Capture (Elements of Chemistry #3)(33)
Author: Penny Reid

With that statement she meandered out of my room.

My eyes drifted back to the magazine on my bed; a heavily photoshopped and airbrushed model graced the cover—more a manufactured pixilation than an actual person. I twisted my lips in distaste at her unrealistically long legs and the unnatural curve of her waist and boobs.

Basically, magazines wanted Jessica Rabbit—the animated character—not real women. Heck, even supermodels weren’t good enough anymore. Real women didn’t sell magazines. Unrealistic and unhealthy images of female beauty sold magazines. And in this men were not to blame, because the female readership dictated and perpetuated the cycle of dysfunction, not men. Women.

In many ways, women were the enemy of realistic representations of beauty. We sabotaged our own self-interests…and that was sad. I sighed at the model and flipped open the magazine, scanning the contents, noticing with no interest that there was an interview with America’s Next Top Model’s latest winner.

And then I remembered.

I remembered I’d been derelict in reading Martin’s Men’s Health interview from over the summer. Now that his relationship status with Rose Patterson had been clarified for me, I felt no trepidation at the thought of being faced with images of them together.

Sucking in an anxious breath, I jumped from my bed, and in my haste to scramble for my computer, tripped over a chair. It took a bit of browsing through smiling pictures of Rose, but I finally managed to locate the magazine article.

It had been given a month before his birthday and published the month after. His wasn’t the feature story. In fact, the interview was rather short and toward the back of the magazine. There were several pictures of him—shirtless of course, and in spandex of course—looking pensive and muscular, staring out over the water with a blue sky behind him.

The first half was about him being the youngest team captain in the American Collegiate Rowing Association. But, as Sam had warned, the second half was about me.

Interviewer: We have to ask you about your love life now, as a service to all our female readers. Any special girl in the picture?

Martin: No. Not anymore.

Interviewer: Not anymore?

Martin: Nope.

Interviewer: Care to elaborate?

Martin: Nope.

Interviewer: You were at one time romantically linked with Kaitlyn Parker, Senator Joss Parker’s daughter. Any credibility to that rumor?

Martin: Yes.

Interviewer: But you two split up?

Martin: Yes.

Interviewer: Did it have anything to do with Senator Parker’s politics?

Martin: No. It had to do with me being an a__hole.

Interviewer: Whoa! Should we take this to mean Kaitlyn Parker is The One That Got Away?

Martin: If you want, but I prefer to think of her as simply The One.

Interviewer: Okay then. You should know you’ve just broken a lot of hearts with that statement, but let’s move on. So what’s next for Martin Sandeke?

The first time I read it I didn’t absorb half of what it said. The second through hundredth time, I paused at the part where Martin said, If you want, but I prefer to think of her as simply The One, and my chest constricted.

If I thought I’d been obsessing about Martin before, then I hadn’t known the true meaning of the word. I tried to remember every look, every conversation we’d had over the last few weeks. Basically, I chased my tail in a racetrack of circular logic, ala:

If I was The One, as Martin had said, then why didn’t he try to contact me before December?

Because you told him to leave you alone, that’s why. So he left you alone.

But now he’s, what? He’s over me? He wants to be friends? Then that means I was never The One.

That’s right. You’re not The One.

Then why did he say that in the interview?

Maybe you were The One over the summer but he changed his mind, or maybe you are The One, but he’s waiting for you to give him a sign.

A sign? Like what? Ye Martin of Old would have just told me how he feels! What am I supposed to do?

I don’t know! Ask him!! I HAVE NO ANSWERS FOR YOU BECAUSE I AM YOU!!

Stop yelling at me…

Going to sleep that night I was still epically muddled.

However, I was also experiencing a growing sense of responsibility for the current state of my relationship (or non-relationship) with Martin.

***

January second rolled around, and I was very happy to be back at the Bluesy Bean making coffee and going through the motions, though—admittedly—still obsessing about Martin Sandeke. But instead of obsessing about what ifs, I’d moved on to obsessing about my plan to confront him.

