The Girl He Knows (2 page)

“Yes, I do.” I ease up the well-oiled window and pop out the screen like a pro. Ten years later and I still have skills. Gigi and I used to sneak out of her room without even waking the dog. I lean over to lower the screen to the ground and check to make sure no one is outside. The desk chair is the perfect height to get me up onto the windowsill, and Hank steps aside to let me drag it over.

I whisper, “I’ll hand you the screen, you can put it back, and then you’ll need to go distract your parents.” I climb up and lower one leg over the sill.

He sips his coffee, makes a face, and puts it on the desk.

“Did you hear me?” I ask in a loud whisper. If I wasn’t sitting on a windowsill, half in, half out, this moment would be like all the others I’ve shared with Hank: comfortable, easy, laughable at one point or another.

“Yeah, yeah. I heard you.” He shakes his head with what I’m sure is disbelief. After all, I’m a twenty-five-year-old sneaking out a bedroom window like a fourteen-year-old.

“Just do it,” I tell him then jump off the sill onto the ground. I hold the screen and wait for his head to appear. When it does, I hand it to him.

“Don’t forget to distract your parents.”

“How could I?” he mumbles and fixes the screen.

When he turns away, I pull out my car keys. My SUV sits on the road between Hank’s parents’ house and the neighbor’s. It’ll be a run since Hank parked it on the far side of the house. At least I have an escape method and won’t have to walk a street over to where my sister lives. She would never buy any story that brought me to her doorstep, without my car, looking like I do.

I stay crouched below the window, fidgeting with my keys until the bedroom door gives its telltale moan. I count to ten before I take off like a shot straight across the yard toward my Pathfinder. Like the dummy I am—sleeping with Hank proves that point—I press the unlock button on my keyless entry. When the horn gives two loud beeps to indicate the lock releasing, I stumble, almost wet my pants, and hit the ground.

I roll over, look at the houses, and wait a breath. Nobody comes out, including Hank or his parents. Relieved, I pick myself up and sprint to my car. I fling the door open, jump in the driver’s seat, throw the key in the ignition, and take off, letting acceleration close the door as I floor the gas.

I do quick calculations. Should I make an unscheduled family visit or haul ass home, leaving no one the wiser I was in town? With a groan, I remember this is the weekend my sister is hosting a family dinner. Having begged off with a poor excuse, I’ll have to recant if I stay.

A look in the mirror shows circles of mascara under my eyes and a rooster tail on the back of my head. Clearly, it’s not wise to see my family in this condition. Mothers are perceptive, at least mine is, and she would know in an instant how I spent my night.

I pull into the lot of the local quickie mart, and make a mental list of necessities as I walk in. My bladder gets top priority. I wash my hands, splash lukewarm water on my face, and pat it dry with a scratchy brown paper towel. It’s a start, and it helps clear my head. I make my way to the toiletries. After grabbing a bottle of saline solution off the shelf, I rip off the security tab and do a continuous squeeze of solution into my eyes.

“Ahh. Boy, that feels great,” I tell the clerk. Blinking rapidly, I enjoy the saline as it sluices down my face in cascades of pure relief. The clerk, who’d been staring at me as if I were a three-headed freak, begins running a total of my damage in the cash register. I snag a package of tissue off the shelf to wipe my face and head toward the fridge, where I grab a Yoo-hoo. On my way to the counter, I pick up a box of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts and eat one while I pay.

“Paisley?” someone behind me says.

I close my eyes in dread. Maybe, if I stand here long enough, they’ll go away.

“I didn’t think you were coming to town this weekend. Thought you were running a 5 K or something....”

I turn and look up at my sister’s husband, Dan.

I’m cold busted. Of all the rotten, stinking luck.

“Hi, what are you doing here?” There’s a box of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts in his hands.

Damn those irresistible doughnuts.

“I think the question is what are you doing here?” he says.

He pays and follows me outside. He’s parked next to me. I guess he came in while I was in the restroom.

“I was in Orlando and figured I’d come on in.” My voice quivers.

“Mmm-hmm. Reckon we’ll be seeing you for dinner,” he says.

