Smart Girls Think Twice (20 page)

After they left, Emma sank onto the futon and wondered when was the last time she felt calm. No amount of tai chi could settle her nerves at this point. She was too far gone on far too many fronts.

Chapter Thirteen

Emma
didn’t see Jake for two days and she missed him. She got a lot of work done but not as much as she wanted. Because she wanted Jake and that kept her thinking about him instead of her research.

Oliver was thinking about Lulu and their upcoming date. “She likes the highlights,” he told Emma.

“Yeah, so you’ve told me.” About three million times.

“Are you menstruating?”

Emma almost choked.
“Whaat?”

“You just seem very, uh, irritable today.”

“I’m not used to living with someone in such close quarters.” Even growing up in the trailer and sharing a bedroom with Leena, she hadn’t felt this cramped.

“Yes, well . . . I wanted to talk to you about that. I’ve got another place to stay.”

“Not with my parents?”

“No, of course not.”

Emma was thankful for that.

“I’m going to stay with Jake.”

“Whaat?!”
Emma was even more incredulous than when Oliver had asked her about menstruating.

“Don’t look so surprised.”

“I’m stunned. When did you talk to Jake?”

“At the bar where he works.”

“And he invited you to move in with him?”

“He pointed out how small your place was and mentioned that his apartment has two bedrooms.

So does Lulu’s apartment. Did you know she lives over the Tivoli Theater? Not that I’d move in with her before we’ve even had our first date. Jake has been giving me great tips.

You know, guy sort of stuff. Advice about women, that sort of thing.”

“I’m not sure Jake is the best person to be giving you advice about women,” Emma said.

“Why not? He’s known lots of them. I don’t have the exact mathematical number, but I’m sure it’s very high, in the hund—”

Emma interrupted him. “I don’t want to hear how many women Jake has had.”

“Right. Of course you don’t. That makes sense. I have to say that a lot of this male-female relationship stuff isn’t very logical.”

“I’ll tell you something that’s logical. A study done by sociologists in 1992 found that couples who think of each other as their best friend and who like each other as a person are the most successful at having a happy relationship. I’ll bet that’s not what Jake told you.”

Oliver was confused. “I was only four years old in 1992.”

Emma was aggravated. “You’re missing the point.”

“I think of you as a friend and like you as a person,” Oliver pointed out with his customary logic. “That doesn’t mean I view you as a potential girlfriend, and I told Jake that.”

“Told him what?”

“That you and I are not a romantic couple. There are no pheromones here. The very idea . . .

Ick.”

He scrunched his face as though he’d detected an offensive odor. “Plus you’re a lot older.”

“Stop.” Emma held up her hand. “Enough already. Go move in with Jake.”

“If you’re afraid that I’m going to cramp your style by staying with Jake, don’t worry. Just put a sock on the front door and I’ll know you two are seeking sexual release with one another and therefore want to be alone. I can go to the library or to Cosmic Comics and hang out with Lulu.”

Emma looked at him as if he’d just stepped off the Star-ship
Enterprise
. “Where do you get these ideas?”

“I read about the sock thing from a blog on the Internet.” Oliver gathered up his large backpack and sleeping bag. “I can e-mail you the link if you’d like.”

“Don’t bother. If Jake sticks a sock on his front door, it’s not because of me.”

“Of course.” Oliver opened the door to leave. “You and Jake can both seek your sexual release here in your place.”

“Now that sounds like an interesting possibility,” Jake said from the threshold.

“I was just assuring Emma that I wouldn’t cramp your style,” Oliver said.

“Nice of you.” Jake sent a wicked grin Emma’s way. “Wasn’t that nice of him?”

Emma just gritted her teeth. She’d been a mess for the past two days and here was Jake, looking as sexy as ever, acting as if nothing had changed between them. Acting as if she hadn’t panicked at her powerful response to him and kicked him out of her apartment the other day.

“So how long have you two been talking about this subject?” Jake asked. “And who brought it up first?”

“I did.” Oliver raised his hand as if he were in class. “I was trying to be helpful, but Emma doesn’t appear to have welcomed my comments.”

“She’s just shy. She’s definitely not easy.”

Emma’s face burned. So did the heated glare she shot at Jake.