I was going to do it.

I was going to arrange to meet him in a neutral spot and point blank ask him about the interview and the text message on New Year’s. I was going to put on my bad-ass-girl trucker hat and “adult” like an adult.

That’s why, when Martin Sandeke walked into The Bluesy Bean that afternoon, an immobilizing shock coursed through my body and I dropped the glass measuring cup I was holding. It shattered on the floor, making a really obnoxious crash.

Chelsea sucked in a sharp breath and jumped back from my inadvertent mess, possibly because she was wearing brand new, soft-soled leather slip-ons and didn’t want shards of glass near her feet.

“You startled me!” She pressed her hand to her chest, fluttering her eyelashes like she might faint.

The male customer who was at the counter (and with whom she’d been flirting for the last ten minutes) gave me a harsh glower and reached forward, gripping her upper arm.

“Are you all right? Do you need to sit down?”

“Yes. Yes, I think so.” She nodded and gave him a grateful smile.

She turned to face me so she could sit on the counter. Just before she swung her legs over, Chelsea gave me a conspiratorial wink, then turned into the waiting arms of the man. He was a Brad Pitt. Or, at least that’s the label she’d given him when he’d walked in.

Luckily the place was empty except for Chelsea, the Brad Pitt, Martin, and me.

Martin didn’t walk to the counter. He took a beeline to where I was standing behind the machines, his eyes moving over me as though searching for injury.

“Are you okay?”

I nodded, releasing a weary laugh. “Yes. Just…clumsy.”

He gave me a half smile. “Let me help you clean this up.”

“It’s okay, I can get it.”

But he was already walking into the back closet and returned quickly with a broom. “I’ll clean, you make me an Americano.”

“Martin—”

“Don’t argue with me, just once. Just once, please.”

I pressed my lips together, showing him I was displeased.

He mimicked my expression, but it looked ridiculous on him. Then he made the strangest face. His eyes crossed and he bared his front teeth as though he were a rabbit.

I blinked at him. “What are you doing?”

“Making a funny face in an effort to make you stop staring at me like I murdered your beloved goldfish. What are you doing?”

Of course, this made me laugh.

The problem was, I couldn’t stop laughing once I started. It was absurd that he was reminding me of our time on the island, using my own lines and strategy against me so he could clean the floor. But it worked. It distracted me from the mess and it also distracted me from my Martin Sandeke obsession. It felt good to laugh, a necessary release. I had to hold on to the counter because I was laughing so hard. Basically, I had laugh-paralysis.

He chuckled and squinted his eyes at my inability to control the hysterics, but took advantage of my arrested state to sweep the glass and deposit it in the trash.

As soon as I could breathe again, yet still wiping tears, I turned from him and grabbed a paper cup to make his Americano. I figured I couldn’t be trusted with anything breakable at this point.

When he finished, he replaced the broom and dustpan then moved back to the other side of the machines, waiting for me to finish.

“Feel better?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Can you take a break?”

My gaze flickered to his then around the shop. No one new had entered.

“Yes.” I sighed and paired it with a nod. “But just until we get a customer.”

“Good. I’ll be over there.” He indicated with his head to the table we’d used the last time he was here, then added, “And grab some cookies.”

***

I brought enough cookies to share plus a muffin with butter, his coffee, and a cup of strong coffee for me. Really, I needed hard liquor, because I was going to do it. I was going to confront Martin Sandeke. I was going to demand answers.

However, no sooner had I sat down, he asked, “Now that we’re friends, can I ask you for advice?”

I sputtered for a moment, then finally managed, “You want to ask me for advice?”

“Yes.”

“Uh…sure. If I don’t know the answer I’ll look it up on consumer reports.”

“Consumer reports?”

“I have an online account. I bought a mattress based on their recommendation, sight unseen until the delivery day, and it was the best decision of my entire life.”

“Really?” He was smiling, his eyes shimmering at me with happy amusement, and he wasn’t even trying to hide it. “The best of your entire life?”