“Uh, yeah. I’ll let Sarah Grace know.”

He nods and moves toward his truck.

“Hey, Dan,” I call. “I would appreciate you not telling anyone you ran into me.”

“See you later.” He waves, gets in his truck, and drives away without a backward glance.

I sit in my SUV. My only real option is to go to Gigi’s. I need a shower and a change of clothes. I’m not up for any more run-ins with people I know, so that rules out Target and a glance at the clock tells me the mall is closed. I’m pulling into traffic when my phone rings. More focused on avoiding a collision than checking my caller ID, I bring it to my ear.

“Hello?”

“You’re in the clear,” Hank says. His voice catches me off guard and I fumble my phone and drop it between my legs.

The irony.

With trembling hands, I switch the call to Bluetooth.

“Paisley?” he says.

“Sorry, I dropped the phone. Does anyone know I was there?” Honestly, this is the first time he’s had me twisted up in knots.

“Nope. Not a clue. I still think you should have stayed for breakfast.” He yawns. The simple sound brings forth the sensation of our naked bodies nestled together, the comfort of our sleep entwining us, and I suppress the urge to fan my face.

“Are you crazy? Was I supposed to walk out in your shirt and join your parents? Morning, Poppy. Morning, Ms. Becky. Your son and I had sex all night long and I’m famished,” I mimic and Hank laughs.

“Well it wasn’t
all
night. We did sleep the last few hours.” His voice is like chocolate, rich and creamy, and I kick myself for not staying around for a second helping.

“Hank Lancaster.” I pull into a strip mall parking lot, unable to concentrate on driving while talking to him.

“Where are you right now?”

“About to get on I-4,” I lie. I don’t want him to know I’m staying in town. If we get together again, I’ll probably want a repeat performance, and then I won’t be able to call our night of sex a mistake. He’ll accuse me of wanting more.

He’d be right, but there is no need to have
that
conversation.

“You know not to head home without me, right?”

Bam! It’s like being slapped upside the head. The aftermath of this impulse doesn’t ever seem to end.

“What? Why?”

“Because my truck is still in Orlando and you are my ride to get it.”

Stupid me. Telling him last night I wanted to go to Lakeland, too. If we’d gone to my apartment in Daytona Beach, I would not be in this predicament.

“It was stupid to come here.”

“It was stupid to climb out the window,” he retorts.

“It was stupid to hook up.”

“Face it. What happened between us last night was bound to happen at some point. Heck, look what happened last week when we met in Cocoa Beach for the surfing competition. We’ve been gearing up for this since high school.”

“We have not.”

Liar. Liar. I know he speaks the truth. If I admit it, I’m breaking some unspoken friendship rule between Gigi and me, even if this is her fault for canceling on us and not attending the surf competition. She’s directly responsible, leaving us unchaperoned.

When I accepted the invitation, I was excited to hang with an old friend. I never imagined we’d spend the evening on the beach, under blankets, learning each other’s body.

I drop my head onto my steering wheel. Something about being with Hank makes me not think things through.

“In my opinion, hot weather and too much booze are the root cause of these slipups.” I toss out the lie and hope it sticks.

“OK, you keep telling yourself that.” He chuckles. “I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow? The folks leave for church at eight.”

“All right. Listen, are you planning on seeing your sister today?”

“No, should I?”

“No, I’m heading to her house. I need a change of clothes before I visit my family. You cannot tell your sister what we did.” I hope he gets the severity of my words through my tone. I rub the space between my eyes.

“Roger that,” he says, his smile coming through the phone.

“Promise?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Say it.”

“I promise, Paisley McAllister, to never tell my sister we made hot-monkey love in her childhood bed.”

I groan. I can tell this is going nowhere fast. “I gotta go.”

“I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Gee, I can’t wait.” I end the call.

I pull out of my parking spot, travel around the backside of the strip mall, and decide to take back roads to Gigi’s house since I’m having attention issues.

I need a cover story, and a good one at that; otherwise she’ll see right through me. I dread facing her. I know I have to at some point. Why not today?

