There's Something About Sweetie(42)

“Aww, thanks, Pinky Dinky Doo.” He put his arm around her and pulled her close. “You’re such a good friend.”

“Ugh!” She made a half-hearted motion to struggle and get away. “You know I hate when you call me that.”

The bell above the front door of Roast Me tinkled and they both looked up. Sweetie stood a few feet away, looking at them. She waved a little awkwardly as she made her way over.

“I think that’s my cue.” Pinky extracted herself from under Ashish’s arm. Turning to him, she said quietly, “Give her a chance, Ash.” Her eyes were big and devoid of her usual Pinky sarcasm. “I have a good feeling about this one.” Then, nodding at Sweetie, she walked back inside.

He looked at Sweetie, approaching in the purple-white lights of the streetlights. Even now she was beautiful. It wasn’t just her physical appearance, though. Something about the way she held herself—that tentativeness, that open-eyed curiosity, that beguiling shallow dimple that popped out whenever she smiled or quirked her mouth—all of those things were attractive to Ashish, and he just couldn’t figure out why. Maybe it was her pheromones. He’d read somewhere that if two people were suitable for each other, they’d find each other’s smells really compelling. He flared his nostrils and tried to sniff surreptitiously.

Sweetie narrowed her eyes. “What are you doing?” She was standing about two feet away now, her head tipped back to look at him.

Crap. “Uh … nothing. Nothing at all.” He stuck his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and looked out at the street. “You don’t have to wait with me. It’s kind of cold.”

“I run warm,” Sweetie said. “So it feels nice out here.”

There was a pause. He could sense her question in the space between them but didn’t press her. Honestly, the longer he could pretend that Samir hadn’t wrecked everything between them before it had even had a chance to get started, the better. He could live in fantasyland for a little while longer. Just like he had with Celia. Apparently, he didn’t learn lessons too easily. Wasn’t that an indicator of intelligence, how fast you learned things? Well, he was lucky he had basketball as a way to get into college, then.

“Ashish …”

He forced himself to look at her but kept his face neutral. She, on the other hand, looked anxious, her big eyes full of questions. The urge to wrap his arms around her to comfort her was almost overpowering, but he managed to resist.

She swallowed. “What Samir said. About that girl Celia. Is it true?”

He tried a smile, but it didn’t quite make it to his face. “What? My friends didn’t fill you in the moment I left?” Oliver was the one who’d caused this whole mess by inviting Sweetie to sit with them in the first place. And by inviting Samir. It stood to reason the moment he was asked that he’d flap his lips to Sweetie.

She frowned a little. “No. All they said was that you’d had a hard time recently and I should talk to you about it.”

Ashish rubbed a hand across his jaw. Oliver and Elijah were such good people. He really didn’t deserve them. “Oh.” Taking a deep breath, he continued. “Then … yes. It’s true. I went out with Celia for almost six months. It was mostly long distance because she goes to SFSU, but still. It meant something.” He laughed a little scornfully. “To me, the high school dumb-ass, anyway. We started to drift apart, but I felt sure that we could work it out. I mean, we were barely talking, but … yeah. I just thought what we had was real.”

“So … what happened?” She asked it without judgment or greedy curiosity.

Ashish shrugged. “I went up to visit her at her dorm one day and her roommate told me she was out with some guy. She didn’t even have the decency to tell me herself.”

He heard Sweetie sigh, soft and low in the night. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Me too.” He heard the bitterness in his voice but couldn’t stop it.

She leaned against the Jeep too, and they both stared at the cars passing in the street for a while. “And you’re not over her.” It wasn’t a question.

He turned on his side to look at her then. He needed to look into her eyes when he said this, so she really understood. “No, I’m not. And I don’t know when—if—I’ll ever be. So if we date, you have to realize … you’re not getting all of me, Sweetie. And if that means that you need to walk away, I’ll totally get it.” He rubbed the back of his neck, agitated. “I’m sorry. I thought I could handle this, you know. Dating again, being with you. Because I like you. I really do.”

“But you still see her when you’re looking at me?”

Ashish shook his head; that wasn’t quite right. “No, it’s more like … she keeps darting into my line of vision when I’m looking at you. Like I haven’t put all of that behind me yet. I’m not sure if I can connect with you on any kind of deep level because of her, Sweetie.” It was kind of strange all of that came tumbling out. … Maybe he should be embarrassed. But he wasn’t.

Sweetie leaned her head back against the Jeep as she looked up at the sky. Ashish felt his palms grow damp as he waited for her to say what was on her mind. He really cared what she thought, he realized. He wanted to be honest with Sweetie. He wanted her to know him, to fully know what he could offer and what he just couldn’t. That was why he wasn’t embarrassed about everything he’d just word-vomited out.