Unzipped Page 14

  Tom: Yes, I’ve learned that.

  As I close the thread and return to work, I let the next few days play out in my head. The way I see them, the real benefit isn’t the tax write-off. It’s more time with Finley. And time gives me the chance to apply my newfound skills. Listening. Paying attention. Asking, when I don’t have a flying fig of an idea what a woman wants.

  But this new toolset doesn’t only work on women.

  Since I never told my brothers what happened that night in college, I should do the opposite now. Be up-front.

  I open a new group message to the three of them and heave a sigh. In some ways, this is even harder than figuring out what women want.

  Me: Hey, dickheads.

  Wait. Scratch that. As much as I enjoy calling them names, and the same could be said for them, that might not be the best way to start a more serious note.

  Me: Hey, guys. There’s something I want to say.

  I squeeze the phone in frustration, since they’re going to think I’m sick or dying with that kind of opening line.

  Delete, delete, delete.

  Me: I’m heading out on a road trip for a few days. I’m going with a woman. She’s not Cassie. Her name is Finley, and I like her a lot. The whole Cassie thing is over, and I’ll tell you sometime, but the details don’t matter now. What matters is I don’t want to make another stupid mistake with this girl. So I might reach out to one of you guys, and if I do, I need you to be honest with me. Okay? I love you, dickheads.

  I hit send. What can I say? I can’t resist calling them names.

  The replies pour in.

  Nash: Dickhead, that’s great! Happy to help with anything. Let me know if you need instructions on putting condoms on correctly.

  Ransom: Hell, yeah! I won’t even let Delia try to mess with you again, Dickhead.

  Gannon: Cassie had horrible taste in music, Dickhead. And yeah, sure. I’ll help. That’s what we do.

  Me: Thanks. And mostly I’m impressed you all capitalized Dickhead.

  Ransom: Well, it is your name.

  On Tuesday morning I shave, pack my bags, and put on a new shirt. I know as much about fashion as I do about how to give a poodle a haircut, but I’m taking my new “assume nothing” approach to heart. I went shopping yesterday on the main drag in Lucky Falls and bought this shirt at Tren-day. After all, the store does have the hippest duds.

  I asked Sandy, the owner, what ladies like, and she picked it out for me.

  It’s not really my style, but if she says the fairer sex digs Tommy Bahamas these days, so be it.

  Then I met Gabe for coffee, and he proceeded to tell me the shirt was weirdly awesome. He seems to have a way with the ladies, so I trust him.

  I arrive at Finley’s home ten minutes early, cut the engine, and listen to a section from a podcast on the evolution of life.

  At one minute till nine, I walk to the front door, smooth a hand over my shirt, adjust my glasses, and tell my crazy nerves to settle the fuck down. I press the doorbell, and I imagine the loud ding-dong heralds the start of a brand-new chance . . .

  This time with Finley. Or so I hope.

  “Coming!”

  Finley’s voice reverberates from within. I’ve never been inside her house, and I kind of want to check it out, to pick up knickknacks and ask her questions, to see what’s on her bookshelf and learn what makes her tick.

  Seconds later, she yanks open the door, tugging it so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t fly off its hinges. Thoughts of bookshelves and bric-a-brac fall from my head as soon as my eyes land on her. She wears shorts, a blue tank top, flip-flops, neon-pink shades parked atop her curly hair, and pale pink lip gloss.

  “Hi,” I say, and the one-syllable word feels different on my tongue. Softer almost, or maybe it’s more hopeful, like how I’d say it if I were picking her up for a date. A three-day date. I want to pump my fist again, congratulating myself on convincing her to spend three days with me. Now all I have to do is convince her—without making it totally obvious until she’s ready—that she’s the one for me.

  I flash her a smile, waiting for her to say hello as well. But for the first time, she’s not speaking. She’s not even blinking. She’s officially gawking.

  At me.

  Or more precisely, at my shirt.

