Page 23 of Green
“Course not.” I never invited a date when Gemma was around. He knew that. “Why?”
“Just asking.”
“Well, I know you’re asking. I’m asking why.”
“Because I’m asking.”
“I am not going to miss having you around. At all.”
“Yeah you are.”
Yeah. I was.
My guests all arrived at the same time—a gay couple who were “YouTube’s Queer Eye For the Tech-Averse Guy,” as well as my coolest former T.A. and her husband. Yeah, so there was zero chance that any of them would hit on Gemma or make her feel uncomfortable by hitting on me—but they also happened to be the people I wanted to hang out with that night.
While chatting with my former T.A. and her husband, I clocked an attractive redhead who was across the room talking to Ethan and Chloe. She glanced over at me. She grinned and looked back to Ethan, ran her fingers through her hair, then glanced back over at me. She seemed interesting enough. I probably would have gone over to talk to her, if circumstances had been different.
I nodded and encouraged my former T.A. to go on with her story, all the while, stealing glances over at Gemma. I always knew where she was, even without looking. But that night I couldn’t seem to stop looking. Neither could the guy she was talking to, apparently. I had seen him make a beeline for her when he walked in. A coworker, I was certain of that. He had the look of a film crew guy. Baseball cap, untucked short sleeve button-down shirt and cargo pants. He was average height and pretty good-looking in an unintimidating sort of way, much like Andrew.Guess that’s her type.
I halfheartedly laughed at whatever my former T.A. had just said because her husband had chuckled enthusiastically. I asked them if I could make them a margarita. They declined, saying they were cutting back on sugar. I then introduced them to Ethan, once the redhead had disappeared, because they had just bought property in Santa Clarita and were looking for an architect. Then I was able to make a graceful exit.
It was definitely time for me to meet this dude who was doing a terrible job of not letting his eyes wander all over Gemma’s body while she talked to him. Meanwhile, her eyes were on me for my entire approach over to where they were standing. I could tell she was trying to telepathically plead with me to stay away, but that just wasn’t going to happen.
“Hey guys, I’m about to make some margaritas, you both look like you could use one.” I turned to face this guy, full-on. He was several inches shorter than me, but I noticed him straighten up when he finally looked up at me. “Hi, I’m Theo. Welcome to our home.”
“Oh hey.” His eyes darted over to Gemma, then back to me. “Hi, thanks. I’m Ben.”
Ben. Of course you are.I shook his hand. “Ben. Good to meet you.”
Gemma was blushing. I couldn’t remember if I’d ever seen her blush before. Was I embarrassing her? Was she embarrassed about Ben?
“Um. Ben and I are working together on this film.”
“Great!”
“Yeah. It is,” she said with a fake smile, widening her eyes as she tried to will me to go away. “We’re both still working on our margaritas too, actually.”
I decided to just stand there and stare at Ben until he felt really uncomfortable.
“Theo,” he said. “Cool. I’ve never met a Theo before—short for Theodore, right?”
“It’s short for Gemma’s husband Theo.”
She almost did a full-on spit-take.
“Wait—what? You’re married?”
Gemma was looking at me like I was out of my mind, and maybe I was.
“It’s—it’s just a dumb joke we have, because we act like we’ve been married for forty years. He calls me Grandma. I call him my old man. It’s not funny.” She glared at me. “At all.”
“Oh.” He looked over to me for confirmation.
I shrugged. “Ya had to be there.”
“No, I get it, I get it. It’s like I call my dog Betsy my wife.”
“Exactly! That’s so cute.”