“In fact, Emma is one of the most complicated women I’ve ever run into,” Jake said.

“Really?” Oliver was skeptical. “She doesn’t seem that complicated to me. Lulu is more complicated.”

“That’s because you’re attracted to Lulu,” Jake said.

“So if a guy is attracted to a girl, he thinks she’s complicated?”

“Only if she really is complicated. And worthwhile.”

“Right.” Oliver tried to sound confident, but he still looked confused.

“You two can leave now,” Emma said.

“Not until I do this.” Jake tugged her into his arms and kissed her. She was too surprised to protest. Then she was enjoying herself too much to protest. Then she remembered that made her easy.

Did she really care at this point? Could she be complicated and easy? Did Jake think so?

When had she turned into the kind of woman who bowed to what a man thought of her?

What happened to the smart woman who stood on her own two feet? She was right here, getting kissed senseless.

She had to regain control before she lost herself entirely. Emma pulled away.

“Definitely not easy,” Jake murmured.

She didn’t know what to say. She felt such a mixed-up mess of conflicting emotions—

ranging from desire to doubt. She watched Jake and Oliver leave and wondered when her life had started spinning so out far out of her control.

Jake wondered how he’d ended up with a dog and a roommate. A male roommate. A geek.

Jake had shared apartments with guys before. There were plenty of times that a group of them had all crashed at someone’s place, camping on the floor in wall-to-wall sleeping bags and staying until the beer and the snow ran out.

But they’d all been snowboarders, not a quantum physicist wannabe. Big difference.

So how exactly had he ended up here with a dorky Mutt and a dorky Oliver? Neither had anything to do with his reason for being in Rock Creek in the first place—to find his birth mother. He was getting closer to that goal, but he kept getting distracted. Mostly by Emma.

She was the reason he was stuck with Mutt and Oliver. This was all her fault.

But the thought of another man, even a geeky scientific one, sleeping within feet of Emma had driven Jake crazy. He’d had to get Oliver out of Emma’s apartment so he’d moved the geek in with him. Kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing. No surprise there. Most of his adult life was spur of the moment, living in the moment, and sometimes messing up the moment.

So here he was, four hours into his latest gig as Oliver’s host and his advisor about all things female. The guy might be going to MIT but he sure was clueless about the ladies.

Oliver’s date with Lulu was tonight. He was more nervous than a rookie in his first race.

“Which T-shirt should I wear?” Oliver held up a GEEK IS CHIC and then an EINSTEIN

ROCKS tee.

“How should I know?”

“What about the pants? Are these okay?”

“Again, how should I know?” Oliver’s crestfallen expression gave Jake a twinge of guilt so he added, “You look okay.”

“Lulu said she liked my blond highlights,” Oliver said proudly.

“Good for you.” It was only now occurring to Jake that if Zoe was his birth mother, then Lulu would be his half sister.

Okay, maybe it had occurred to him before, but he’d wiped it from his mind because it felt weird.

All of this was weird. That must be why he suddenly felt the urge to deliver some kind of protective big-brother speech warning Oliver not to take advantage of Lulu.

It was more likely that Lulu would take advantage of Oliver. The guy didn’t stand a chance.

Lulu could take care of herself. Oliver couldn’t.

“Listen, just be cool, dude,” Jake said.

“Right.” Oliver pulled on the EINSTEIN ROCKS T-shirt, messing up his highlighted hair and making him look as though he’d just stuck his finger in an electric outlet.

Lulu was coming to pick up Oliver at Jake’s place before Jake headed off to work the late shift at the tavern. Which meant she’d be here any minute now.

When Lulu knocked on the door, Oliver went berserk. “She’s here! She’s here!”

“Dude.” Jake shook his head.

“Right.” Oliver stood still. “Be cool. No problemo. I am totally cool. Cooler than liquid hydrogen, which is negative 252.87 degrees Celsius.”

Lulu banged on the door.

Oliver nervously looked to Jake for his cue.

“Open the freaking door,” Jake growled.

“Right. Of course.” Oliver ran so fast he almost tripped over his own feet.

“Live long and—”

“Prosper. Yeah, whatever. Hi, Mutt.” Ignoring Oliver, Lulu bent down to hug the dog.

