Seeing Clearly (14 page)

Chapter 18

Joel

If Zack Larson wasn't so big, I'd reach out and break him in half
, I thought as I watched them walk up the sidewalk to the entrance of the Staples Center.
What's Gretchen thinking walking up with them like they were all on a double date? What's Rachel thinking? I thought Bailey's boyfriend was the sixth person.
Zack Larson was one of the National Team swimmers that I considered for the endorsement. From a marketing standpoint, he had a perfect face. From where I stood right now, I wanted to rearrange it.

I turned my attention to Rachel in an attempt to distract myself from Gretchen and the way her hair fell across her forehead. I talked to Rachel and Collin for a minute. Gretchen hung back with Zack, which only served to amplify my already-hostile feelings for him. I just smiled like I didn't notice. I concentrated on Rachel, who was really excited about the game. I thought it would be fun and everything, but mostly, I just wanted to be next to the redhead.

I held the door open, knowing she was the last in line to go inside. Once we entered the building, I came up behind her, touching her back. I was being as subtle as I could considering that I wanted to ditch the rest of them at the game and go somewhere, anywhere so we could be alone. I told her how beautiful she looked, and gave her little bit of a hard time for avoiding me lately. She didn't offer an explanation. My hand stayed on her all the way to our seats. I knew it was a possessive gesture, but I simply couldn't control the urge. I had
to touch her.

We made it to the coveted first row seats, and filed into them in this order: Zack, Collin, Rachel, Bailey, Gretchen,
and then me. I couldn't have been happier with the seating arrangement. After the girls got their stuff all stowed away, Bailey whispered over Gretchen's lap that I was sitting next to a popular stand-up comedian. I took a glance at him. The guy she was talking about didn't look familiar, but I was no expert, so I believed her. Gretchen agreed, and even whispered his name in my ear, but it left my mind as soon as she said it. I was way more interested in the feel of her breath on my ear than paying attention to his name.

I was excited about the courtside seats
, though. I loved to play basketball at the gym, and I kept up with pro ball a little bit… but I mostly just caught the highlights and watched the playoffs since work kept me so busy. The six of us had a blast cheering for the Lakers, who were winning 52 - 46 at halftime.

Gretchen turned to me and asked, "You want to walk me to the concession stand?"

"Sure," I answered. "It's probably packed right now, though. I'm not promising we'll be back when the second half starts."

"I'm okay with that if you are," she said. "Girls gotta do what girls gotta do for a hot dog."

"How about a beer while we're at it?" I asked. She just smiled as she reached under her seat for her purse. We took orders from everyone else. Zack and Collin both offered to come along, but I assured them we could carry everything.

We stood in the ridiculous line to pay a fortune for drinks and snacks. Gretchen was the only one who passed on a beer, so the cashier packed five beers and a bottled water onto two drink carriers. We also somehow balanced three hot dogs, two orders of nachos, peanuts, and cotton candy. She and I looked a bit like vendors as we made our way back to the seats. 

"You guys missed the half time show," Bailey said. "They had a contest to see if anyone could make a shot from half court, and someone actually did it."

"Nu-uhh!" Gretchen said, amazed. "Did they win a car or something?"

"He totally
would have
if he'd made it on the first try, but he didn't. They let him take three more shots and he made the last one. They gave him a MP3 player as a consolation prize."

"That wasn't even the best part, though," Rachel said, leaning over Bailey to speak to Gretchen and me. The Laker Girls did a dance too."

Gretchen looked at Rachel like she might not be quite right in the head. "Ray, the Laker Girls have been dancing all night. Was it
amazing
or something?"

"It
was
pretty amazing since we
know
one of them!"

"What? Who? Do I know her too?" Gretchen asked.

Rachel looked across the court to the spot where the Laker Girls were sitting in a big group. She pointed towards the mass of girls and squinted to make sure she had the right one. "Third one from the right. With the high ponytail."

"They all have high ponytails," Gretchen said. Rachel let out frustrated groan at the daunting task of trying to figure out a feature that she could identify her Laker girl by. "Third from the right. She's sort of
facing to the side."

I looked at the girl Rachel was trying to get Gretchen to recognize even though I had no clue whether I knew her or not. I found her, and I felt like I
did
recognize her. I couldn't for the life of me figure out from where, though.

Then, it hit me. Suddenly, I knew where I'd seen her. "Vegas," I said, surprising both Rachel and Gretchen. Bailey (who hadn't even been part of the conversation) also looked at me like she didn't
expect me to recognize the girl. "Did you guys forget I was in Vegas?" I asked.

"Of course not," Gretchen said, "But what does Vegas have to do with anything?"

"That's where we met the girl." I gestured toward the group of dancers. Gretchen looked at Rachel, who smiled as she nodded her head in agreement.

"Who is she?" Gretchen was determined to figure out who in the world it was. She stared into the group of girls for a long minute before recognition lit up her face. "Oh my God, is it Ethan's showgirl?"

"Yes!" Rachel said, smiling. Bailey was nodding too, even though she hadn’t been in Vegas. "Her name's Emily. I don’t think I even knew that when we were in Vegas since we all just called her Ethan's showgirl, but she recognized us and came to say hi after they danced at halftime. She could only stay for a second, but she asked if we'd stick around after the game."

"That's crazy," Gretchen said, still looking across the court at the girl like she couldn't quite believe it. "I guess it's safe to assume she lives in L.A. now."

"Yeah, we didn't really get into that. We just asked her if she'd talked to Ethan, but she had to get back to the rest of the girls."

"What'd she say about Ethan?" Gretchen asked.