  I grab the palm tree–covered fabric. “It’s new. It’s what all the cool guys wear.”

  She purses her lips, nodding. But she still doesn’t speak.

  “That’s what the lady at the shop said.”

  “What. Shop?” Each word comes out like she’s biting them off a don’t-laugh stick.

  “Tren-day. You introduced me to the owner the other night.”

  She swallows and a laugh bursts through, then she slams her palm to her mouth.

  I sigh. “Okay, so it’s not a cool shirt.”

  She nods.

  “Wait. It is or it isn’t?”

  She reaches forward, places a palm on my shoulder, and says, “Clothes are so dumb. Go naked.”

  That perks my interest. “Is that an option?”

  She taps her chin, as if considering. “Maybe not while driving.”

  “So, maybe I shouldn’t wear this?”

  Finley reaches forward and plays with a button on the shirt. Just like that, my pulse spikes. “You know what? It’s ironic. I like it.”

  “But I didn’t intend for it to be ironic,” I say.

  She rubs her thumb over the button and raises her chin, meeting my eyes. My blood thunders, and what the hell am I going to do for the rest of the trip if I’m this affected by a single look from her? “What did you intend, Tom?”

  For you to like it. For you to like me. For you to look at me like . . . Like you’re looking at me.

  I clear my throat. “I’m good with ironic. Let’s go with the irony.”

  She squeezes my shoulder. “You know what? I’m going to get my Hawaiian shirt too. We can match. It’ll be doubly ironic. Be right back.” She spins around and races to her staircase.

  “You have a Hawaiian shirt too?”

  “It was for Halloween last year. My friend James and I dressed up.”

  “As tourists?” I call up to her.

  She rounds the top step and snaps her gaze back to me. “No, I was Magnum P.I., and he was my red Ferrari.”

  I let that image soak in, sort of turned on, sort of not. “Don’t wear the mustache, please.”

  She laughs as she heads out of sight. “I won’t.”

  But you can ride me like a red Ferrari. Or vice versa. I’ll play the beach-going detective, and you can be the car . . . and yeah, maybe I need another analogy.

  A minute later, she bounces back downstairs, sporting a red Hawaiian shirt and the tiniest shorts I’ve ever seen.

  “Nice duds,” I rasp as I stare at her pelvis and then at her ass as she rounds the corner at the bottom of the staircase.

  She glances at her own rear. “You like my short shorts?”

  “Those are some hot pants.”

  “Let me get my suitcases,” she says, heading toward what looks to be the kitchen.

  “Suitcases? As in plural? Do you need help?”

  “Nah. I’ve been pumping iron.” She returns to the foyer wheeling two suitcases the size of steamer trunks. She could be traveling to Europe for the entire summer. “I’m ready now.”

  I blink, then point. “Finley.”

  “What? You said three days. That’s less than a bag a day.”

  “How many outfit changes are there?”

  “One every two-point-five hours. I thought you would appreciate the precision, being an engineer and all.”

  “I don’t think there’s room in my car.”

  “We could rent a U-Haul?” she offers, her voice rising in hope.

  “Let me see if they’ll fit in the back seat.” I lift one of them. It’s as light as a feather. I smirk. “You were testing me.”

  She wiggles her brow. “You passed. It was adorable that you tru
ly thought I was bringing them, and that you wanted to make it work.”

  Okay, so I just won points I didn’t know I was vying for. I can deal with that.

  She grabs a lone green backpack from behind the door. “Want to see something super cool? Everything fits in here.”

  “You’re the perfect woman.”

  “Why, thank you, Tom Bahama.”

  Rolling my eyes, I groan at the nickname. “And you’re a button-pusher.”

  “And you love button pushing.” She winks and ruffles my hair. “Also, your hair is fine.”

  “I deserved that, and I do love button pushing.”

  “I know,” she says with a smile.

