The Crazy Girl's Handbook Page 7

  Chapter Six

  “Hey, sis. How’d it go today?” Lydia asked with a tone that screamed guilt and curiosity.

  “You know I’m going to get you back for this, right?”

  Silence. “For what?” Her innocence wasn’t fooling anyone. Me, least of all.

  “Are you really going to sit there and tell me the reason you insisted I make sure Colby made it to that miserable baseball game wasn’t because you knew Roman Carpenter was going to be there? Are you seriously going to try and convince me of that?”

  There was no silence this time. “Well if you weren’t such a big baby about meeting him the first time around I wouldn’t have had to finagle something like this. Honestly, Greenly, you make things so difficult sometimes. If you would just let me…”

  Her voice trailed off when I burst into laughter. No doubt not the response she was expecting from her argumentative little sister, it took Lydia a few moments to respond. “Are you drunk?”

  That only made me laugh even harder.

  “Greenly, what is going on? What’s wrong with you right now? Should I be worried? Are the boys okay?”

  Knowing she was about to go into panic mode, I reined in my laughter. “No, I’m not drunk. Yes, the boys are fine. No, there’s nothing wrong with me. But,” I said, pausing simply because I knew it would make her worry and I wanted at least a little bit of payback, “you really are crazy if you thought this ridiculous plan was going to work.”

  “I just wanted you to meet him!” Lydia snapped. “If you’d just give him a chance, you’d realize…”

  “Realize what?” I demanded. “That Roman Carpenter is about the most amazing guy I’ve ever met?”

  Lydia took a moment to respond. “Well, uh, yeah.”

  “Congratulations,” I said, the mocking tone easy to hear. “You were right. He is amazing. He’s sweet and a great dad and incredibly sexy. He’s as close to perfect as you could get.” Tears burned at the backs of my eyes as I pulled in a steadying breath.

  There was a long moment of silence before Lydia dared to speak again. “Then…what’s wrong, Greenly? You sound like you’re about to cry.”

  “I’m not going to cry,” I snapped. I was totally was about to cry, though, which would be the perfect end to my day. Crying on Roman Carpenter’s deck like a crazy person.

  Lydia sighed. “Greenly, what’s wrong?”

  “Why?” I begged. “Why would you try to set me up with a guy like him? Why would you ever think someone like Roman would be interested in me? Even if I’d gone on that stupid date and met him looking like a halfway normal person, it still wouldn’t have been enough. Were you trying to prove something? Teach me some kind of lesson by making me fall for a guy I have no chance of ever being with?” I blew out a long, trembling breath. “Especially not after today,” I mumbled more to myself than my sister.

  Lydia sighed again, and it sounded like she was settling in for a long talk despite that fact that she was out of town with her husband for a romantic getaway. It was the first time since Colby had been born that they’d been away by themselves for that long. Knowing she was willing to put their plans on hold for me made me feel terrible for being angry with her. Lydia annoyed me with her meddling, but I couldn’t have asked for a better big sister.

  “What happened today?” Lydia finally asked.

  The last thing I wanted to do was relive every stupid thing I’d done that day, but Lydia would keep me on the phone until I did. “It started with a piece of gum.”

  By the time I finished regaling Lydia with the story of the gum in my hair, Roman trying to freeze it off with melted ice from his soda and getting it all down the front of my shirt, my ice creamed flip flops, Thor nearly braining me right in front of Roman’s house, and half a dozen smaller but equally embarrassing things, we were both in tears, laughing at the absolutely ridiculous series of events.

  “Good gracious, Greenly, only you could manage so many screw-ups in one day,” she laughed. She said it with love, though, because we both knew I tended to have days like this more than the average person. Her comment to Roman about me leaving an impression usually revolved around something embarrassing. Lydia chuckled again, but eventually her laughing trailed off. “I’m sorry today was so crazy, sis. I really just wanted you to meet him and take a few minutes to talk and get to know each other. I wasn’t trying to teach you a lesson or hurt you. I hope you know that.”

  She sniffed at the end, which got me all teary again. She really had meant the best, and it wasn’t her fault I’d screwed it up so badly. “I know. I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

  “I’ve just been so worried about you,” Lydia said. “I thought when you transferred out here to finish your bachelor’s degree that you’d stop secluding yourself away. I know losing Dad was hard, especially since you had just left for college, but you shut everyone out and barely even left your dorm room except for classes. I know school is important to you, but so is family. Ours and the one I know you want to have someday.”

  “You and James and the boys are my family,” I said tearfully.

  Lydia sniffed again and I knew she was crying. “I love that you’ve become such a big part of our lives, but I know you want more, Greenly. You always have. You’re just afraid of taking that leap and letting someone in.”