The consequences of my actions plague me. It’s quite possible I may have set in motion the end of my friendships with Gigi and Hank. It’s ironic, this is exactly what I promised myself I would do once my divorce was final. Not sleep with Hank, but start getting a life. Married the summer before my last year of college, I veered off onto a path quite opposite my friends. While they were enjoying life after college with extra cash in their wallets, I was supporting a medical student. Now it’s my turn. Of course, I’m doing a bang-up job so far.

What if he wants something more? I’m not interested in going there. My journey is just getting started. What if our families find out? They are entwined enough for me to know it would be damn near impossible for my mother not to exaggerate our one night and push for a permanent union. Because I’m the only divorced person in my immediate family, pairing me off with someone as fantastically magnificent as Hank Lancaster—my mother’s words, not mine—would go a long way toward putting the blight behind us.

Maybe one day my mother and I will want the same thing: me, happily married. Right now we don’t.

I pull up to Gigi’s house and park. If best friends could be soul mates, Gigi would be mine. I don’t think there’s a thing she doesn’t know about me, until now. Which makes this all the more difficult because she’s who I go to for confession and guidance.

While I was in the midst of my divorce and on the edge of a nervous breakdown, it was Gigi who came to me with the soundest advice. “You get a second chance,” she told me. “A second chance to do it right. Pick wisely and do it for those who are stuck.”

I have every intention of getting it right this time, no matter what.

I like to think there are golden rules for every aspect of life. The one between best friends goes like this: Thou shall not covet a friend’s old boyfriend or brother, and thou shall not fornicate with either of them.

If Gigi finds out I used her brother for sex, that I consider last night a jumping off point for starting my single life, I don’t know if she’ll forgive me.

I want to idle in front of her house, but her husband, John, is leaning against his truck, smoking. With no, “Hello, how are you” or even a comment about my appearance, he points me in the direction of his wife. I walk through the fence gate to the backyard where she’s cleaning their pool. She does everything: cleans the house, mows the yard, runs their kid to and fro and even works the grill.

Personally, I think yards and grills are for men. It irks me she does so much. When they first started dating, Gigi was on the back end of a bad breakup. John seemed nice enough but secretly I’ve always thought of him as her rebound guy and I’m pretty sure research exists showing relationships with rebound guys don’t last. They married six months after graduation. I’m not convinced John makes Gigi blissfully happy, no matter how much she swears he does, certainly not lately.

“Hey.” I toss the box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts on the outdoor table. Sometimes a good doughnut can fix anything.

“Hey yourself.” She runs the net through the water and does a double take when she looks at me. “I didn’t know you were coming to town.”

“Surprise,” I mumble. I pick up a water noodle and start twirling it.

“What the hell happened to you? You’re a wreck.” She’s staring at my hair.

I swat at her with the pool noodle. “I need to borrow some clothes.”

She hangs the long-handled net up and sits down to a pitcher of tea, pouring a glass for both of us, and helps herself to a doughnut. “Clearly. You getting laid?”

I cough and look away. Gigi points at me and laughs.

“Good for you. Anyone I know?” She wiggles her brows at me, reaches into the wet bar they keep on the porch, and pulls out a bottle of Jack Daniels.

“No,” I squeak. She pours a good splash of booze in her tea. I dare not make eye contact. She hovers the bottle of Jack over my cup and I shake my head. My stomach is churning. Though I’m not exactly sure if it’s from the dare-I-say excitement or my now-raging headache.

“Tell me about this.” She waves her hand toward me.

I suck in a breath and in a rush of words spit out the story I’d rehearsed.

“It’s nothing. I went partying with my Daytona friends last night. Met up with this guy I know and did something stupid. I believe it’s the alcohol’s fault, thank you very much.”

It comes out fast and jumbled. I hold my breath and hope sticking to some semblance of the truth will work to my benefit.

She chuckles. “I guess you’re ringing in your freedom like you planned. You gonna keep a journal? Notch your belt?”

I feign indignation. “I don’t have a quota I’m trying to reach or anything like that. I only want to get some more experience. Figure out what it is I want from life. My previous life’s plans were based on Trevor’s and what I thought they
should
be. Now, in my new single life I’m trying to make some new ones.”