Room-maid(63)

I needed my friends to help me figure things out.

It was also fun to get dressed up again. Not because I was trying to please my family or impress Brad or make sure I would fit in wherever I was going. No, I put on a short sparkly black dress, glittery silver eyeshadow, and red lipstick just for me. So that I would feel pretty.

When I finished getting ready, Tyler was back and moving around in the front of the apartment. Shay texted that she was on her way and I decided to go down to the lobby and wait for her so that the Uber wouldn’t have to park.

I was feeling pretty and sparkly and even though I hadn’t dressed up in order to get validation, I was finding myself in want of some. Especially from Tyler.

“You’ll have to tell me if this dress looks okay,” I called out, baiting my hook as I fished for my compliment. Hopefully he’d let me land one.

“The perfect situation for any man to find himself in,” he called back, his voice brimming with humor.

With one final nod I came out into the front room. Tyler was sitting on the couch with one of his spy novels. Pigeon was curled up next to him and he was stroking her fur and I again thought that she was the luckiest dog in the world.

He looked up and saw me and just . . . stared.

Like, awkwardly.

Or maybe I was the only one feeling awkward. But it seemed to last a long time and there was a strange tension in the air that I didn’t know how to explain. Or I was imagining it.

He cleared his throat. “Going out?”

“Yes.” My voice sounded shaky. “With some friends from school.” That made me sound twelve. “They’re teachers, too. From my school.” I was dangerously close to babbling. I grabbed my purse from the table in the foyer, trying to collect myself. What was happening? “You didn’t tell me what you think of my outfit.”

“You, uh, you look . . . yeah.”

My heart sank. Was that bad?

And should I ask?

I decided against it. My fishing expedition had been fruitless. With a sigh I reached into my purse with the intent of transferring over my wallet to my handbag and felt a lump. I’d forgotten that I’d stopped by the pet store yesterday and picked up a Christmas present for Pigeon. It was a girl stuffed pigeon with pink wings and I thought she might like it. I took the wrapped box out of my purse and put it under the tree. “Before I forget again, I got a present for Pigeon. And now the tree doesn’t look so bare.”

Placing the present brought me closer to him and he was studying me again in a way I didn’t understand.

“You bought a Christmas gift for my dog?” There was a strange catch in his voice.

“Of course. I love her. She’s a good girl, aren’t you, Pigeon?” She barked at me happily in reply, her tail wagging.

Still, Tyler didn’t speak. Wanting to break whatever this bizarre tension was, I said, “I’m going to go. Don’t watch The Bachelor without me.”

Then he was back, his blue eyes bright, a smile hovering on his lips. “There is zero chance of that happening.”

My joke made things feel somewhat normal and I decided to leave before I said or did something to mess it up again.

It actually felt a little weird to be going somewhere without Tyler. We’d been spending, well, almost all our free time together lately.

But it would be good. I thought a little distance couldn’t hurt. And I hoped my friends would be able to help me untangle the mess that my life had become.

Because I no longer felt equipped to figure it out on my own.





CHAPTER NINETEEN

Both Delia and Shay had come to pick me up. They scooted over and all three of us were crushed in the back seat. Our driver was a middle-aged man with a deep Texan drawl who introduced himself as Jimbo.

I’d just said hello to him when Shay demanded, “We’ve waited long enough. Spill!”

So I did. I told them everything that had happened since we’d last chatted. I told them about the weird run-in with Brad, and how he told me I couldn’t have a job once we got “married” and that he’d failed to grasp the concept that we were done. Then I quickly shifted gears to fill them in on every amazing and glittery thing that had been happening with Tyler. Shay was so excited she practically had hearts in her eyes.

Well, I told them almost everything. But I didn’t tell them about his mom. That was between Tyler and me.

“What else?” Shay asked.

So I filled them in on the present from Singapore, the beautiful comment, and the thing with the shower, which made Shay laugh.

“Oh, yeah, right, he ‘forgot’ to tell you,” she said, using air quotes around the word forgot. “He probably wanted that to happen. On a subconscious level.”

“I don’t think so. He seemed pretty mortified. Although I can tell you, he had nothing to be embarrassed about.”

That made both of my friends dissolve into giggles. The car wasn’t moving and I noticed that we were sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Jimbo muttered something about construction, and it probably would have been quicker for us to walk to the club than it was to drive.

But it worked out in my favor because I still had stuff to tell them before a thumping club mix made it too loud for us to hear each other.

I told them about this morning, about the cookies and Tyler making me breakfast, buying the Christmas tree. I was warming up to what had happened right before I left when Delia announced, “You’ve basically kissed him.”