Choose Me (The Me Novellas) (13 page)

A slight frown creased her powdered forehead. “What?”

“
You didn’t say anything about renters.”

“
I just did.”

I held up my hand. “Back up. You have renters moving in here?”

Mom must have noticed the look on my face because she chewed her lip and said, “Hank, dear. Why don’t you tell her?”

My dad cleared his throat. “We’re not ready to sell the house here. But we do need to find a place to stay in Florida. And we need income.”

“
What about your band gig?” I asked sarcastically.

“
Well, sure. Mitch has plans to pay me a certain percentage of the revenue he takes in.”

“
Which is
…
?”

“
Technically, he’s in the red right now. Start-up costs,” he explained.

I rolled my eyes.

“
So, we thought it would be a good idea to rent out the house.”

My mom couldn’t contain herself any longer. “And we found someone the same day we advertised. Isn’t that amazing? Like it was meant to be!”

“
So, what? I’m going to be the landlord while you’re gone?” I sincerely hoped the renters didn’t have kids. Or dogs. The floors were thin.

“
Not exactly,” Mom said, the frown reappearing. She fingered the cushion and wouldn’t look me in the eye.

“
No?” I asked.

“
No,” she said. “You see, honey, we had to rent the whole house. Even your apartment. They’re moving in next week.”

TWO

I sank into the arm chair. “You’re kicking me out? Of my own house?”

Mom clasped her hands in her lap. “Oh, honey, no. Not at all.”

“
Yes. You are,” I said. “You’ve just rented the house. The whole house. Remember?”

“
Well
…
” her voice trailed off and she looked to my dad for reinforcement. He’d picked up the Cosmo magazine again. She sighed. “Katie, don’t you think it’s
…
it’s time?”

“
Time for
what?
”

“
For you to fledge, dear.” She smiled, a little teary-eyed. “All babies leave the nest at some point.”

“
Most aren’t kicked out,” I snapped. I stared at the ceiling, my mind spinning. I was in my last semester of college with no idea what I was going to do after graduation. I had a part-time job that barely covered clothing expenses and gas. And now I had no place to live.

“
Don’t think of it as a kick,” she said. “More like a gentle nudge.”

I stood up, anger flaring. “I have less than a week to find a place to live, Mom. I’m at a hugely transitional point in my life and you and Dad have suddenly decided, hey! Let’s add more stress to Katie’s life!”

“
That’s not fair,” she said.

“
No, what you’re doing isn’t fair.” I’d heard enough.

I grabbed my keys and purse from the table and left, slamming the door hard behind me. I fumed as I crossed the driveway to my car. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and called Ben.

“
Hello?” I could tell from the background noise that he was still at the restaurant.

I gritted my teeth. “Are you working?”

“
Nah,” he said. “Having a beer.”

“
I need to talk.”

The noise lessened a bit. “So come down. We can talk here.”

I sighed. “Alone.”

Ben worked at The Ale House on Medicine Lake. His thirty hours as a waiter usually morphed into a forty-plus hour week. He was always there, waiting for his shift to start or finishing up with a beer after. When we’d first started dating at the end of last summer, I’d loved meeting him on the outdoor patio for a drink. We’d sit and talk and watch the sun set over the lake, the sailboats silhouetted against the dusky sky. But the weather changed and the outdoor patio closed and sitting inside at the bar, night after night, got a little old. Sort of like our relationship.

“
Bar’s empty. I’ll be alone.” His tone was dismissive. “See you in a few.”

I drove down 94, trying to avoid the massive potholes that dotted the freeway. For the first time ever, I was happy to have a minefield of sunken road to navigate. It kept my mind focused on maintaining my car’s alignment, not on the fact that I was going to be homeless and alone in a week’s time.

I pulled into the parking lot and killed the engine. A few hardy souls sat outside on the patio, braving the cool breeze that blew in off the lake as they sipped their craft beers. I shivered and stuffed my hands into the pockets of my sweatshirt. Yesterday had been a lot warmer. Today, it almost felt like snow.

Ben was at the bar, his back to me. His blond hair was cropped short, the sides and back shaved smooth. He must have gotten a haircut. I sat down on the stool next to him and signaled to Dylan, the bartender on duty. Dylan smiled, nodded and poured a Blue Moon.

He slid it across the bar. “Hey, Katie.”

“
Hey,” I said, reaching for the beer.

“
You look frazzled,” Dylan said, raising an eyebrow. “Everything cool?”

“
Nothing is cool,” I said. “But thanks for asking.”

“
Hope it gets better soon then,” he said before moving down the bar to another customer.

“
Already drinking?” Ben asked. He leaned over and kissed me full on the mouth and I leaned into him. He smiled. “Must be something big.”

He knew my drinking habits well. I rarely drank in the afternoon.

I grabbed the chilled glass and took a huge swallow. “My parents are moving,” I said.

Ben raised his eyebrows. “Oh, yeah? Where to?”

“
Florida.”

He set his bottle down. “Really? I thought you were gonna say some place local. Like the retirement home.”

I frowned at him. My parents were a good fifteen years older than his but he always acted like they had one foot in the grave.

“
Kidding,” he said, giving my knee a quick squeeze.

There was a plate of half-eaten nachos next to him and he picked up a chip dripping with cheese. “So, what?”

