Popcorn Love (18 page)

“Now I’m just making assumptions, huh?” Allison shook
her head. “Obviously, that is a dumb thing to do, because
obviously,
I was completely and utterly wrong, right?”

Wide honey eyes blinked at her as Lucas sloppily
sucked and chewed on a dinosaur-shaped chicken nugget. Ketchup
spotted his cheeks and mouth and the one hand he used to feed
himself. He smiled around the nugget and nodded.

“Yeah, you’re right. I’m never making assumptions
again.” She popped a few of her own dinosaur-shaped nuggets into
her mouth. “But why wouldn’t she tell me that she liked chicks too?
We’re friends, right? You’d think that that would be something you
would tell your friend.”

“Then again, I haven’t told her that
I
like
women, so I guess I really don’t have any room to talk, do I?”

“Nope!” Lucas dunked a nugget into his ketchup,
splattering it, and Allison chuckled at the kid.

“Do you even know what I’m talking about?”

He shook his head and reached for his juice cup.
“Nope!” he repeated, and Allison laughed even harder.

“I just…” she started again. “I usually have awesome
gaydar, even on myself. I mean, I knew
I
was gay by the time
I was like four and Olivia Marks gave me her socks when mine got
holes in them at the home. I totally worshipped the ground that
toddler walked on.”

“I’m a todder!” Lucas exclaimed.

“You totally are,” Allison said, smiling at the happy
boy. She sighed as she carried their now-empty plates to the sink
and began to wash them. Allison wetted a washcloth and walked over
to clean Lucas’s face. He giggled as the cloth tickled at his neck,
and Allison pressed a kiss to his forehead.

“You’re such a good listener, kid.”

* * *

“I honestly don’t know if I am looking for a serious
relationship at this point.” Elena said. “I have been out of the
dating game for quite a while now, as my son and my career are my
priorities.”

“That’s understandable.” Alexis nodded. “I ended a
four-year relationship a little over six months ago, so I’m not
sure if I am looking for something terribly serious just yet
either. But then again, you never know. If something clicks, it
clicks. I think…”

Elena’s phone vibrated in her lap and she squirmed,
fingers itching to grab it. She tried to force her focus onto
Alexis as the woman went on about how she was mostly looking for a
bit of fun, but she couldn’t do it. Her mind kept racing with
thoughts of Allison. What if she was feeling dizzy or hurt? What if
she needed Elena to take her to the hospital? She reached for her
phone and subtly tried to glance at it under the table.

When she saw it was merely an email update, Elena
felt her stomach sink in disappointment, though she wasn’t sure
why. Why would she be disappointed not to receive an emergency text
from Allison? It wasn’t as if she
wanted
the woman to be
injured.

It took a moment for Elena to realize that her date
was no longer speaking, and then the silence suddenly seemed very
daunting. She glanced up to find Alexis watching her, jaw set as
her lips strained with a tight and obviously forced smile.

“Is there a problem?” Alexis asked.

“No, no problem,” Elena said. “I was just—”

“Checking your phone.” Alexis placed her chopsticks
down on her plate and dropped her hands to her lap as she leaned
back in her chair. “
Again.
”

Elena let out a long sigh and nodded. “I’m sorry,
Alexis. I am concerned about my son’s babysitter.”

“May I ask why?”

“We had a bit of an accident earlier,” Elena
explained, “and she hurt her head. I simply want to be sure she is
okay.”

“I see.” Alexis nodded.

“I
am
sorry,” Elena said again. She could feel
the heat rising in her cheeks. She was embarrassed by her own
behavior. “I don’t mean to be rude. Please, back to what you were
saying.”

“Do you
know
what I was saying?” Alexis asked,
reaching for her wine, and Elena felt her chest flood with guilt.
It must have shown on her face because Alexis nodded and said, “I
thought not.”

Elena shifted in her seat, crossing and uncrossing
her legs under the table. “Alexis—”

“It is fine, Elena.” The slightly sharp edge to her
tone made it seem like it certainly was
not
fine, but Elena
didn’t argue. She simply nodded and let Alexis take the lead.
“Let’s start over.”