  My dad and I had been incredibly close. Lydia and he had been close as well, but not in the same way. Our mom passed away when we were both little. She’d had a serious blood disorder that eventually took her away from us. Lydia coped by becoming my surrogate mom. She took care of me, bossed me, and helped me. I coped by holding onto the one parent I had left even more tightly.

  We all knew his blood pressure and cholesterol would eventually get the better of him, but I didn’t think it would be so soon. Lydia was right that I’d closed myself off after his death. I couldn’t stand the idea of anyone else getting that close to me and dying or disappearing. Coming to California and becoming a part of Lydia’s family had healed so much of what had been damaged in me. Colby and Evan were the loves of my life.

  Perhaps that should have encouraged me to branch out and quit being scared of loving someone else, but it didn’t. After a while, thinking about moving on with my own life felt like a betrayal of my little nephews. I wouldn’t have as much time for them, which would be like leaving them. I couldn’t do that to them, so I hid behind my love for those two little boys and told myself it was enough. For the past four years, it had been enough.

  “What’s going on in your head right now?” Lydia asked.

  “Why didn’t you tell me Roman was your neighbor?” I asked. “Why did you pretend you’d only just met him?”

  I didn’t know if she was caught off guard by the change in topics, or just hedged before giving an answer. “I, well, I guess I just thought if you knew he’d been a friend of ours for a long time you’d think there was something wrong with him since I hadn’t tried to set you up with him before now. You’re so resistant to meeting new people, I just thought it would be easier that way. There are reasons I didn’t introduce you before that, but I…”

  “I know about Jennifer,” I said when she trailed off in her effort to find the right explanation without betraying her friend’s confidence.

  “You do?”

  My heart squeezed thinking about Roman’s ex-wife. I didn’t think I would ever understand how she could choose her career over them, but I knew it wasn’t my place to judge. “Yeah, he told me about what happened between them.”

  Lydia honestly seemed stunned when she said, “Oh, wow, okay. It’s not something he really likes to talk about.” She paused for a moment. “When did you two have time to have a real conversation? Sounds like most of the afternoon was spent cleaning up messes.”

  Now it was my turn to squirm. When I related the dog tripping episode, I neglected to fill her in on the events post-head wound. “Uh…”

  “Greenly,” Lydia said in her mom
voice.

  “I’m actually, um, still at Roman’s house,” I said slowly.

  Lydia took a moment to respond. “What?”

  “After I bloodied myself up getting dragged by the dog, I was a little woozy from hitting my head.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” she demanded. “You acted like it was just a little bump! Maybe you should go to the doctor, Greenly. Head wounds can be serious.”

  “I’m fine,” I said, dragging out the word fine to punctuate my insistence. I continued before she could object again. “Anyway, he helped me get cleaned up and washed the peanut butter out of my hair before the pizza got here.”

  “Wait, how’d you get peanut butter in your hair?” Lydia interrupted.

  “Roman used it to get the gum out, of course.” I said it like I knew what I was talking about, and tried to power on before she could say anything else.

  Lydia beat me to it. “Roman Carpenter washed your hair for you?” She paused and exhaled slowly. “That is so sexy. Please tell me you didn’t say or do anything stupid during that to ruin it.”

  “I couldn’t have said or done anything even if I’d wanted to,” I grumbled. I was trying really hard not to think about Roman’s fingers running through my hair again, but it was impossible. My eyes closed without me telling them to and I could have sworn the sensation returned. I was completely at his mercy in that moment. Even thinking about it pretty much put me back in that exact same situation.

  “Greenly,” Lydia begged, “please, whatever insecurities and fears you’re still harboring, please just do one thing for me. Don’t let the bizarre day you had today make you write off Roman. He really is…”

  “Yeah, I know,” I broke in. “You don’t have to convince me of how great Roman is. That’s not the problem, sis. I am. There was little chance he would have been interested anyway, but now…it’s not going to happen. Sorry.”

  I didn’t know why I was apologizing to her when it was my heart that would never be the same. Whatever. She tried. I screwed it up. Roman and I would go our separate ways, only bumping into each other at the occasional Lydia-hosted party, and probably both turning the other way to avoid an awkward conversation. That was just the truth of it. Nothing was going to change it at this point.

  Returning to the beginning of our conversation, I couldn’t help asking again, “Lydia, why did you even set me up with him in the first place?” Roman himself had said he’d asked her not to set him up with anyone.

  Lydia sighed, but it didn’t sound as heavy as before. It sounded strangely optimistic, in fact. “I think that’s a question you need to ask Roman,” she said. “Goodnight, Greenly. Kiss the boys for me, okay?”

  “Yeah, sure,” I mumbled, confused by her response. The call ended and I gingerly stuffed the phone back into my pocket, only to look up and find Roman stepping out onto the deck looking more nervous than I felt.