Page 23 of Getting Over You

I don’t need to teach her how to do that. She’s effortlessly straining my zipper every time I see her.

“You’re asking for trouble,” I tell her.

“No, Cade,” she says flatly. “I simply want someone to want me so bad it hurts. For once in my life.”

Chapter nine

“Ididn’t know you hated tattoos,” Mollie says. I hear shuffling, clattering. “You hate tattoos?”

“I toldhimI hate them,” I say. At the ice cream parlor, I noticed another dainty flower on his arm. A rose, or maybe a tulip. Itwascute, and I was dying to know the meaning behind it.

“And you said that as opposed to ‘Please let me see you without clothes’because?”

“Because he’s not the kind of guy I want to see me without clothes,” I tell my sister.

“Right,” she says as something else clatters. “Because of the commitment issues or whatever.”

“You sound like him,” I tell Mollie. I sit on my bed and pinch the phone in between my ear and shoulder. I reach for my shoes, pulling them on. “His casualness is the biggest turn-off.”

Yes, Gigi. Which is exactly why you asked the king of casual flings to help you pick up guys. Because you don’t want him to want you as he teaches you to be exactly his type. Sure.

“You’re down there looking for Mr. Right, aren’t you?” Mollie accuses. She tsks at me. “Give yourself some time to heal.”

“I was healed the minute I had sufficient vitamin D,” I say. “All good.”

“Now, to find the other vitamin D,” Mollie muses. “That will help greatly.”

“Are you in my closet?” I ask.

“What?” She takes too long to answer.

“That clattering. You’re in my closet.”

I hear shuffling. A distinctbang!as she shuts the door. “No, I’m not.”

“Whatever you steal,” I say, “wash it and put it back.”

“It’s just your black jumpsuit,” she admits after a too-long pause. “I’m wearing it to go with Dad to some fundraiser thing.”

“Mom’s not going?”

I hear Mollie sigh. “You’ve been gone less than a week and she’s walking around the house like someone on an antidepressant commercial, looking longingly out the window. It’s like she’s afraid Belinda is going to poison you, and you’ll never come back.”

“That’s crazy,” I say. “Tell Mom that’s crazy.”

“You tell her,” Mollie counters. “She’ll believe you.”

I check the clock. “I have to go,” I say. “I’m helping Belinda with her restaurant, and my shift starts soon.”

Mollie sighs. “Gigi. Seriously?”

“It’s fine,” I get out quickly. “I basically volunteered.”

“Mom’s going to be pissed,” she states matter-of-factly. “You know, she told Dad right after you left that she was afraid you’d get stuck working or something.”

“I’m not stuck. I have a friend who works there, too. It’s really not a big thing.”

“I feel like you’re lying,” my sister says. “But okay. Have fun helping Belinda and not sleeping with the hunky tattooed hunk.”

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