Page 49 of Mixed Signals
“We’re … dating.”
Charlie narrows his eyes at me. “You don’t sound convinced.”
I fidget in my seat. I guess I’m not. Especially after what happened the other day. Or, didn’t happen. I don’t know. “We are practice dating. For a month. There’s an expiration date.”
There has to be. I’ve only been on two dates with Layla, both of which ended in physical disaster, and I can still feel myself slipping. I like seeing her smile. I like hearing her laugh. I like holding her hand and ducking my chin against the top of her head. I like her dry humor and the way she calls me on my bullshit, every single time. I like getting to know the different parts of her. I likeher.
One month. It’ll be enough.
It has to be.
“Whose idea was that?”
“Mine.” Maybe. “It makes sense like this.”
“I hate to break this to you, my friend. This doesn’t make any sense at all. But whatever helps you sleep at night.”
“He didn’t kiss her,” my grandmother offers from the stove. “When she wanted to be kissed.”
Charlie leans back in his seat with a heavy, disappointed exhale. “Dude.” His eyes are like saucers. “You gotta kiss her when she wants to be kissed.”
I busy myself with my silverware, staring hard at the tabletop. “I don’t know if she wanted to be kissed.”
Charlie and my grandmother make the same dismissive sound. My grandmother tacks on a few colorful curse words at the end of hers.
“You know,” Charlie insists. “Think about it. Was she giving you the signs?”
Her hands clenched in the back of my shirt. Her nose against mine. That little sound she made, right in the back of her throat when I found her apron string and pulled.
“See?” Charlie points his fork at me again. “She wanted to be kissed.”
I’m still thinkingabout it as I walk up her driveway two hours later, some lavender clutched in my left hand. I’m thinking about it when I knock and I’m thinking about it when I hear faint steps down the hallway behind her front door.
Layla opens the door and smiles at me. She’s wearing a short white sundress that makes her skin look golden and also makes me want to drop to my knees, curl my fingers around the hem, and drag it up around her belly button.
I swallow.
“This is for you.”
She makes no move to grab the lavender, her smile flickering at the edges. “Is everything okay?”
I nod. And then I shake my head. She swings her door open a little more and beckons me in.
“Come on. We don’t have to leave right away.”
I step into her hallway and stop. Layla’s house is perfectly, wonderfully her. There’s color everywhere, from the pale pink rug across the worn hardwood floors to the deep, navy blue couch pressed up against the wall, covered with pillows of all shapes and sizes. There’s at least fifty throw blankets of various colors and textures in a basket by her bookshelf, plants and books and picture frames competing for space.
I pick up a picture in a gilded golden frame, the metal shaped like vines twisted around the photo inside. Layla and three women that look just like her. The same hair and eyes and smile, but still Layla stands out from the rest. Her smile is a little bit more wild, a little bit more free.
“Your sisters?”
Layla nods. “When we were all together for my dad’s birthday.”
“You don’t talk about them much.”
She shrugs and picks up a blanket spread out across the ottoman and folds it into a neat square. “We’re not as close as I’d like. When I went away to college, they stayed close to my parents.” She tucks her hair behind her ears in a tic I’ve come to realize means she’s uncomfortable. I frown. She shrugs and gives me a small smile. “We don’t all have a horde of cousins willing to wear Hawaiian shirts for us.”
I set the frame back down. “They haven’t visited you here?”
