Play Me (21 page)

“Yeah, I am too.”
I ran my hand through my hair. “I should have called.”

“Yeah, you should
have.” Ella was now gnawing at her lip.

“But I guess we
should talk,” I said, even though the last thing I wanted to do
was have
that
discussion
now
. That should be a short
discussion at least, but as I opened my mouth to tell Ella that I
wanted to be exclusive, she lowered her eyes to the floor and said:

“I think we
should take a break.”

Oh. Wait. What?

“It’s just
moving too fast.” Her own words were a rush and she wouldn’t
look at me.

“What?”
This was all wrong.

“I just really
need to focus on the competition and clearly there are things you
need to focus on at work and I think we just got a little caught up
in something that neither of us have time for.”

“Uh.” I
didn’t know what to say. Then a thought crossed my mind. A bad
thought. “Are you getting back together with Mark?” I
demanded. “Is that what he was doing here?”

“What?”
Ella blinked at me. “No, that’s not—”

“Because I would
prefer you just tell me the truth instead of jerking me around.”
I seethed, the hangover and the thought of Ella and Mark together
making my blood boil. “Guess I should have seen that coming,”

“Now you’re
being the jerk,” Ella accused, her face red.

“Am I? This guy
seems to call every time we’re together, obviously he still has
a thing for you.”

“I am not
interested in him,” Ella insisted.

“Then why didn’t
you tell me he was your ex-boyfriend? And that you lived together?
Obviously you didn’t tell me for a reason.”

She was silent. It was
then I noticed that her hair was pulled back in a bun and she was
wearing the same loose dark clothes she wore before we got together.

“Guess you’re
dressing for him now too.”

“What?”
Ella looked down at her outfit. “No, I just—”

“Different look
for different guys. I get it.” I realized I sounded a little
nuts, but I was too angry to stop myself.

“That’s not
what this is!”

“No? So this is
just some coincidence?”

She didn’t have a
response.

“Yeah, that’s
what I thought.” I shook my head. “Well, glad I could
provide you some temporary comfort before going back to the guy you
wanted all along.”

“Jake, I don’t—”

But I was already
halfway out the door.

“Don’t
bother,” I told her, casting one last look over my shoulder at
her, standing next to her piano. “I get it. It was fun. Thanks
for the lesson.”

I saw her flinch but it
was too late. I took my wounded pride and my hangover and walked out
of her apartment.

Ella

How had everything gone
so wrong so fast? Somehow in the aftermath of my panic attack and the
residual anger about Mark, I had allowed my insecurity to speak for
me and stupidly suggested that we take a break. What had I expected
to happen? Had I really expected Jake to ignore my request, take me
in his arms, and make me forget all the shitty things that had
happened just in the last few hours? No, of course not.

He did what anyone
would do when being faced with rejection. What I would have done.
What I basically did. He left. He got out.

I couldn’t blame
him. Clearly I was a mess.

What had I been
thinking these past few weeks? This wasn’t me. I wasn’t
the kind of girl that hooked up with a guy like Jake. I was the girl
who had panic attacks every time she tried to play in public. The
same girl who had stupidly thought she could win a competition that
required her to play in public. Mark was right. The judges had been
lenient. But they wouldn’t be for the last round. And here I
was, fooling around with some guy. Some guy that made my knees weak
and my pulse race and my heart . . . 

No. I was not getting
my heart involved in this.

Jake was gone. I had
done that to myself. But it was better this way. Really. It was.

My phone rang.

“El!”
Nina’s voice was cheery on the other end. “Okay, so I
know you said you weren’t interested but now that you and Jake
are dating and you seem more open to, you know, fun things, I really
think you should reconsider going to Burning Man with me this year.
It is so much fun. And nudity is entirely optional!”

I opened my mouth to
tell her no, but instead, I burst into tears.

Nina was in my
apartment within the hour, loaded down with ice cream and Channing
Tatum movies.

“He always makes
me feel better when I’m down,” she explained.

