vulnerability drenched his boyish charm, soaking restlessly through his speckled hazel eyes. I wrestled every nerve in my body into submission, hoping the vibe my body was putting off wasn’t showing him the real desire that was stirring between my thighs.
Do whatever it takes to keep cool, Rose; keep it together, for f*ck’s sake.
I went to say something, opened my mouth to clear up the emotions swirling frantically around us, but thanks to the big guy upstairs, I was interrupted by Philomena bringing Shane his plate full of oysters and me my salad. Shane smiled as the waitress set his cluster of aphrodisiacs down on the table. We both sat down across from one another, hoping that the space between would defuse the energy, but when our eyes met and he winked at me . . . The only thought running through my head . . . I better avoid eating any oysters. Whether it was a reality or a myth, at this point, I think adding anymore lead to his pencil would only have me volunteering to be his paper.
DOING MY LAUNDRY with Shane on Thursdays had become the moments I looked forward to most lately. Every other day of the week had become nothing more than an irritating pebble in the shoe I called my life. Thank God for Sybil; we got back to our normal and she forgave me for being an *. She was the one person who wouldn’t allow me to push her away. We may have lashed out at one another, because that’s what you do with the person you’re closest to and she is my person. Sybil cautioned me about spending too much time with Shane, that I was setting myself up for a big hurt. But, being with Shane, just hanging out with him and doing laundry had been the most satisfying part of my entire life.
It was pretty sad that my happiest of moments were measured by the amount of dirty clothes I brought to a laundromat to be washed and dried. It was the simplest way Shane and I could remain friends in this awkward type of friendship. We’d fostered this kind of connection where neither of us really knew what to call it. I wasn’t f*cking him for money or anything else and he wasn’t paying my way.
I wasn’t kidding myself, even though I knew Shane wanted more than I was willing to give, he and I were finding a middle ground. A stage of some sort, a f*cked up place that kept us trudging across the sun beaten earth in the hope of finding a place where we could drink from the fountain of trust and actually name what we were to one another. Until then, Shane and I were simply known as laundry buddies. Laundry buddies that kept certain information off limits, it could have been the way I chose to answer him when he asked me what I did for a living or why I scurried off before dark. I think he was convinced I was a vampire of some sort.
Shane somehow persuaded me into having lunch together on Mondays at different Cajun restaurants. He said he wanted me to compare Boxing Room with other restaurants around the city. I knew he used it as an excuse to keep bringing me yellow roses. I agreed to it, but only on one condition, we chose places far enough away from the Tenderloin. The further away the better, the last thing I needed was another incident where I was confronted by a crazy f*ck.
It was our fourth laundry day together and as usual we were sitting on the washing machines. Not that I was really counting how many Thursdays we hung out . . . Okay, so maybe I was, but I had to, Shane was so sentimental I didn’t want him to think I wasn’t aware of how many days we were friends or the fact that this next Monday marked the fourth yellow rose he was gonna give me. Each rose saved and pressed between the thin pages of a back-breaking huge Bible my friend’s parents gave me right before they kicked me out of their house. It was the perfect use for a book I only cracked open once to come up with a name for the streets. I never ended up finding a name from the Bible, not one I wanted to use while making a living. I ended up with the name Twyla after reading about a female warden at some prison somewhere who always carried the Bible under her arm.
The washing machines vibrated and whistled a loud tune on the spin cycle. It was my favorite moment with Shane, a moment where we just sat silent, nothing said, no cautious words, I didn’t have to watch what spewed from between my lips because he couldn’t hear me anyway. It was the moment I thought about telling him what I did and I visualized him accepting me for who I was and not what I had to do to make a living.
“Hey, I was thinking—”
“Well, there’s your problem right there. What are you doing thinking?” I interrupted, teasing him as I nudged my elbow into the side of his gut.
“Hah, hah, hah, very funny. No, seriously, I want to take you somewhere special tomorrow,” Shane said proudly.
“Special?” I asked.
“Yeah, I was thinking, we’ve been friends for over a month and I have never taken you over to my favorite place to just hang out.” His eyes dropped to my hands in my lap as I scraped the dark-red polish from my thumbnail.