Page 57 of Green
“I know,I know, just let me get through this. When things ended with Andrew, I felt so vulnerable with you that it felt necessary to get over you. So I tried to. I almost did. I really wanted to.”
“So…if you aren’t over me then why is it so important that you get away from me?”
She finally looked up at me. “I said I’malmostover you.” She pulled a face and attempted an adorable, terrible Al PacinoGodfather 3impression: “Just when I thought I was out, you pull me back in!”
I don’t know how I managed to keep from grabbing her and kissing her, but I managed. Years of practice.
She reached out to hold one of my hands and played with my fingers. “I have thought about this. A lot. Believe me. You are my best friend. But I don’t know this other side of you. And I don’t want to live with you again until I know if I want to live with you like this. In a new way. Until we both know for sure that it’s what we both want. I can’t just flip a switch. Or maybe I’m afraid to. Andrew and I just fell into a relationship because it was the easiest thing to do. We grew up together and it was what people expected. I don’t want to make that kind of mistake with you. You always said you’d help me out, whenever I need something. So if you really want me.” She took in a deep breath and pushed it out before continuing. “As more than a friend. I’m going to need you to figure out a way to make this work. I love you and I don’t ever want to lose you, but I’m not one of your fangirls. I need you to woo me. You’re going to have to work for it.”
Wow.The friend side of me wanted to high-five her for that little speech. The would-be lover side of me was used to defending myself against that kind of demand from a girl that I was pursuing. She bit her lower lip and looked up at me through her eyelashes, and she was getting no argument from me.
“Okay.”
“Really?”
It took her by surprise when I pulled her in towards me and rested my hands on her waist.
“I mean. I don’twantyou to move out. Let’s clarify some things. Are you saying that you don’t want us to be friends while we try to date?”
She placed her trembling hands on my chest, pressing her forehead against them. “I don’t know how else to do it.”
I touched her chin and tilted it upwards so we could look into each other’s eyes. “So we’re going to pretend that we aren’t friends and we’re going to pretend that we aren’t legally married so that you can mentally and emotionally handle dating me.”
“Well it sounds weird when you say it like that but it makes sense to me. When I’m totally redecorating a room I have to strip it as bare as possible so I can see it in a new way and get a fresh take on it.”
It made me happy that we had the same sort of approach to rebooting our relationship, but I couldn’t refrain from grinning at that. “So stripping bare is on the table.”
I nearly lost my balance when she held my gaze and grinned back. “Like I said. You’ll have to work for it.”
Game on.I lowered my lips to her ear and whispered: “I just hope you can handle how long and hard I work.”
“And I hope you can handle how hard I’m going to make you.” She covered her mouth and pushed herself away from me. “Work.How hard I’m going to make you work is what I meant! I have to get out of here.”
I stayed where I was, trying to process everything.
She ran back to her room and came out again carrying her laptop, suitcase and handbag. “Text me when you’ve left the house so I can come back and get more stuff, okay? I haven’t watered the plants, so you need to remember to water them on Sunday and I made sugar water for the hummingbird feeder--it’s labeled in the fridge and you have to remember to change the nectar every three days and rinse out the feeder. Plus add birdseed to the feeders in front and back if they ever get low.”
“Done. Hey, hold on.”
“I can’t talk to you anymore.”
“Then just listen to me. I want to say one thing.”
She paused, still facing the front door, away from me. I went over to her.
“Can I say goodbye to my best friend before you take her away from me?”
Her shoulders slumped. She sighed. “I’m not taking her away forever.” She slowly turned to face me.
I wrapped my arms around her and gave her a big long friend-hug. She relaxed into it. Eventually.
“Get ready, because I’m gonna woo you like you’ve never been wooed before.”
“Well I’ve never really been wooed before. So you’ve already got a running start.”
“I think we both know I don’t need that.”
She pulled back, clearing her throat.
“I’ll call you.” My eyes took a long slow stroll from her confused face down to her shifty feet. I liked everything I saw and it felt good to really look at her, for a change, but I wanted to see so much more. Now that I had the green light to officially think of hernot-just-as-a-friend, my brain was flooded with absolutely filthy thoughts and images. “Yeah, you’d better go before I start working hard on you right here and now,” I growled.
She was out the door before the words “hard on” had escaped my lips, which was probably a good thing.
I couldn’t believe she told me she was in love with me. How did I not see that? How could she have been so good at hiding it? Or did I just have my head up my ass this whole time? Wasthatwhy she was always so mad at me?
She needed to be seduced, and I’m the guy who’ll give her whatever she needs, no problem. But the wooing? It felt new to me. She was right, I was spoiled, but I could still remember the last time I had to work for it to try to get a girl to go out with me. It was the tenth grade. I spent a week psyching myself up to approach Serena Birdsong at her locker and ask her to go to a movie with me. I’d sent her a Candy Gram, let her cheat off of me in Algebra, and did her physics homework once. She was a total film nerd so I thought for sure she would say ‘yes.’ She did not. She didn’t even bother to say why. I was crushed. I was humiliated. But that was when I started running. I started running to silence the sound of her saying“Nope. I don’t.”in my head. I kept running because I started picturing some faceless wonderful girl running ahead of me, and I just wanted to catch up to her.
Now that this girl was a woman with a face, she was still somehow out of reach. But I would pace myself. I’m a marathon runner. I knew I’d get there.