And even though the
last thing I wanted was to watch yet another sexy man I couldn’t
have, I let her load my laptop with the first movie as we climbed
onto my mattress with our ice cream. She didn’t ask any
questions, which I appreciated. I didn’t want to talk about it.
I didn’t want to think about it. But after a few minutes, I
couldn’t help myself and started crying into my mint chocolate
chip.

“Hey.” Nina
put aside her rocky road and gathered me into her arms. “Shh,
shh.” She stroked my hair. “Do you want to talk about
it?”

“It’s
Jake,” I blubbered.

“Well, yeah, I
figured it wasn’t your piano,” she responded. When I gave
her a confused look, she nodded towards it. “The only other
important man in your life,” she clarified.

“You think my
piano is a man?”

“Well, it’s
big, gorgeous, and completely silent unless you touch it,” Nina
sighed. “Sounds like my dream man, actually.”

I couldn’t help
smiling at that.

“I always thought
of my piano as a woman,” I told her. “Elegant and
majestic.”

“Yeah, I can see
that.” Nina tilted her head, looking at it. “Does it have
a name?”

Jake had asked me the
exact same question once.

I dug my spoon into my
ice cream. “No.”

“Struck a nerve?”
Nina wanted to know. When I didn’t say anything, she shrugged.
“Look, you don’t have to tell me anything. I’m
perfectly happy to sit here and eat ice cream and watch Channing
Tatum and his beautiful abs. But you are clearly upset about
something that I’m assuming has to do with Jake. So if you want
to talk about it, I’m here.”

“We broke up,”
I sniffled into my ice cream.

I waited,
half-expecting Nina to say that she knew it would happen, or that I
really wasn’t Jake’s type anyways, or some version of
what Mark had told me. But she didn’t.

“Then he’s
a moron,” she said firmly.

The tears flowed anew.
“I broke up with him,” I wailed.

“What? Why?”

“I don’t
know!”

Nina stopped the movie
and sat back against my wall.

“Okay.” She
crossed her arms. “Tell me everything that happened.”

I recounted him not
calling and Mark and the fight. She listened intently, nodding and
pursing her lips. When I was done, she picked up her ice cream and
took a bite.

“Okay,” she
said, looking as if she was a Supreme Court Justice presiding over a
very important case. “You’re both morons,” she
finally said.

“But—”

“Nope.” She
held up a hand as if she had made her final ruling. “This is
your fault as much as it is his. He should have called. You should
have been more understanding that he had a bad night and needed to
blow off steam. He shouldn’t have tried to tell you who you
could or could not spend time with. You shouldn’t have reacted
by breaking up with him. And he shouldn’t have accepted that,
as you were clearly out of your mind when you did it. So you’re
both wrong.” Nina took another bite of ice cream. “So now
the real question is, what are you going to do about it?”

“I don’t
know,” I confessed. “What if he decides that breaking up
was a good thing?”

“Then he’s
the moron,” Nina decided. “But I don’t think he
will. I think he’s crazy about you. And you’re crazy
about him.”

“I am,” I
told her, admitting it both to her and to myself.

“Good.” She
squeezed my hand. “Because I like him. And I like the two of
you together. He makes you happy.”

“And fat,”
I pointed out, remembering what my mom had said.

“You’ve
never looked better,” Nina told me. “And you’re my
sister, and I love you, but you need to have a life outside Frances.”

“Frances?”

“I’ve
decided your piano is named Frances,” Nina declared, pointing
her spoon at it. “And Frances is telling me that as much as she
loves you, you need to spend your time with someone other than her
once in a while.”

“Frances said
that?” I tried to hide my smile.

“She did,”
my sister continued. “She also said that she really likes Jake.
She says that you guys are a good match, and that he brings out the
best parts of you. She’s also really proud of you for wearing
colors, in fact.”

“Is she?” I
squeezed my sister’s hand.

“She is. And,
what’s that?” Nina tilted her head towards the piano.
“Oh, my. Frances says that the next time you get frisky on top
of her, make sure to clean her off when you’re done.”

“Nina!” I
smacked her, scandalized. “We have not gotten frisky on my
piano.”

