Page 11 of The Other Side of Paradise
I pouted, looking away. “I mean, it’s not like I’d mind.”
“So coached, so polite. Your jacket’s hanging by the back door.”
I stepped inside, slipping out of my shoes, and I said, “Who’s here? I don’t recognize the car.”
“Ah… that’d be Ryan Bell. She’s in the shower right now.”
Oh, shit. Stella’s sister. The ex-girlfriend. I stood at attention, my second shoe half-off, looking over at her. “Ryan? She stayed the night?”
“Mm-hm. Apparently things didn’t go well with the breakup conversation, and she spent the night here instead.I was making her breakfast before the hobo down the street barged in.”
I laughed, hands on my hips. “I am not a hobo!” I said. “Honestly, I wonder why I’m even friends with you. Aside from the pizza oven.”
“And my irresistible charm.”
“I didn’t say that.”
I sat at the table, asking about Ryan, BB telling me more about the family’s meltdown. Turned out I’d only gotten a snippet of the fallout. Explained why everybody was so high-strung. Why Stella had been in the middle of a hard conversation. Why she’d needed my help…
I needed to stop daydreaming about that. I’d been lying in bed for like an hour last night thinking about Stella coming to me for help getting away from it all, and in my wildest fantasies, I actually stayed cool instead of blubbering about bathroom renovations that I didn’t do. Now that I knew Ryan had gone to Brooklyn for help, Ireallyneeded to keep it under control, or I’d go fully off the rails imagining it with Stella.
Especially because it didn’t take long sitting there before Brooklyn dropped, casually, that Ryan was going rock-climbing with her later, and that was the exact moment I knew Brooklyn was hoping for a shot with Ryan.
More importantly, though, Ryan was apparently brand-new to climbing, so I’d have to make sure I showed up while she was there so I wouldn’t be the worst climber there.
“So, what?” I said as Brooklyn finished frothing milk for her dippy little microwaved lattes she always did, and I sank back in her kitchen chair. BB and I didn’t do subtlety, so I decided to go direct. “Is she gay too? You’re not usually inviting a girl so readily unless she’s gay and you think she’s cute.”
“For god’s sake, Allison, I’m not hitting on Ryan,” she said, and I scowled as she kept talking without looking at me. “As for whether she’s gay… I didn’t ask.”
Uh-huh… that was loaded. Sounded like she was trying to get out on a technicality. I scrunched up my face, especially when she kept staring off into space. “You’re thinking really deeply about it.”
“I’m trying to remember when you work today,” she said. “Didn’t you say it was eight? You’re going to be late.”
She was so lying, but I’d let her have it. “I start at noon today.”
“Oh. I’m probably thinking of some other front desk girl I like better.”
“Okay, rude,” I laughed, sitting up taller as she brought our coffees over to the table, and that was when the bathroom door popped open and I looked over to where Ryan Bell came out of the bathroom, her hair damp, looking remarkably fresh for just getting out of a disastrous crash-and-burn of a breakup. She wassoimprinting on Brooklyn. Couldn’t be too sad as long as the hot bartender taking her rock-climbing was around, I figured. I did not get all the appeal of Brooklyn.
“Hi, Allison,” she said as she walked into the kitchen dining room with us, a bright smile on her face. “Am I ever glad to not be the only one harassing Brooklyn for food right now.”
I threw my hands up. “Oh my god, not you too. I came here because I forgot my name badge!”
She beamed at my coffee and back at me. “That doesn’t look much like a name badge, now, does it?”
They really were a painfully good match. I rolled my eyes, looking at Brooklyn. “You found someone as bad as you are…”
Ryan joined us at the table, and I guess, honestly, after a minute, I couldn’t fault Brooklyn for wanting to make a move on this girl, too. Not that I was into her—she was Brooklyn’s age, afull seven years older than me—but mostly just that this whole thing was very, very mutual. The two of them went back and forth trading playful comments and teasing, with me and with each other, and it felt like Ryan had been a part of the group since forever.
And damn, were they flirting. Ryan made a comment about how Brooklyn had beenso good to her,and Brooklyn nudged her side like an obnoxious couple, teasing her with a flirtatious littlecompliment me more,and Ryan beamed and said,
“I appreciate somebody who communicates their wants and needs clearly. So for a compliment… this looks delicious.”
Ugh. They might as well have just fucked on the table. I’d have taken my work jacket and given them some space. I should have been bored—I’d been privy to enough of Brooklyn’s flirting with guests to be over it—but I was horrified, disgusted, and appalled to realize that the tight feeling pulling in my gut was that I was, uh… well, I was kinda jealous.
Despite my better judgment,Iwanted to flirt with a cute girl like that. I wanted to have one of the guests hang out at my place and share breakfast and cute little comments and just… ugh. I mean—one of the guestsas in a general sense of like, someone who was around, not like, a specific guest. I hadn’t even been thinking about Stella, not particularly. I mean, I’d only let my mind wander a little bit.
Gavin’s whole thing still bounced around in my head. Maybe itwouldalways be temporary. And maybe there was a big difference between someone who was leaving in a week and somebody who wasn’t, but… maybe in some ways, it wasn’t animportantdifference.
