Page 17 of Tap Left
The answers are never straightforward in any group.But this one is the worst.They skirt around every topic. They hem and haw and look at each other before deciding if they want to answer.They are too afraid of being honest and open, and this isn’t working at all.
I kindly tell them to leave and resort to something I never, ever do in business.
Trial and error.
I send Lola gifts to test which one she’ll cave to.A giant teddy bear. A first edition of Prince Caspian. Her favorite pizza from Giordano’s. Shoes. Dresses. Jewelry.She sends them all back, except the pizza.
Lola never turns down pizza.The five bouquets of Twizzlers she accepts too. I consider it a victory. When I ask her via text how she feels about Paris in the fall- because I know she’s always wanted to go- she finally responds.
In person.At my office.
But this isn’t Lola.The pink in her hair is gone, and she’s wearing a fitted black dress. It’s as sleek as a Jaguar on her winding curves, and I never knew she could walk in heels.
She crosses her arms and meets my gaze dead on. “What are you doing, Daire?”
“What are you doing?” I gesture to the atrocity standing before me. I can’t believe she left the house like this. Alone. “What is this?”
“I told you I wasn’t giving up,” she answers.“I took your advice to heart. Well, at least the parts that were useful.”
She’s telling me I did this?
I shake my head. No way. No fucking way would I ever turn her into a Cosmo girl. Ryan would hate this.
“You look like a secretary,” I remark. And I don’t like it.I don’t fucking like it at all.
This isn’t Lola. This demure creature standing here with her heels crossed and her hair done up so neatly. She’s a free spirit. She’s wild and messy and too loud sometimes and too soft at others. She’s chaotic and showy and nothing like this imposter.
And if I’ve done this to her, I really am a dickhead.
“Well, I guess that’s an improvement at least,” she laughs awkwardly. “Maybe now I’ll actually meet a CEO like you said.”
“Why not reach for the stars.” My voice is too caustic, and Lola turns her eyes to the floor.
“I was joking,” she mumbles. “I’m not looking for status.”
“How is the battle going?” I ask because I want her to tell me it’s not going to work. I want her to say she’s giving up.And then something inside of my brain whispers that I want to hear her beg me to fuck the ever-loving shit out of her until my dick gives out.
It’s my hedonistic side coming out to play again. The one I’ve kept locked down for so long. These are thoughts I can never entertain. Lola is off limits. I repeat it three times to myself to drill it into my goddamn head. But it doesn’t make the thoughts go away. I don’t know how to make them stop. The bastard in me wants to hear her say that she’s mine.
What she says instead is, “I’ve been on a few dates.”
And now I want to murder every one of those fuckers.
“And?”
Her face is stoic for all of two seconds before I notice a fissure in her armor. “And you have to kiss a few frogs before you can get the prince, right?”
“You don’t have to kiss anyone, actually.”I sound like a sullen child, but Lola mistakes it for a brotherly sort of comment because… fuck me.
“Things have changed so much,” she sighs as she sits down and kicks off her heels. “Where have all the good guys gone?”
I want to tell her there’s one right in front of her. But that would be a lie.There’s a burning curiosity inside of me to know every mundane detail of her newly acquired dating life. “First of all, tell me which apps you’re using.”
She looks at me, skeptical. Suspicious. Beautiful.
“We’ve done the market research for a few of them,” I add. “Just trying to see if I can help. Scout’s honor.”
Lies. Lies. More lies.