  We leave, her prop suitcases staying behind in her front hallway, her light-as-air backpack on her shoulder, and the most fantastic shorts I’ve ever seen barely covering her ass. Yes, I’m going to have fun on this road trip.

  “After you,” I say, gesturing to the front steps.

  I’m such a gentleman.

  She walks down the stairs, and I fully enjoy the view as she heads to the car.

  An hour later, she’s nearly exhausted playing with all the bells and whistles on the dashboard.

  “Enjoy it while you can. I’m going to swap this out for a rental.”

  “You are?”

  “I figured having to charge it three or four times would be a pain, even though it fills up quickly. I made a reservation for a hybrid though.”

  She pats her chest. “My green heart is happy.” Then she pushes a button that she hasn’t fiddled with yet. It activates voice control for the entertainment input.

  “Hello. What can I play for you?” the robotic voice inquires.

  “Now what if that button had stopped the car?” I ask Finley.

  “But it didn’t stop the car.”

  “But what if it had?”

  “Then the car would have stopped, but it didn’t happen. Where is the button for snacks?”

  “Did you say you wanted snack music?” the robotic voice of the car asks us.

  “What is snack music?” Finley asks incredulously.

  I hit the button to turn off the voice commands. “It’s music you snack to.”

  “Oh, thanks. I couldn’t figure that out.”

  “Fine. Do you want to hear the snack music?”

  She shakes her head. “Nah, I’d rather have the snack rundown.”

  “You’re hungry —” But I cut myself off from saying already since I’m pretty sure commenting on when a woman is hungry is akin to calling her hair fine. So I pivot. “You’re hungry, and I’m at your service with roasted pumpkin seeds, seaweed strips, and tangerines.”

  She smacks my arm.

  “Ouch. Also, why’d you do that?”

  “Because that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” she says, kicking off her flip-flops and tucking her feet under her as we head down 101 toward Marin County.

  “That is the nicest thing?”

  “Because it’s all food I can eat. And it’s all so healthy too. Or pseudo healthy. I like that.”

  The pride I feel is disproportionate to the achievement I just unlocked, but I don’t care. I bask in the satisfaction of her being pleased with the food choices.

  “So you picked out awesome snacks,” she says, counting off on one finger as I head south on the slate-gray ribbon of highway. “You bought a new shirt, and you booked the hotel.”

  “You can just say it. I’m certifiably awesome.” I flash her an over-the-top grin.

  “You are absolutely awesome.”

  “Now, try not to get too excited, but what if I told you I made you a playlist of your favorite tunes?”

  She laughs. “You did not.”

  “I did so.”

  As the road curves, she shoots me a quizzical look. “You don’t even know what music I like. We’ve never even talked about music. Honestly, I don’t even like ‘Unzipped.’” She holds up her hands like she’s apologizing. “Sorry, not sorry.”

  I laugh and decide to serve up some truth. “Confession—I was never crazy about it either.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. It was never my thing.”

  “Did you pretend you were into it for her?”

  I shrug. “Maybe. She liked it, so I did it for her.”

  “Like how she pretended she was into movie quotes for you?”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Do you know if she’ll be there? I really hope this isn’t all for nothing.”

  “I called the yoga studio and checked on her class schedule. The day we’re in San Diego she should be teaching, so I have it all lined up. Told you I’m a good engineer.”

  She smiles briefly then stares out the window, her jaw ticking, and this is when I’d like to ask my brothers if I said the wrong thing again. But the wrong thing would be ignoring her reaction. “I’m not into her now,” I add.

  She snaps her gaze back to me. “That’s kind of a one-eighty.” But she doesn’t sound combative—more like curious, and I can work with curious.

  “Yeah, I can see that it would seem like a big shift.”

  She smiles. “Kind of, considering I found you on my lawn with a boom box, Lloyd Dobler.”

