Fighting Perfection (The Perfection Series Book 2) (24 page)

     I gave him a winning grin.  “I have to admit, the idea appeals to me more and more each day.”

     He looked like the cat that ate the canary with that statement.  “I’ll get you yet, Kitten.”

     I laughed.  “Always so sure of yourself.”  He nodded slowly as I continued, “And for the last time, don’t call me Kitten.”

     “I hope it’s the last time because I’m not going to stop,” he said as the waiter delivered our meals.   I tore off the end of the wrapper for the straw for my iced tea and blew it at him.  It fell short of hitting him, but he picked it up, wadding it into a tiny little ball before throwing it back at me.  Of course, he hit my shoulder with it.  We picked up our forks and began to eat, the conversation closed for the time being.

     James left my house around three o’clock.  He had wanted to stay a little longer, but I worried about him being on the road so late.  We’d gotten a fair amount of sleep after staying up so late, but he seemed to always burn the candle at both ends.  I didn’t delude myself into thinking he’d go straight to bed when he got home, but I hoped he got enough rest for the following day.

     After he was gone, I picked up my phone to call Justin.  I wanted to make sure that we were still on for our dinner plans.  Delia’s visit was unexpected and made me concerned that she might interfere with our plans again.  I could only assume she was the “personal issue” that caused him to cancel on me.

     I reached his voicemail so I just left a message asking him to call me to confirm we were still going out.  I also mentioned that I hoped his issues had been resolved to his satisfaction.  I didn’t want to mention that Delia had come by until we were face-to-face.

     Justin never called back, but I got ready anyway.  I was still waiting for him to arrive at quarter after seven, but I wasn’t too concerned.  He knew I always ran late, and while he normally just sat there watching some sports program on TV while he waited for me to finish getting ready, perhaps this time, he had given himself some extra time.

     My doorbell finally rang at seven-thirty.  I opened the door to find him standing there in jeans and a sweatshirt while I had assumed we’d be going for a nice dinner and was dressed in my favorite pink sundress and heels.  I let him in and looked between the two of us.

     “I guess I’d better change.  It seems I incorrectly assumed the type of place we’d be going to.”

     “No, no Peaches,” he began.  I noticed he looked very tired and had some kind of welt or scratch along the side of his jaw.  “I had wanted to go somewhere nice as well, but I had such a bad day today.  I almost didn’t make it here.”

     I led him into the living room, and we took a seat on the sofa.  He relaxed against the back of it and let his head drop forward.

     “I left you a message earlier today asking you to let me know if you needed to cancel.  If your issues are not worked out, we can do this another time.”

     “I’m sorry, my phone has been off all day.  I didn’t hear your message.  I am fine.  I really wanted to see you tonight anyway.  It’s been too long since we’ve spent any real amount of time together.”

     We decided that due to his evident exhaustion that I’d get changed, and we’d just order in some food.  Reserving pizza for Wednesday and neither of us in the mood for Chinese or Indian, our delivery options were limited.  In the end, I placed an order for take-out from a nearby American restaurant that served specialty burgers.  I intended to go pick them up myself, giving him the chance to rest and de-stress, but he insisted on coming with me.

     As I was driving to the restaurant, I looked over at him in the passenger’s seat.   He had his arm resting on the door of the car with the window open and was staring off at the city scenery as we went by.  He looked lost in thought.  Unable to stay quiet any longer, I interrupted his reverie.

     I cleared my throat.  “Delia came by this afternoon.  She seemed pretty upset.”

     His head whipped toward me and he asked urgently, “What did she do?”

     “She didn’t do anything other than cry and talk about you.”

     “Mimi, I…”

     “Don’t worry, Justin.  She told me all about you two at school the other day.  She seems taken with you.  From what she said, however, I take it she was the issue you were dealing with this morning.”

     He nodded solemnly then dragged his hand over his face.  “I don’t know what to say, Mimi.”

    “What is there to say?  You decided to go in another direction.  I don’t know why you didn’t talk to me first, but it is what it is.”

     “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Peaches. I just…I don’t know.  You have kept me at arm’s length and at lunch she was practically throwing herself at me.  At first, I just wanted to see if I could get a reaction out of you.  It got out of hand.  I am not going in another direction though.  I still feel the same way about us.  I know that you are the one that I want.  Delia was nothing more than some company.”

     I nodded.  “I understand.  It’s alright.”

     “No, it’s not.  I love you, Mimi.  I don’t want anything else to come between us.  Unfortunately now, she seems a little fixated on me, and I have to deal with her before I can make things right between us again.”

     “Justin, I made it clear all along that I couldn’t be exclusive with anyone.  I didn’t expect you to stop having a life just because you told me you wanted to be with me.  How could I?  That would hardly be fair to you.  I’ll admit it confuses me that you would choose one of my so-called friends, but it hardly matters anymore.”

     “Don’t talk that way.  It’s not like that,” he said as we pulled into the restaurant parking lot, shelving the rest of our conversation for the next few minutes.  I ordered an avocado burger with Swiss cheese and a side of fries, while Justin went all out with an order for a double chili burger and his usual side of onion rings.  We took the food back home where Justin proceeded to wolf his down with alarming speed.  I just looked at him dumbfounded.

     “Sorry,” he said, looking sheepish.  “I just haven’t eaten anything all day, and I’m starving.”

     “It’s all right.  Big man, big appetite,” I said, grinning.  “You probably should have gotten two.”

     “I was just thinking the same thing.  Listen, I don’t know how to fix this yet.  I’d like to think that I made myself clear to Delia this morning, but she’s been calling me nonstop.  That’s why I turned my phone off.”

     “What exactly happened, Justin?”  I asked, unable to contain my curiosity any longer.