“No?” She
looked at me, clearly not believing me.

“No . . . ”
A small smile escaped my lips. “It was the piano bench.”

“I knew it!”
Nina crowed. “I knew you were my sister after all. I’m so
proud!”

“Shut up.”
I poked her and settled back into the bed to watch Channing Tatum
gyrate and finish off my pint of ice cream.

Jake

“You look like
shit,” Dakota told me as I came into the restaurant that
afternoon.

“Thanks,” I
muttered, my head aching. I had spent the afternoon replaying the
argument with Ella over and over again. How had things gone wrong so
quickly? But I knew the answer. It was my fault. For not calling, and
then for acting like a total jerk about Mark. Once I was back in my
apartment, and my brain started to work again, I realized that I had
been totally out of line. But I couldn’t bring myself to go
back downstairs and apologize. After all, she had broken up with me.
I didn’t like it, but I had to respect it. Right?

And instead of resting,
I did the thing you’re not supposed to do when you’re
hung over and dehydrated, and I drank an entire pot of coffee without
eating anything. So now I was awake, but I wasn’t happy about
it at all.

I squinted at Dakota
who was clearly amused at my death-warmed-over appearance. “Why
do you look fine? Weren’t we at the same bar last night?”

“I guess I just
know how to handle my booze,” she bragged, flipping her braid
over her shoulder.

“Yeah, guess so,”
was all I could muster up before I dragged myself to my office.

Dakota followed, a
concerned frown on her face.

“Okay, so this
isn’t just a hangover.” She shut the door behind her.
“What’s wrong?”

I sat in my chair, in
the office I had worked really hard to get, and put my face in my
hands. My head pounded.

“Ella and I
broke up,” I mumbled.

“What?!”
Dakota’s shriek was like an ice pick to the brain and I winced.

“Not so loud,
okay?” I begged, peering up at her through my fingers. “I
feel crappy enough already.”

“I hope so.”
She crossed her arms, glaring down at me. “I can’t
believe you did that.”

“What?”

“I thought you
were done with this whole casual, quick-to-dump, bullshit,”
Dakota accused.

“Hey!” I
held up my hand. “Ella broke up with
me
.”

“What?”
Dakota’s expression shifted immediately from mad to
sympathetic. “Why?”

“I don’t
know.” I put my face back in my hands before she could see the
lie.

But Dakota was smart
and had known me for too long to be fooled by that.

“What did you
do?” she accused.

“I forgot to call
her last night,” I confessed. “My phone died and I was so
drunk that I just went home and fell asleep and forgot to call her.”

“Okay.”
Dakota leaned on the edge of my desk, chewing at her nail. “Okay,
that’s not great, but that’s not terrible. Did you
explain why you went out last night?”

“I said I had a
bad day at work,” I told her. “She seemed to understand.”

“But?”

“But, she thinks
things are moving too fast. We both have other things we need to
focus on.”

“So why not just
slow down? Take some time off until things settle down?”

“I don’t
know,” I said, though I knew trying to slow down with Ella
seemed as likely as slowing down a speeding train. I had fallen for
this girl, whether I had planned to or not. Fallen hard. And now I
had royally fucked it up.

Dakota was watching me,
the way she always did when she knew I was keeping something from
her.

“What else?”
she demanded. “What else did you do?”

I took a deep breath.
“I might have accused her of using me to get back with her
ex-boyfriend,” I said as quickly as I could, as if the faster I
said it, the less angry Dakota would be. It didn’t work.

“Jake!”

“I know, I know.”
I shook my head. “Look, I know I screwed up, but there isn’t
anything I can do about it, so can we just move on and focus on the
menu for tonight.”

“Really?”
Dakota put her hands on her hips and gave me her most disapproving
look. “You’re just going to give up?”

“Look.” I
pinched the bridge of my nose, praying for relief. Or death. “This
is what Ella wants.”

“No it’s
not!” Dakota insisted. “She was upset. You could have
fixed it, but you messed it up more.”

“I know that!”

“So what are you
going to do about it?”

But I didn’t have
an answer.