  And I’m fucking lucky that Cassie wasn’t home, I want to say. The trouble is I can’t quite say that to her yet. Finley’s a little bit like a bunny cornered at the bottom of a yard. To reach her, I need to take small, quiet steps. I don’t want to spook her. And even if I get close enough, eventually I have to let her come to me on her own.

  But I can still be honest, and that’s what I need to do—keep practicing change. “I was confused about some of my feelings,” I say, doing my damnedest to just own it. “They were conflated with the past and mixed up with why I thought things ended with her. It wasn’t till I understood the full scope of what happened that I was able to see that the feelings weren’t real. They were tangled up with the last time I thought I really connected with someone.”

  She nods thoughtfully, like she’s digesting this bit of intel. “Sometimes it’s hard to sort through our own emotions. It’s easier to see how others get all tripped up, but we can’t always see it for ourselves till there’s an ‘aha’ moment.”

  “Yes. Meeting you, talking to you, learning things with you. That was an aha moment.”

  She flashes me a sweet smile, and this conversation feels like a step in the right direction.

  “And now . . . poof?” She mimes a magical explosion of abracadabra-ness. “Your feelings for her are ‘now you see it, now you don’t’?”

  “Exactly. And I know it seems hard to believe that everything could shift —”

  She laughs. “Just a teeny tiny bit, Lover Boy.”

  “But it’s true. It’s as true as . . .” I stop talking to search for the right words. “As true as how you feel about being the class clown, eating olives for every meal if you could, and how dates should end.”

  She laughs. “Fine, fine. You’ve made your case. I believe you. Tell me more about the playlist.”

  And we’re done for now. Or at least she is.

  Convincing her will take more than making my case once. I’ll have to prove myself to her. Show her I know her. But that I can also listen to her by doing what she asks—talking about something else. “I’m going to play it for you. But tell me what type of music you like.”

  She looks at me, confused. “But you already made the playlist.”

  “Humor me.”

  She narrows her brow, then shrugs. “I don’t listen to music that often. I feel sort of terrible saying that. Like it means I’m missing a basic part of being human.”

  “Why would you feel that way?”

  “Because music is like sunshine. How do you dislike it? And it’s not that I dislike music. It’s that I love the sound of two other things more.”

  “What things?” I ask, eager to know more about her.

  “Silence. I need silence when I write.”

&n
bsp; “Total silence?”

  “For the most part. I don’t know how people write with songs blasting in their ears. More power to them, but I need a blank slate aurally.”

  “And what’s the other?”

  “Talk. I like to listen to people talking more than I like listening to songs. Memoirs and old-time talk radio and plays and comedy albums and whatnot. What do you listen to? I bet you love rock and indie pop.”

  “I like music, but . . .” I feel a little like I have an ace up my sleeve. But now’s not the time to show her my hand. “I like to listen to podcasts more.”

  “What kind?”

  “I like to learn new things. I listened to one recently on the science of food, and then another on the evolution of life. For instance, did you know sex was invented two billion years ago?”

  “There was no nookie two-point-one billion years ago?”

  “Sadly, no. Before then, new organisms could only come to be through random mutations. When reproductive sex was invented, that sped up evolution because two organisms could then exchange their DNA code.”

  She makes a sexy sigh and runs her hand down her bare thigh. “You make it all sound so sexy.”

  “Would it be sexier if I told you I also learned that organisms that like to get it on have more success with natural selection?”

  She gives me a pouty, dirty look. “Oh yeah. Now that’s getting risqué.”

  “What about if I said humans today like giving each other the DNA business?”

  She murmurs. “Mmm. Give me your DNA, baby.” She wriggles an eyebrow. “Sexy?”

  She has no idea how much I want to give her the DNA. I mean, I don’t want to mix chromosomes with her. Not now. But I do want to engage in the act of DNA trading though. Very much. “Genetic code is so hot,” I say.

  “Hey, now you’re doing sex talk again.”

  “I never said sex talk was forbidden.”

  “Nor did I. I only said no sex talk on a first date.”