“
So, they’re renting the house out.” I grabbed a chip, too, and popped it in my mouth. “Like, next week. Including my place.”

He set his beer down. “Whoa. Are you serious?”

I nodded.

“
What the hell?” Ben sounded upset for me and I was glad. Glad someone was on my side.

“
Right?” I sighed. I felt the tears begin to form and I hated it, tried to stop it. I was almost twenty-two years old and I was not going to cry over my parents moving. Leaving me.

“
So what are you going to do?”

“
I don
’
t know,” I admitted. I felt my spirits sink further. I’d sort of been holding out hope that maybe Ben would have an answer.

“
That’s a low blow,” Ben said. He drained his bottle of Surly. “Maybe you could talk to Dani. See about crashing with her for a while.”

Dani was my best friend. We didn’t see each other much, but it didn’t matter; we could go for days or weeks, even, without talking and pick up right where we left off—as best friends. She also happened to live with the biggest slob of a boyfriend on the planet. I was pretty sure they couldn’t find me a place to sleep in their hoarders-worthy apartment if they tried.

“
No. Not a chance.” I chewed on my lip and thought.

Ben drummed his fingers on the bar, a habit I was not fond of and found even more irritating at that moment. I resisted the urge to smash his fingers into the polished wood.

“
You thinking of moving with them?”

I gaped at him. “What?”

He shrugged. “I dunno. Just thought maybe–”

I cut him off. “I have three weeks of school left, Ben. And I’m not sure if you know this, but I have a boyfriend here
…
”

He averted his eyes, focusing instead on the flat screen mounted above the bar. Some golf tournament in a place that looked much warmer than Minnesota. Probably Florida, I thought disgustedly.

“
Right. School.” He made no mention of our relationship keeping me there. Or the kiss he’d just given me. Or the knee squeeze.

Which, in the grand scheme of things, sucked.

“
What’s my major?” I asked suddenly.

If you asked Ben about his girlfriend, he’d mention two things. I worked part-time at an independent bookstore and I was almost done with school. That was it. Oh, he might tell his buddies that we’d slept together on our second date, but for the casual acquaintance, that was it. I’d heard him recite those same two facts countless times to friends and family members. The first couple of times, it sounded nice. After that, it sounded repetitive. I was pretty sure he didn’t know any more about me. Not because I hadn’t told him, but because he never listened.

“
What?”

“
My major. Why am I going to school?”

He looked at the ceiling, his brow furrowed. “Uh
…
English?”

I frowned, a little pissed that he’d gotten it right. “OK. But what emphasis?”

He rolled his eyes. “How the hell am I supposed to know?”

“
Because you’re my boyfriend,” I said. “Because we’ve been dating long enough for you to know.”

He cracked open a second bottle of Surly and took a swig. “Look, Katie. I’m not that kind of guy. You know that.”

Which was such a bizarre answer. Not the kind of guy to pay attention? The kind of guy to care? The kind of guy who had never developed his long term memory unless it related to fantasy football?

The problem was, I did know he wasn’t that kind of guy. And I wanted more. Right then, I needed more.

“
So what kind of guy are you?” I asked.

He smiled. “Good-looking.”

That, he definitely was. Blond hair. Blue eyes. A sculpted body he worked obsessively at.

He was also clearly modest.

“
A hard-worker,” he said.

He worked hard at the things he cared about. His job. His body. Restoring his ’65 Camaro.  Fantasy football. Emptying a beer bottle.

“
What kind of
boyfriend
are you?” I asked.

“
I dunno.” He pointed the bottle at me. “Wouldn’t you be better qualified to answer that question?”

He had me there. The only problem was, what I wanted him to be wasn’t what he was. I wanted a boyfriend who would take the news I’d just given him and wrap his arms around me and tell me everything was going to be OK. I wanted a boyfriend who acted the way books and magazines portrayed the male species: a take charge, solve-all-your-problems kind of guy. I wanted a boyfriend who cared about me, who loved me and who was more interested in me than TV golf. And I was pretty sure that wasn’t Ben.

“
Can I ask you something?”

“
Sure.” He looked at me expectantly.

“
Do you love me?”

He reached his hand out to cover mine. “Of course I do, babe.”

I pulled my hand away. “Why?”

“
What do you mean, why? What kind of question is that?”

“
It’s the kind of question a girl asks her boyfriend when he seems more interested in everything but her. My life has just imploded. And what do you ask me?” I stared at him. “You asked me if I was moving with my parents.”

“
What the hell does that have to do with me loving you?”

“
Because if you loved me,” I said slowly, working it through in my mind. “If you loved me, you wouldn’t have asked. You wouldn’t have even entertained the thought of letting me go. Wondering if I would. None of that.”

He shook his head. “Are you PMSing or something?”

He was also the kind of guy who’d ask
that
. Because, you know, anytime females get upset, it’s because we’re about to start. Not that I couldn’t be insane during that time, but I wasn’t sure there was a worse thing for him to ask at that moment.

“
Do not drag my hormones into this discussion.” I waited for Dylan to take away the empty nachos plate before continuing. “You know what I expect a boyfriend to do?”

He started to answer but I cut him off. “Be concerned. Act like they care.”

“
I do!”

“
Offer solutions.”

“
I did,” he said. “I suggested you move in with Dani.”