Jake immediately knew something was up. Oliver remained clueless. “So how’s it going?”

Jake asked Lulu.

“Life sucks,” she said.

“Yeah, sometimes it does.”

“Zoe is still in town. I don’t know why she doesn’t just leave me alone.”

“Because she’s your mother.”

“In name only.”

“So I’m guessing you’re still avoiding her?” Jake asked.

Lulu nodded. “All week long.” She straightened and glared at Oliver, who had remained silent.

“I’ve got my period and I’m in a rotten mood. Are you sure you still want to go out with me?”

The poor sap just beamed at her. “Definitely.”

“Have fun, you two.” Jake ushered them out the door.

Alone at last.

“Woof.”

Not quite.

“What do you want?” Jake said.

“Woof.”

“Don’t even try to pretend that you understand what I’m saying. I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to myself. You just happen to be in the room.”

“Woof.”

“One thing’s for damn sure. You’re never going to see me acting so whacked out over a woman.

Never gonna happen, my friend. I’m just here biding my time to get some answers about my birth mother and then I’m gone. Hitting the road. You know what my buddy Andy would tell me, don’t you? He had this saying—‘Handle every situation like a dog. If you can’t eat it or hump it, just piss on it and walk away.’”

“Woof.”

“I’m good at walking away. From women, from commitments, even from killer avalanches.

Yeah, I’m a damn Olympic gold medalist at walking away.” Jake paused to look at Mutt.

“Don’t give me that hang-dog look.”

Mutt sat his bony ass down on Jake’s bare foot.

“You’re not gonna keep me here when it’s time for me to go. No kick-ass sociologist with incredible legs and a complicated brain is gonna keep me here either. Got that?”

Mutt wagged his tail at him.

“I said got that?”

“Woof.”

“Good. As long as we’re clear. Now get off my foot before you break it.”

“Woof.”

“Did you see that? The guy in that rusty pickup just gave you the finger,” Oliver told Emma as they walked toward her Prius on Sunday. “He’s doing it again!”

Emma looked across the street to see Roy slowing his truck to stick his arm out the open window in order to give her the obscene gesture.

“Do you know him?” Oliver asked.

“You could say that.” Even from this distance she could see the anger emanating from Roy.

“Is he a friend of yours?”

“Do you think a friend of mine would greet me like that?”

“Of course not. You’re right. I wasn’t thinking straight. It’s just that everyone has been so nice here. I wasn’t expecting to see something like that.”

Roy had slowed his dilapidated truck to a crawl, making Emma very nervous.

“Come on.” She grabbed hold of Oliver’s arm. “Let’s stop here.” She tugged him into the tea shop.

The owner, Steve Daniels, was a former pro wrestler who’d married an English nanny. She doubted Roy would come in and confront a man twice his size. She was right. Roy took off.

“Can I help you?” Steve asked.

“Do you have any organic green tea?” Oliver asked.

“Loose or in tea bags?”

“Loose.”

“Right here.”

She waited while Steve and Oliver talked about the health benefits of green tea. “Nice move.” The compliment came from behind her, and she turned to see Nathan, the town sheriff, holding a box of tea bags in his hand.

“What?”

“Coming in here when you felt threatened by Roy. That was a smart move. I was just on my way out there to give him a ticket for holding up traffic, but there wasn’t any other traffic. Has Roy made any other contact with you? Tried to intimidate or threaten you in any way?”

“No.”

“Good. You’ll be sure to tell me if he does, right?”

She nodded.

“You may have noticed that he has a drinking problem, and that makes him do stupid things. Not that he is all that smart to begin with.”

“I heard that he isn’t happy about the recent changes here in Rock Creek.”

“If you’re thinking that he was giving the finger to Steve here at the tea shop, then I have to tell you that I find that an unlikely scenario. I know he’s got a grudge against you. I heard about the incident in Nick’s Tavern a few weeks back.”

“I’m sorry about that,” she said guiltily.

“No need for you to be sorry. Just be careful.”

“I try to be.”

“Yeah, my wife Skye told me you seemed to be the careful sort. But then, compared to her, a daredevil would be considered careful. She made me come in here to get her some kind of weird tea. Algee’s girl made him come in here too. We’re not really tea guys.”