"She said they talked on the phone a few times after he went back to San Diego, but it fizzled out pretty quickly because they both have busy schedules, no hard feelings or anything, just never amounted to anything. She seems like a really sweet girl, though. I might see if she wants to hang out since she's obviously pretty new in town."

"That's a good idea," Gretchen said. "We'll find out what her story is. I'll tell her she can come by my family's place for Christmas if she's not going home."

Gretchen's empathy for others never ceased to amaze me. It's one thing to be physically attracted to someone, but it's so much better when the inside is just as breathtaking.

"Come home with me tonight," I said, without any lead-in whatsoever.

"I can't," she said. She didn't even come close to giving it enough thought. At least she looked regretful. "I have to work in the morning."

"Come on, that's not a good enough reason," I said.
"You can just go straight to work from my place."

"I can't. My car's at Rachel's and I—"

"Just come with me," I said, cutting her off. "We'll figure out a ride. I have staff that can drive you. I can drive you. Someone can go get your car. We'll figure it out."

"Did you get the email I sent you today? The list of names?"

I just stared at her. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why she was refusing to acknowledge what we had together. Her body language made it clear she wanted to take me up on the offer. The sparks between us were palpable. I knew she was feeling it too. I just couldn't understand why she was denying us. "Yes I got the email," I said, answering her fake question. "I responded to it, remember?"

"I don't want you to think you have to buy anything, though. The kids all get so much for Christmas anyway… you know how that goes."

"Yeah, I know how it goes." I was going to leave it at that. I wasn't about to beg her to come home with me when the idea of it obviously made her uncomfortable.

Realizing how awkward she'd just made things, she turned to me with an earnest expression and said, "I'm sorry I can't come home with you. I want to, I really do—"

"Then do it," I said.

"It's not that easy. I have some personal stuff going on right now that I need to work through on my own before I'm a fit partner, or date, or screw, or whatever I am with you."

The idea that she thought she was nothing more than a screw to me made me feel hurt and a little angry. I raked a hand through my hair. She looked at me and continued, "I'm sorry, I don’t mean it like that. I know you're a good guy… I'm just really confused right now, and I don’t
think clearly
when you're around, like I'm too attracted to you to think straight."

If anyone in this God-forsaken world can understand girls, could they please contact me and tell me what the bloody hell she just said?
Was it possible that she just said she couldn't go home with me tonight because she was too attracted to me?

"I'm not sure what you need from me," I said. Boy, was that the truth. I was aggravated enough at the hot-cold nature of things between us lately, that I dropped the subject completely. From that point on, we just focused our concentration on the game.

Rachel, who was totally oblivious to the tension between Gretchen and me (or at least pretended to be) had a great time celebrating her birthday, and I was glad it worked out so we could use Paul's tickets. I had a good time too despite of all the mixed signals I got from Gretchen. I didn't really think my proposition would work anyway, not with how she'd avoided me lately.

Emily came over to talk to us after the game. I was the first person she approached, and she surprised me by putting her arms around me and squeezing me tight.

"Hey Joel! I missed seeing you at halftime, but they told me you and Gretchen were here." She shifted her attention to Gretchen. "I never
dreamed
I'd be seeing you guys here. How'd you get these seats? They belong to Mr. Hayes, right?"

Gretchen sent a thumb flying in my direction. "He knows everybody," she said, giving me an
adoring look. "He got them from one of his friends, so we came to celebrate Rachel's birthday."

"Oh
, Really? Happy birthday," Emily said, looking at Rachel. "I'm so glad I ran into you guys. Let me leave my number and we can stay in touch."

"Collin and I we're just talking about stopping by a dive bar on the way home for a couple of drinks and a game of pool. We're not going to be out all night or anything but you have to hit one bar when you turn twenty-one, right? We hadn't even mentioned it to anyone else yet since it's a work night and everything, but you're all welcome to come if you want to."

"I am actually not even quite twenty yet," Emily said, laughing. "It's okay though, I'm used to being left out. Most of the other girls I work with are over twenty-one, and they go out all the time. I've got to get home anyway. Sal is expecting me."

"Sal's a boyfriend?
" Rachel asked.

"Better," Emily said, smiling broadly. "A brindle bullmastiff. He looks like a flat-faced tiger. I guess you could say he's my boyfriend," she gave a silly, quirk of her head and shrugged, "we do cuddle a lot. I'm a weenie sometimes. I get scared at night. It's from all the scary movies I watched in high school."

"Do you live by yourself?" I asked. I couldn't believe a nineteen-year-old girl would come to L.A. alone. "Besides Sal, I mean, are you otherwise
alone
?"

Gretchen shot a look at me, and if I hadn't known better, I would have thought she was jealous.

"Pretty much," Emily said. "My parents, or what's left of them, are in Sedona. My sister died in a car crash when I was sixteen, and they basically became useless after that. After she died, I was on my own even though they were living in the same house." Emily stopped talking when she noticed our concerned expressions. "No, no, don't feel bad for me," she said, smiling and shaking her head. "I make it just fine. Sal and I take good care of each other, and I'm doing good for myself. The Laker gig is just part time. I'm working at a dance studio teaching a few classes to kids too. I'm good, I promise. It's still nice to see familiar faces, though."

Emily looked over the six faces one at a time.
"I think I recognize all but you two." She pointed to Zack and Bailey. They all three shook hands and exchanged niceties, Emily taking note of Zack's way too charming smile, and Zack taking note of Emily's Laker girl costume. We talked for a few more minutes before deciding we should probably start making our way to our vehicles. Emily went in a different direction, assuring us she had an escort to her car when she was ready to leave.