Complicated Girl (Baker Street Romance #2)(21)
Author: Mimi Strong

She takes a long drink from her takeout coffee.

“You did more than kiss,” she says.

“My clothes didn’t come off, but there was some heavy breathing.”

“You guys seem to have a lot of chemistry. He really likes you, Meenie.”

I roll my eyes. “No, he doesn’t. He’s looking for a rebound lay, or some sort of cure-by-magical-p-word.”

She winces at my near-mention of the word pu**y.

We keep sorting the remainder of the laundry. To my surprise, even though I’ve been talking about a guy, she doesn’t pull her disappearing act. Tina mentioned Rory was doing a little better lately, but I didn’t believe it until now.

“What do you mean by cure-by-magical-p-word?” she asks.

“The whole Manic Pixie Dream Girl thing. Where the guy meets a girl, and she’s wild and crazy, but she’s actually just what he needs. Like an antidepressants prescription, only the kind he wants to take, because he can put his dick in her.”

Rory shudders visibly, and I apologize for saying the D-word.

Slowly, carefully, she asks me, “Did he put his D-word in you?”

“No, he did not. But I sat on his lap and rubbed up against it for a bit.”

“Why?”

I shrug. “Because it feels good.”

“Does it?”

“Yes. Rory, it feels really good. When the guy is cute, even holding hands feels good. What else do you want to know?”

She keeps sorting the laundry. She’s not talking, but her face keeps moving, like she’s having a conversation with herself.

I remember my promise to behave, so I won’t push her to share when she’s not ready. It’s tempting, because I’d much rather focus on Rory’s problems than think about mine.

The timer for the cookies goes off, so I run back to the kitchen and pull the trays out.

For the next few hours, we do laundry, talk about safe topics like food, and eat cookies.

As we’re folding up the last load, she says, “I watched some g*y  p**n .”

My jaw practically hits the floor.

“The  p**n  with two guys,” she says. “And then three guys.”

“Good for you,” I say with the measured cheerfulness of a Kindergarten teacher complimenting the world’s ugliest finger painting.

“It was interesting,” she says.

“Lots of women watch g*y  p**n . It doesn’t mean you’re g*y, Rory.”

“I know that,” she snaps back.

“Sorry.”

We fold laundry in silence, then she says, “I saw Howard.”

“My ex? Was he in the g*y  p**n o you watched?” I snort. “That would explain a lot.”

“No, I saw him at work. We’re catering his engagement dinner.”

She bites her lip, like she’s on the verge of telling me something.

I prompt her with, “And?”

“Howard’s a nice guy, Meenie. He told me some of the things you said to him when you were breaking up. They were pretty bad. And I just wanted to hear your side of the story.”

Rory flicks her amber eyes up to meet mine, and I feel like a wild animal trapped in a corner. There’s an intensely smelly wave of judgement coming off her.

“If you must know, I was terrible to Howard. There’s no excuse for what I said to him. I’m a toxic person, Rory, don’t you know that? You shouldn’t have told me about the g*y  p**n  stuff, because I’ll probably bring it up in front of other people. I’m just an awful, horrible, toxic waste dump of a person.”

“But why?” She looks genuinely curious, which only irritates me more. “You grew up with a nice family. Not like mine.”

“Rory, shut up about how bad you had it. Maybe some of us are just born screwed up. Have you ever thought about that? You blame your family for how you are, but maybe you just came out that way, already wired to be screwed up. Everybody feels sorry for you, and bends over backward to accommodate your little quirks, but nobody feels shit for me.” I’ve stopped folding, and my hands are just waving around the air with no purpose. “I’ve got nothing. Nobody cares about me except for my self-help group, and now even that’s ruined because of Drew. So, thanks a lot for bringing up Howard and making me feel bad about things from the past, because I wasn’t feeling bad enough already. Thanks a lot.”

She finishes stuffing her clothes into her bag and slings it over her shoulder.

“Good talk,” she says, and she leaves the laundry room as fast as she can.

I should chase after her and apologize, but I don’t.

After a moment, I pick up the pliers from the folding table and chuck them against the wall as hard as I can.

My day has gone from bad to worse. Just like my whole life.

Chapter 17

I’m still a wreck on Tuesday, and I seriously consider skipping the self-help group.

At ten minutes to eight, I’m still pouting in the bath tub. Muffin is sitting at the edge lapping up the warm bath water.

“You’re the reason I can’t have soapy bubble baths,” I tell him.

He gives me an innocent look and keeps drinking. Then he sits up, licks his paw, and gives me a look, as if to say, Meenie, get your weirdly pink, non-furry body out of this tub and go to your Tuesday group. The nights you feel too depressed to go are exactly the nights you should be there. Why don’t you have any fur? Here, I will lick your shoulder, because you are weird and pink like a kitten. I love you. I love you and I want you to stop moping around here, crying in the tub like a weird furless kitten.

“You’re right,” I tell him.

He blinks slowly. I’m always right.

I pull out the drain plug and climb out.

He trots ahead of me. Oh, you’re going out? If you’re going to be late, you should leave out some extra food, in case I get peckish.

I sneak into the group session as quietly as I can, considering how squeaky the door is. The gang is all here. There must be sixteen people, a couple of them new. Drew is here, and he barely flicks his gorgeous brown eyes up at me.

I appreciate his discretion, and cross my fingers that when it’s his turn to share, he doesn’t talk about being dry humped by a psychotic after-hours dental patient.

Feather keeps talking, reading from a book about boundaries that she’s recommending to the whole group. It sounds a little touchy feely to me, but Drew asks her to show him the cover, so maybe the book’s worth looking into.

I have mixed feelings about self-help books. My mother’s got an old dog-eared copy of The Rules. That’s a book by two trainwreck ladies with a bunch of divorces, all about tricking guys into not thinking of you as an actual person, but as a prize to be won.