Page 58 of The Man Next Door
I stood up straighter. “Why should I? You’re not the boss of me.”
“You’re not… you know… involved with one of them?” he asked. “Are you?”
“What if I was? What would you do about it?”
“I would go beat the crap out of him.”
For some reason, I really liked that answer, and I wanted to reassure him. “Well, if you must know… my chastity is still intact. I’m still a virgin.”
He smiled. “Good.”
I grinned playfully. “I’m saving myself for someone special.”
His smile grew wider. “You should. You make sure you don’t give it away too easily… make sure he loves you. And make sure you use protection. I don’t want to see you knocked up.”
I stared at the ground, mildly embarrassed. “Yes, Dad.”
“I’m sorry. I just worry about you. That Izzie is a bad seed.”
My head jerked up. “She’s not.” How dare he speak badly about Izzie.
But deep inside, I knew he was right.
“Well, I should get back,” he finally said.
“Yeah, me too. I have to go pee.”
He smiled and waved as he turned, and I walked back to the concession stand, all smiles. We were good again. We hadn’t spoken since that awful night, and now the air had finally cleared.
Izzie and I settled back into the SUV and waited anxiously for the start ofThe Others. Under the stars and a full moon, cuddled together underneath thick blankets, it couldn’t have been a better night to watch a scary movie.
* * *
“So you’re back together?”Mischa chirps. “Are you an official couple now?”
I don’t know why but I blush at her words. Are we a couple? I’m crazy about him, but no, we’re not a couple. We’ve been close in the most intimate ways, yet, he still feels like a stranger in many ways.
“Nope… not really. I don’t know what we are,” I confess. “It’s confusing.”
Claudia reaches for her glass of iced tea. “Yeah, tell me about it. Relationships are so confusing. I think I might just become a nun.”
“You would look great in a black habit,” Gretchen chimes in.
“Do nuns even wear those still?” Mischa asks. “When was the last time you’ve all seen a nun?”
“We should go to church more often,” Gretchen points out.
“I don’t think nuns hang out in churches,” Mischa says. “I wonder where they hang.”
“Convents?”
“Uh… ladies, I thought we were talking about Abby and Noah,” Claudia chimes in. “I want the juicy deets.”
I smile. “Oh crap… and here I thought I was going to get away with not talking about him.”
“Oh, girl, you know us better than that,” Claudia says. “We need to knoweverything.”
“Well…” I say, at a loss.Everything. Even I don’t know everything. In fact, it seems like I don’t know much at all. “Well, like I’ve said before, he’s a musician, and he plays a lot for me on the piano.”
