Page 38 of Girls Will Be Girls
“It’s not.” He smirks.
“I’m going on Willie’s hike tomorrow morning,” I explain. “He won’t let me drink, or he doesn’t think I’ll make it.”
“Willie hikes?” Lou asks, but I get distracted by the people walking through the door.
The group of guys heads toward the bar and settles right by us. Lou notices that I’m looking at them because he looks between me and them, lowering his mouth to my ear.
“Who are they?” He whispers.
I shake my head. “No one.” I turn to him and smile. “Shall we?”
Lou looks over to them again. “That’s the guy, right? One of them?” He looks back down at me, and before I can say anything, another voice is far too close to me.
“Hey, baby girl.” The guy drawls. “Fancy seeing you here.”
I turn around and see the same ol’ sleaze from before, and this time he’s drunk, his eyes red and lip drooping a little.
He looks over at Lou. “This your boyfriend or somethin’?”
I don’t know what comes over me. It’s probably a mix of not being great under pressure and the burning desire to get away from this guy, but I say the first thing that comes to mind.
“My fiancé, actually.”
It’s wrong that we have to fake a relationship to get men to leave us alone, but I’d rather do that right now than himnotleave me alone.
The guy’s eyes widen, and he looks at Lou like he’s jealous or he wants to punch him.
Men…
Then he looks over to me, eyes raking over my body without permission again.
“Where’s your ring then?” He asks.
I stutter a second before Lou grabs my left hand in his and answers. “It’s being resized.” He smiles.
I look up at him, and he winks at me.
“We better be going, right hon?” Lou says to me. “That hot tub won’t warm up all by itself.” He says in his charming politician voice.
I struggle to hold in my giggle as I say. “Yes, absolutely.”
Lou wraps his arm around me and as we walk out, he places his hand on the guy’s shoulder, way harder than necessary, and says, “See ya, guy.”.
A part of me feels disappointed he didn’t tell him to eat shit.
Lou’s a bad influence.
7
GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FAKE FIANCÉS ON HAND IN CASE OF EMERGENCY
I last about threesteps out of the bar, Lou’s arm still around me, until I burst out laughing. I have to stop walking for a second just to compose myself. I feel almost hysterical, like when you’ve been flipping throughTikTokfor over two hours straight and something unbelievably stupid pops up and you cry with laughter. I feel like that whole scenario was my own personal someone being flung too high with Creed playing in the background, because no matter how old it is or how many times I’ve seen it, that one always breaks me.
“I’m sorry.” I wipe the corner of my watery eyes. “I don’t know why that was so funny.” I giggle.
Lou just watches me unravel, grinning to himself.
“Thank you, by the way,” I say as genuinely as I can with this wide of a smile. “For going along with it. I wasn’t in the mood to have to fight for him to leave me alone.”