     “We’ve seen each other a few times since Tuesday.  Like I said, she came on strong.  She’s a beautiful girl, and I haven’t done a lot of dating over the last couple years because my mind has been on someone else.”  He gave me a pointed look.  “But I decided while I waited for you to get to a point where you felt more comfortable moving forward, or at the very least make up your mind between James and I, there was no reason I shouldn’t enjoy her company.”

     “But she is one of my friends, Justin.  Why wouldn’t you think at least that part would make me uncomfortable?”

     “Honestly, I didn’t stop to give it a thought, I’m ashamed to say.  As callous as it sounds, she was a choice of opportunity.  If I gave it any passing thought, I guess I justified it that you so recently met her, you couldn’t possibly have developed any sort of bond.  It really did only start as a way to try to get your attention though.  I figured if it got a rise out of you, then you really did have some of the same feelings I did.”

     I paused for a moment to let his words sink in.  “I won’t say it didn’t bother me at all.  I just tried to be rational and fair about it.  When it really began to bother me was when she showed up at school on Thursday bragging about the time you were spending together and how well you were getting along.  You cancelling pizza and beer night in favor of spending time with her is when my feelings got really hurt.  I’ll even admit to some jealousy, but I don’t want to give you the wrong impression.  I’m still not ready to make any commitments, which is why I didn’t bring it up to you when we spoke.”

     “Man, I’ve made a mess of things,” he sighed.  “Mimi, forgive me if I hurt you.  It wasn’t what I wanted.”

     “I’m not holding anything against you, Justin.  You’ve been very gracious and understanding of my situation, how could I not be of yours?  Now tell me something.  How did you get that scratch on your face?  Did she do that?”

     “Yeah,” he said, sounding very tired.  “When she showed up unannounced on my doorstep this morning, I wasn’t happy.  You know how I feel about my privacy when it comes to the women I date.  This is a perfect example of why.  I let her know, without a doubt, that it was not okay to just show up when she’s not expected.  She became furious, telling me that she should be able to drop by and see her boyfriend and wanted to know what I was hiding that she couldn’t just show up.

     “I informed her that I was not her boyfriend.  Yes, I admit I had sex with her last night, but she shouldn’t construe that as any kind of commitment between us.  She accused me of using her and lost her shit.  She threw the food she brought at me and attacked me. 

     “As I was trying to get her under control, she reached up and scratched me.  I told her I’d call the police if she didn’t leave and stay away.  She ran at that point, but about an hour later the calls began.

     “I tried to talk sense into her at first, but she vacillated between being fire-breathing mad to begging for me to forgive her and give us a chance to be together.  I finally gave up and turned off my phone.  I fully expected her to come around again, but she didn’t.”

     “I may have had something to do with that,” I said, swallowing hard.  “I don’t think it’s necessarily a good thing though.  She downplayed her account of what happened.  She only admitted to throwing the food at you and losing her temper.  She was distressed that you wouldn’t forgive her for it, so I told her I’d lost my temper with you plenty of times and you were always willing to forgive me.  I told her to give it a couple days to let everything die down and to give you a call then, if you hadn’t called her first.  So, this may only be a reprieve for you, I’m afraid.  We can cross our fingers that if you don’t call her, she’ll take the hint and move on.  From everything you’ve just told me though, I don’t think that’s likely to happen.”

     Justin agreed with me, and just hung his head.  “I really made a mistake with her.  I am usually much more up front with the women I date.  I hate to think that I may have led her on somehow.”

     I sympathized with him.  “Don’t kick yourself too hard, Justin.  She’ll eventually realize that you’re not interested in anything anymore when you don’t respond.  If she brings it up to me, I’ll do my best to dissuade her without getting overly involved.”

     “Yeah, you’re right.  I just feel guilty.”

     “I hate to say it, but maybe you should just a bit.  From everything you’ve told me, your intentions with her weren’t exactly honest.  But you’re human, and you’re entitled to fuck up.  All you can do is offer an apology and move on.”

     I moved closer to him on the sofa and gave him a big hug.  He hugged me back tightly.  “Now,” I said, “Why don’t we watch a stand-up comedy to help us get our minds off this crap?  I haven’t seen Amy Schumer’s most recent special.”

     “I think Amy’s great, but her style almost always revolves around sex and dating.  Perhaps we should stay away from those topics.  Let’s watch a tried-and-true one.  How about that one from Jim Jeffries?”

     “You’re the boss, big man.  If you think it’ll help, let’s go for it.”

     While Justin searched for the special he wanted in the Amazon catalog on my web TV, I went to the kitchen and retrieved two bottles of Corona.  After popping off the tops, I returned to the living room and handed him one.  “I think one or four of these will help you relax, too.”

     He gave me his first genuine grin of the night.  “Peaches, you sure know how to make a man happy.”

     I laughed and settled in to watch the show.

     Justin stayed until just after midnight.  I could tell he was dreading to go home, afraid that something unpleasant might be waiting for him there.  I offered to let him spend the night on the couch, and while he contemplated it, he felt he should just face the situation and deal with her if she were there.  He confirmed that we were still on for pizza and beer night on Wednesday and left me at my door with another big hug.

     As I was getting ready for my class Tuesday night, I wondered if Delia would show, and if she did, what she’d say to me.  I wasn’t sure how I could help let her down easy.  It was probably something I should stay out of, but I couldn’t just leave Justin on his own if there were something I could do to help.  I assumed I’d just have to determine her mood when I saw her and respond accordingly.

     She was waiting for me in the parking lot when I arrived.  As soon as I pulled into a parking space, she was at my window with a big smile.  I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t that kind of enthusiasm.

     I got out of my car and she exclaimed, “You were right, Mimi!! I kept my distance to let things settle down and he called!  He called just this afternoon.  He wants to meet with me tomorrow to talk!  We’re going to work this out, I know it.”