Page 37 of The Proximity Factor

“I wish I could believe you.”

“Uh, you totally can.” I reached down and handed him one of my homemade posters to cheer on Lord of the Flings. “Next year, I’ll even make you your own special poster.” Thoughts of being Parker’s main squeeze and biggest cheerleader settled in my chest. As crazy and unlikely as it might be, the idea felt warm, wonderful, and even right.

Parker’s eyes widened like I’d said the wrong thing.

I suppose I had. I’d just declared I would be part of his life next year, when he’d made it clear to me only a few weeks ago he just wanted to get through this experiment and have nothing to do with me ever again. Yes, things may have changed between us since then, but maybe that was still his plan. “Um ... you know, if you want me to.” I laid my heart on the sacrificial table of honesty and vulnerability. It was just how I rolled.

He rubbed the back of his neck and held his breath for too many beats. It was as if he were raising a figurative knife and then slowly but surely plunging it into my heart.

And I just sat there, waiting for him to do the deed. To make me see the reality of the situation and not the one I had been beginning to hope for. It made my insides clench and twist and my heart stop. I looked past Parker at Anna and Brynn, who were shaking their heads, exasperated with their friend. I guess it was better to know now he didn’t want to see me when this was all said and done, even if I hated that answer.

In my shaken state, I reached down to grab the pom-poms I’d brought, trying to pretend Parker’s slight didn’t hurt. “Go Lord of the Flings,” I shouted, albeit with little emotion in it. It was kind of hard to get excited now. The game hadn’t even started yet, so I’m sure everyone around us thought I was just some crazed cheerleader. But I didn’t know what to do with myself.

“Lanie,” Parker whispered. “I would be honored if you made me a poster. But who knows where either of us will be in a year? My job situation is volatile at best right now. I could be living across the country working at some corporate job,” he gritted out.

I knew that was the last thing he wanted to do, and I hoped for his sake it didn’t come to that.

“And I’m sure you’ll have better things to do than hang out with an old guy trying to relive his glory days,” he added with a slight chuckle. He was hilarious. And also wrong. Dead wrong.

But I would not play some hurt little kitten, even if he had just figuratively stabbed me in the heart. It was obvious he didn’t want me around. “That does sound dreadful. Thank you for saving me from that awful fate. You’re a real pal.” I flashed him a fake smile.

His face fell.

Brynn snapped her fingers in front of Parker in a zigzag like she was the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. “Well, she told you.”

I guess I did. So why did I feel like I was the one who got told off?

“WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? Are you an idiot?” Daphne’s dulcet tones screeched at me over the phone.

I set the phone on the desk and put her on speaker, knowing where this was going and the reason for the call—that I was more than an idiot. I was a jerk, plain and simple. I hurt one of the kindest, if not the kindest, person I had ever met. Not that you would know it by her behavior. Lanie still pranced around the house, singing and smiling like it was business as usual for her. Except she would hardly say two words to me.

“Well, hello to you too. Now you’re talking to me.” Daphne had been ignoring my calls for two weeks now.

“I was giving you the opportunity to settle into your friendship with Lanie, hoping you would see it was a good thing for you, but you went and screwed that up now, didn’t you?”

I leaned back in my desk chair. “What did she say to you?”

“Only that you made it clear you wanted nothing to do with her. Why would you do that? You were making such great progress.”

“What do you mean, progress?”

“Lanie has been updating me on your venture back into the real world. I was so proud of you for having some fun, for getting to know Lanie. She’s amazing, by the way.”

“You’ve known her on a virtual level for three weeks. How can you know that?”

Daphne let out an angry breath. “Because I have good people radar. I told you when I was five years old I didn’t like Maren.”

“You just thought she was stealing your big brother.”

“Okay, fine. That’s true. I actually loved Maren for a long time, once I realized she wasn’t taking you away from me,” she hated to admit. “But she ended up being a snotty witch. And she always had a tendency to think she was better than everyone. Lanie’s not like that at all. Did you know she calls to check on me every day? And you should see her social media posts. There’s not one selfie. In fact, she hardly posts any pictures of herself. They are mostly of her friends or the small, good things she sees every day. There’s even a picture of your stupid Pop-Tarts on the shelf. You know what she said about them?”

It didn’t surprise me that my gorgeous roommate never posted pictures of herself. It was obvious she wanted the world to see her as more than a pretty face. You’d have to be a real douchebag not to notice she was much more than her beautiful exterior, which was why I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what she had to say about the Pop-Tarts. Because the more I knew about Lanie, the more I wanted her—and the more I realized I had nothing to offer her.

But Daphne didn’t wait for my response. “Her caption read, ‘Today I’m grateful there are Pop-Tarts in my pantry because it meant I had a set of arms to hold me close and keep me safe from an unexpected and unpleasant event.’”

No doubt she meant the night Greg showed up here. It was the night everything changed.

“She was talking about you, in case you didn’t get that. Did you get that? You are so dense lately.”

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