“Yeah, I know Jim-Billy,” I told her.
“Well,” she went on, “Jim-Billy’s wife died in a house fire when he was on the road and he blames himself because he didn’t change the batteries in the smoke detector when no one knows if that would have helped, if she could even have been saved. I got over what happened to me easily because I had Tate but he beat himself up for a while because he felt he didn’t protect me. Men take this shit personally. They think they can stop it when they can’t. It’s likely what happened to Misty was going to happen no matter what Chace did. But Chace won’t see it that way. He liked her or not, he’s probably taking it personally.”
“So what you’re saying is, Chace has a lot of demons,” I surmised.
“Yeah, honey, that’s what I’m saying,” she replied. “But I’ll tell you more. First, a man like that is worth care, honesty, generosity and forgiveness. Second and most important for you right now, a man like that does not have a woman kiss him and he doesn’t like it and he kisses her back. If he doesn’t like it, he’ll set her away. If he likes it, he’ll kiss her back. He liked it when you kissed him, Faye. Maybe too much to deal with when he’s dealing with demons the size he’s got. But he most definitely liked it.”
I liked that.
A lot.
So much something mortifying and painful became not so much of either.
I didn’t tell Laurie this.
I just whispered, “Okay.”
“I’ll also tell you that if a man like that wants a woman to leave him the fuck alone, he does not go after her in the dark in order to walk her home. He does not chase a kid for her. He does not dance in her apartment with her at midnight. He does not bring her coffee. He does not kiss her. He does not enumerate all the things he likes about her including the kiss he insinuated he didn’t like. And he especially does not make a date for pizza.”
Her voice dipped quiet.
“Bottom line, baby, he likes you. Not a little, a lot. He’s struggling with shit and he’s taken that out on you. I know the insults he hurled at you stung, boy do I know. I also know some men, or at least men like that, are not real good with exploring their feelings. So stuff comes out of their mouths they can’t control and don’t mean. With Chace, I don’t know, it could be even more. It could be his head is such a mess, he wanted to protect you from that and was trying to push you away by being deliberately cruel when he didn’t mean a word of it. Now, what you need to do is read the signs, listen to your heart and decide if you want to offer this man care, honesty, generosity and forgiveness and have pizza with him.”
She hesitated, let that sink in then went on, still talking quietly but now gently and giving me the honesty.
“It could all turn bad, Faye, it could, no doubt about it. But it could all end up being better than you ever dreamed. That’s your decision. That’s your risk. Straight up, if I was in your shoes, I’d take your risk. I’d do it again and again and again. I’m not lying. I’d relive every minute I’ve shared with Tate, even the ones when things were insane or they hurt or they were confusing, and I’d jump for joy if I was offered the opportunity to do it on a continual loop for eternity.”
“Wow,” I whispered.
“Exactly, honey, wow,” she whispered back.
“I think I’ll have pizza with him,” I decided and heard Lauren laugh softly.
Through it, she said, “I think in a couple of weeks or months or however long it takes for you to break through, I’ll bake you a cake to celebrate. Just you, me, cake, champagne and both of us smug in the knowledge that we set the world to rights while your world was tilting crazily.”
I hoped I got the chance to eat Lauren’s cake.
I really, really did.
“I’ll take you up on that and bring the champagne,” I told her.
“It’s a deal,” she replied.
I took in another breath and stated, “Now I have another problem.”
She hesitated before she asked, “And that would be?”
“Well, what do I wear for pizza at my place?”
At that, Lauren again burst out laughing.
This brought me to now, after work, in my apartment, at two to seven wearing what Lauren suggested I wear. Something comfortable but not something that said I didn’t care enough to make an effort. A nice pair of jeans. My most kickass dark brown leather belt. The plum scoop-necked, long-sleeved top I wore to work. The three-tiered necklace with the tiny spiky bits that hung down and the silver hoop earrings that I also wore to work.