Page 62 of Getting Over You

“Why me?” Cade asks EJ.

“Because”—finally, the noises stop—“I work all the time. And I don’t want to bother Rory.” He hands over our coffees.

“So, you bother me.”

EJ sighs. “I’m not trying to impress you.”

Cade makes a face. I laugh, and he winks at me.

God damn you.

As EJ hands over my mother’s iced macchiato, I say, “I wish you would tell Rory how you feel about her.”

“She spends nearly every night at my place, even though I’m in the friend zone,” he points out. “I think I’m in a good spot.”

I roll my eyes. “If you need someone to do the shopping, I can. I don’t mind.”

Cade’s eyes slice into me. “Gigi. Don’t offer to help him.”

“I really don’t mind,” I say. “Besides, I think it’s sweet, romantic, andimmenselycaring that he doesn’t want to inconvenience Rory.” Cade’s eyes darken. “But you wouldn’t know anything about that.”

I thank EJ for our coffee and tell him goodbye, Cade’s eyes trailing after me the entire time. He doesn’t follow me out of the coffee shop.

He’s either telling EJ an update about the tattoo shop, or he’s talking about me.

Either one excites me in a way I can’t explain.

For the next few days, I busy myself with work, Cade, and even a little time with Belinda. She has enjoyed talking over her dating life with me—if she’s liking being a cougar, I guess I can’t argue. The happier she is with her graduate students, the less she focuses on me, my appearance, my lack of social butterfly syndrome that she suddenly wants me to experience because she has found it herself.

“I like Luke,” she says to me as she sits down with a glass of wine one evening. “He’s majoring in economics, taking summer classes. He’s immensely driven.”

“How old is he?” I ask. “And what happened to Damon?”

“Things come and go,” my mother says, wistful. “But I’m enjoying my time with Luke.”

“Is that the guy I saw in his boxers in our kitchen?”

“Gigi.” Belinda goes pale. “What are you talking about?”

“Did you know he was drinking milk from the jug?”

She purses her lips, displeased. “What a Neanderthal.”

I smile at her comment. “I’m serious. Why are you dating these guys?”

“To feel youthful, sugar.” She takes a sip from her wineglass, contemplating. “I’m not getting younger.”

“There are ways to feel youthful besides meaningless hook-ups,” I tell her. “Trust me.”

“It seems like that’s what you’ve been doing all summer, no?”

My head whips to look at her. “What?”

She waves a hand to punctuate her words. “You and your boyfriends. Cade, the one you’re just stringing along. The other boy you’re spending time with.”

“Shane broke up with me,” I say, sighing. “And Cade is not my boyfriend. Not even close.”

“So, you flirt with every man, then. Not just the ones you’re dating.”

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