“Well, look who showed up! My new friend, Little Clumsy Rose. I guess she decided to come back to the Stop and Wash!”
I noticed he wasn’t tending to a washing machine, or hanging out by the dryers.
“Yeah, well, I have to keep up on my laundry, you know. Can’t waitress in filthy clothes, you don’t get very many tips when you’re stinky.” I shoot him a quick wink.
“And here I thought it was the world’s best suckers that brought you back.”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong, Shane, this place’s suckers are hard to pass up, but I tend to be a Blow Pop type of girl,” I teased.
“Well, then next time I’ll make sure you have at least one Blow Pop in every color and flavor.” He raised his eyebrows in a curious tic.
“Now you’re just tryin’ to sweet talk me. How ‘bout helping me find a washing machine that’s unoccupied?”
“That sounds good. We don’t want a repeat of what happened last time,” he mused.
“I can’t believe how busy this place is.”
“Oh, yeah, so give me this.” He shot me a quick wink, before snatching my laundry sack, flinging it over his shoulder.
“Stay close now,” his voice rumbled, coming out with more of a growl than I expected.
My heart drummed in my chest as I watched his biceps flex against the sleeves of his T-shirt. I followed him into a back corner of the laundromat, pushing away the feelings swelling in my gut and surging into my chest. I took several deepening breaths thinking about the words I wanted to use to build a wall between us.
“Are you implying that I am clumsy?”
“No, but I’d hate to see you wrestle with a cart in this place now.” Shane looked around and every machine was running, every dryer was humming with clothes dancing in the glass windows. As we swiftly passed the back counter, he snatched a handful of suckers. When I glanced back, every counter had a plastic bowl filled with suckers.
“Where are your clothes? Don’t tell me you’re the one creepy guy who decides to hang out in random laundromats around the city ripping off cheap suckers?”
“Nope, I only hang out at this one; and I don’t steal suckers.” He laughed. I didn’t laugh. “Talking about stinky waitresses and cheap suckers, we never finished our conversation about Cajun food last time we hung out.”
“You mean the only time we hung out,” I corrected him.
“It’s just semantics. You eat right?”
“Um, last time I checked it’s vital to my existence.”
“Well, that’s good news, because it just so happens that I must eat to survive too.”
“Yeah, well the last time I checked, suckers don’t count as eating.”
“To whose definition?” he quipped.
“Mine. Suckers are a lick and swallow product, eating actual food is a much more detailed and necessary activity.”
“Well, then why don’t I take you to Boxing Room . . . for some required nourishment?”
“I can’t today, but thanks.”
“It’s vital to both of our survival.” He leaned closer to me and continued, “I wasn’t thinking about today.”
“Oh—”
“I was thinking some . . . other day?” His expression was pleading.
“Well, I’ll be busy.”
“Really? You already know you’re busy?”
“Yes.”
“Six months from now?”
I nodded my head. I didn’t know what I was doing every minute of the day, but I was pretty sure I was too busy to start something with him.
“How can you turn down eating dinner? The very act is essential to our human survival.”
“Oh, I survive quite well on my own, thank you.”
“Yeah, but why alone? Why not have dinner with someone . . . like me?”
“Look, Shane, Truthfully, I just can’t really see anyone right now. My life is a little . . . complicated.”
“Complicated? Everyone’s life is complicated, Rose.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t have time to do complicated.”
“Complicated Rose. What if seeing wasn’t what I was thinking? I just thought we could have dinner, as friends?” he said, holding out a rainbow of suckers in front of his face. His eyes were saying something so much more than friends.
“Yeah, well it starts with suckers and ends with heartbreak,” I answered as I pulled the green sucker from the cluster of colors.
“You have us heartbroken over suckers and all I’m trying to do is go eat Cajun food and get to know my new friend, Complicated Rose.”
“Damn, you are persistent, Shane, and I can’t do dinner, anyway.”
“Ah, come on . . . fine, how about having lunch . . . just friends . . . I promise,” he said as he crossed his long fingers over his heart.
My body gave a little. It was almost unbearable staying strong, when all I wanted to do was throw myself at him and let him take me every which way to Sunday. A slight smirk filled my face.
“Thank you, Persistent Shane, for saving me from blasting headfirst into the washing machine the other day.” I pushed my hand out to him.