Page 28 of We Were Something
When Lennon just tilts her head to the side in confusion, I continue.
“The moth? The sailors? Theydie, Lennon. They’re being lured to their deaths.”
At that, Lennon bursts into laughter.
“Okay,nowwho is being ridiculous?”
“Me! Because he’s made it clear he’s not interested, so…” I throw my hands out in front of me in aSo theregesture. “It’s all just…completely ridiculous.”
Lennon’s teasing voice falls away along with the expression on her face. “Explain.”
So I do.
I tell her about what happened when I brought him his new shoes, how he was kind of hot and cold before practically running down the hall to get away from me.
“And even back at the gala, there was this…hesitance I remember seeing in him,” I tell her. “I don’t think he’s interested.”
Lennon sits quietly next to me for a moment, and I can feel the wheels in her head turning over the information I’ve given her.
“You know he just got divorced, right?” she finally says, and my head whips to the side, looking at her in surprise.
“What?” I ask. “Why didn’t you tell me thatbefore, when I was blabbering on about him after we saw him at the hospital?”
She shrugs. “I just…thought you knew.”
“Okay, Gossip Machine, time to do your duty as my best friend and spill all the beans. Every last one,” I say.
Lennon has always been on the inside of town gossip, since back when we were kids, and at one point it earned her the reputation of being the Hermosa Beach Gossip Machine. It’s a nickname she has always hated, regardless of the fact that it’s a little bit accurate.
She sighs. “I don’t know a lot, okay? Just that he was married to someone he met in college and they got divorced earlier this year. They were married for like, fifteen years or something.”
My eyebrows practically fly off my face and my mouth drops open in shock. Not only because I’m surprised, but also because I just can’t imagine someone as young as he is having beenmarriedfor that long. It’s just…wow.
“So you need to think about your interactions from the perspective of a man who just got out of a long-ass relationship. Ofcoursehe’s gonna be kind of cagey when you’re being your super-aggressive sexual self with him.”
“Super aggressive?” I repeat. “That’s kind of intense, don’t you think?”
She shrugs. “Is it?”
“I’mnotsexually aggressive.”
We stare at each other for a long second before we both burst into laughter.
“You sounded so convincing,” she tells me, pulling down her visor and examining her face in the mirror.
“Well, the word aggressive feels like a bit much. Maybe…sexuallyassertive,” I suggest.
Lennon tugs a tube of lipstick from her purse and begins applying a new layer.
“Sure, assertive. Regardless, that can still be intimidating for someone who has only been with one woman for the past fifteen years or so, right? Longer if you include the fact that they probably dated for a while before they got hitched.”
I think back to the way he described himself as we sat outside the hospital.
Ruffled.
And I took it as a compliment.
Maybe I should have seen it as something else instead?
