Page 42 of The Dollhouse

I worked at a local retail store, so nothing too huge there. I did tell her if she ever wanted to use my discount to buy anything, she could totally hit me up.

Somehow, I didn’t think that impressed her too much.

The waitress came to take our plates away, leaving us with a bill—of which I lunged to grab first. No way in hell was I going to let Zoey try to pay for our first date. I might not be loaded like her parents, but I still wanted to pay. Some stupid, ingrained notion of masculinity or something.

“What about your family?” Zoey asked, weaving her fingers together and then resting her chin atop them. “Are you close to them?”

I knew Zoey wasn’t particularly close to her family, not after what happened, so I wasn’t sure I should tell her. Of course, I wasn’t a liar, so I had to tell her the truth. “Yeah. My, uh… my mom didn’t want me moving out. I think if it was up to her, I’d live in her house until I was thirty.”

Eh, either thirty or I got married.

Zoey’s eyebrows lifted, as if she couldn’t believe that.

“She means well,” I said, shrugging it off. I would not tell Zoey about the fact that my mom had been trying to sign me up on online dating websites. Like, I was only twenty years old. Give me at least a few more years until I got that desperate, okay?

“Do you have any siblings?” Zoey tiptoed around the word, and I could tell she wished she was an only child. But then, if that was the case, if she didn’t have a sister who’d slept with her ex-boyfriend, what was to stop that same ex from finding someone else to hook up with behind her back? No, she dodged a bullet when she found her ex and her sister together. It might hurt now, but the future Zoey would be thankful.

I shook my head, handing the waitress my debit card as she walked by. I’d have to leave a tip on the card too, since I didn’t make it a habit of carrying around cash. “No, it was just me and my mom. My dad died when I was ten.”

She looked like she wanted to reach over the table and hug me. “I’m sorry, Lake,” she whispered, frowning.

“It’s okay,” I said, wanting to get that frown off her face immediately. Don’t get me wrong, when I was younger, I was absolutely devastated that my dad passed away, but ten years was a long time to get used to something like that. Half of you moved on, while the other half thought it was just yesterday your dad was giving you a roasted marshmallow right off the fire, even though your mom hated how messy you were with them.

Zoey pursed her lips. “Sometimes I wonder what it would’ve been like to grow up in a different family. Having money is… sometimes I swear it’s like a curse.”

That, I could believe. You saw it in politics all the time. Money was the root of all evil, all greed. Men always wanted more, even when they already had more than their fair share. I never wanted to be super rich; I only wanted to get a job that could pay the bills and let me save up enough to go on a vacation every other year or something. Just enough to be happy.

I liked to think I was a simple guy.

A simple, insanely awkward guy, but a simple guy all the same.

We stopped at a small mom and pop ice cream shop before our movie. I got a milkshake, while Zoey got a huge vanilla cone dipped in sprinkles. We sat outside, on the small patio in front of the ice cream shop, as we ate. Or, rather, as she ate her cone and I drank my shake, all the while watching her.

Did Zoey realize she was so gorgeous? Did she wake up every day knowing she could get whatever guy she wanted, whenever she wanted? And, the most important question ringing in my head: what the heck was she doing here with me?

It was after one particularly sprinkle-filled lick that Zoey tucked some of her hair behind an ear, giving me a look that said more than words could. “What?”

“Nothing,” I said, probably too quickly. My eyes fell away from her face, dropping to my chocolate milkshake, staring at the melting contents inside the plastic container.Way to be obvious, I chided myself.

“You were thinking about something,” she said. “I can tell. What?” It seemed Zoey would not let it go.

I wondered if I should say it, or if I should come up with something else to tell her so I didn’t sound so lame. It wasn’t like I wanted to advertise how out of my league she was, how much she made me tongue-tied, but at this point, I didn’t know what else to say.

“It’s…” I was going to say it’s stupid, but then, when Zoey was in the picture, could anything really be stupid? I bit the inside of my cheek when I met her stare. The blue in her eyes was a light, delicate color, the hue of the sky just after sunrise, after the oranges and pinks faded away, the lightest blue imaginable.

Eyes like that made you lose your train of thought quite easily, apparently.

Zoey reached over the table, laying a hand on my arm. “What?” This time, her voice was softer, gentler, the kind of voice I could close my eyes and listen to all day and night. She had me trapped, wrapped around her finger, and I bet she didn’t even realize it.

“You,” I whispered, feeling the hand on my arm loosen. “I honestly don’t know why you’d want to go on a date with me, Zoey. You’re… you’re you and I’m me.” Well, if ever you needed someone to explain something using ineloquent words, I was your guy. Keep my number memorized.

She took a lick of her cone, mostly free of sprinkles now, narrowing her gaze at me a bit. “And what’s wrong with that?”

I let out an incredulous chuckle. “Look at me. I’m not really the kind of guy who you see standing next to models.”

Zoey frowned somewhat. “I’m not a model.”

“No, but you could be. You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen, and I’m just a boy from a small town, trying to get his life together.” I realized then I’d just given her a compliment that was so not first date material, but it was too late to take it back now. “Sorry. I hope you don’t think that’s weird, or anything—”

---