Elena gave her a small smile, and she appreciated the
effort Alexis made to plaster on a smile of her own despite the
fact that things had become slightly tense between them. “Very
well.”

“What are you looking for in a relationship?” Alexis
asked again.

“I haven’t put much thought into it,” Elena said. She
swished her wine gently in her glass before taking a long sip. “I
suppose there would be a number of things that would cause me to
favor a person.”

“Such as?”

“Well, he or she would obviously have to be good with
children. Lucas would have to approve, of course.”

“Of course.” Alexis said. “Go on.”

“Proper hygiene is a must.” Elena shook her head.
“And certainly no talk of restroom activities.”

Alexis’s lips parted as she stared at her. “I’m
sorry. What?”

“My previous date,” Elena said, and Alexis
frowned.

“That is unfortunate.”

“Yes.” Elena nodded. “He carried on a full
conversation about his IBS with the waitress. The poor girl was
obviously uncomfortable.”

“I hope you didn’t plan a second date.”

“Of course not.” Elena chuckled. “The first made for
quite the hysterical rant from Allison, though, so the night at
least ended in a laugh.”

“Allison?”

Elena blinked. She had not meant to bring up Allison,
but she had slipped into the conversation regardless. Elena licked
her lips and cleared her throat. “Allison is the babysitter I
mentioned.”

She was surprised when Alexis let out a sigh that
bordered on a laugh. It sounded hard for a laugh, bordering on
angry, and Elena stiffened in her chair.

“Is something funny?”

Alexis shook her head. “I’m sorry, Elena,” she said.
“It just seems like you are more interested in your babysitter
tonight than you are in me.”

The words hit Elena like a hard punch to the gut. Her
heart began to pound against her ribcage, and a lump formed in her
throat. Her head swam with thoughts of Allison, with looks and
laughter and little touches, and, suddenly, it was as if something
clicked firmly into place and Elena couldn’t breathe.

“I…” She pushed up out of her chair, her hand
clamping around her phone and clutch.

“Elena?” Alexis looked up at her, brows knitting
together.

Elena’s throat felt tight and dry and her eyes stung
horribly. She could feel the heat in her face and knew it must be
visible. “I need to go,” she said. “I, I’m sorry. I should go.”

Alexis gaped at her and Elena made quick work of
pulling several large bills from her clutch and placing them on the
table. “I will hail a cab. Dinner is on me. Thank you for a lovely
evening, Alexis, and, again, I am terribly sorry about this.”

She couldn’t bring herself to wait for a response
before speeding away, heels clicking loudly with every frantic
step.

The slim stick heels of Elena’s black pumps bounced
rapidly against the taxi floor as she pressed the first number on
her speed dial. Her heart was a flapping, fluttering mess, thudding
into her ribcage in painful tremors as she waited through three
agonizingly long rings before her best friend’s voice finally
drifted through the line.

“Elena?” Vivian said. “I thought you were supposed to
be on a da—”

“It’s Allison,” Elena blurted.

Vivian snorted into the phone. “Really Elena? I’ve
known you basically my entire life, okay? I know your voice almost
better than my own. Plus, I’ve only had one glass of wine tonight.
I know it’s you.”

“Of course it’s me! That’s not what I meant. I meant
that it’s
Allison
.”

“That is literally exactly what you said the first
time. So, you’re telling me that you meant to say what you actually
said? Because if so, then you have completely lost me.”

Elena let out a trembling, frustrated sigh. “Will you
shut up and listen, please?”

“Well, stop repeating yourself.”

The ring of a doorbell echoed through Elena’s phone,
followed quickly by Vivian saying, “Oh, hold on, babe. There’s
someone at my door.”

“I know.”

“What do you mean?”

Vivian opened her front door to reveal a frazzled
Elena, her phone still pressed to her ear and a taxi pulling away
from the curb. She started to laugh, but the look in her friend’s
eyes caused the sound to die in her throat. Vivian nearly dropped
her phone as she immediately reached out for her best friend and
tugged her into the house.

* * *

“All right, big guy,” Allison whispered. Lucas’s head
lay lazily atop her shoulder, his face buried into the crook of her
neck as she carried him down the hallway. One of his fists curled
into the neckline of her shirt and the other dangled limply behind
them. He had fallen asleep in Allison’s lap about fifteen minutes
into a movie.

“Time for little boys with sneakily gay mommies to go
to bed.” She rolled her eyes. “Sneakily gay mommies who don’t tell
equally gay babysitters that they are ga-ay.”

“Or bisexual.” She lay Lucas in his bed. His fist
clung to her shirt and she had to pry his fingers from the neckline
before she could stand up again. “Or pansexual.” She tucked him in
tightly. “Hot-sexual. Dates hot people. Whatever.”

Allison realized she was ranting. “Wow,” she said as
she leaned down and pressed two tender kisses to Lucas’s forehead.
“I’m so glad you’re asleep right now, kid.”

She then slipped from his room, closing the door
behind her.

* * *

“You ran out on your date?” Vivian handed Elena a
glass of wine, dropped onto the couch beside her, and patted her
knee.

“Yes, I ran out on my date.” Elena huffed.
“
Politely
. I
politely
ran out on my date.”

“How do you
politely
run out on a date?”
Vivian chuckled. “And I still don’t understand why.”

“
Because!
” Elena nearly shouted at her.
“Because I
couldn’t
stay there, Viv! I panicked, and I
couldn’t stay there, because I realized…”

Elena trailed off, visibly swallowing. Vivian wanted
to encourage her, but instead she kept quiet, waiting for Elena to
say whatever it was she needed to say in her own time. She could
only recall a few times in their lives in which she had seen Elena
this genuinely disturbed. The first was in junior high school when
Elena got her first ever period and bled right through her skirt
and onto her chair in Keyboarding class. Vivian had chased after
her after threatening to beat the shit out of Matthew Douglas, a
snotty rich boy with an ugly bowl cut and a penchant for teasing
all the girls. She bought a tampon from the coin machine in the
girls’ bathroom and helped Elena figure out how to insert it, and
they hid out in there until Nora was called to collect them. The
second time was when Elena lost her virginity to Preston McBride, a
snobby heir to a multi-million dollar corporation, the summer
before their senior year. Vivian had had to endure eight days of
Elena crying over the possibility of being pregnant and cursing
herself over the one time she actually allowed herself to be
impulsive. The day her period came had been a relief to them
both.

“Because I realized that it’s Allison.”

Vivian leaned a little toward her friend, locking
gazes with her. She sincerely hoped that what she assumed was
happening in this moment was
actually
happening, and her
heart pounded in her chest.

“Honey,” Vivian cooed, reaching out to lace her
fingers through Elena’s, “you keep saying that, but you are going
to have to clarify what you mean, because I can’t read your
mind.”

Like hell I can’t read your mind,
Vivian
thought, her insides practically vibrating with the intensity of
the moment.
I just want to hear you say it!

Elena’s lips parted as if she were about to answer,
but then she merely reached for her wine and tipped it back.
Vivian’s eyes widened as Elena drained the entire glass in one
massive strained gulp.

Oh yeah,
Vivian thought,
this is totally
happening.

As soon as Elena choked her way through the swallow,
she said, “I think I may be falling for Allison.”

Vivian squealed like a giddy teenager on the inside
but managed to keep her composure. She had to be the one to hold it
together, because Elena certainly wouldn’t. This one small yet
major confession tore down the floodgates, and Elena launched into
a massive, rambling explanation.

“I was on the date,” Elena told her. “I was on the
date with Alexis, and things were going well. Okay, actually,
things weren’t going so well. She was gorgeous and funny and
well-mannered, but I was admittedly not the best date. Allison got
hurt earlier this evening, nothing terribly serious, but I was
concerned all throughout dinner and kept checking my phone.”

“You would have been annoyed if someone did that to
you,” Vivian said.

“I know.” Elena groaned. “I was awful, but I couldn’t
help myself. I kept thinking about her and worrying about her, and
then Alexis suggested…”

“What?”

“She said I seemed more interested in the babysitter
than in her.”

Vivian pressed her lips together to keep from
smiling, because Elena already looked nervous and embarrassed, and
she didn’t want to add to it, but it was a definite struggle.