I wasn’t kidding myself, even though I knew Shane wanted more than I was willing to give, he and I were finding a middle ground. A stage of some sort, a fucked up place that kept us trudging across the sun beaten earth in the hope of finding a place where we could drink from the fountain of trust and actually name what we were to one another. Until then, Shane and I were simply known as laundry buddies. Laundry buddies that kept certain information off limits, it could have been the way I chose to answer him when he asked me what I did for a living or why I scurried off before dark. I think he was convinced I was a vampire of some sort.
Shane somehow persuaded me into having lunch together on Mondays at different Cajun restaurants. He said he wanted me to compare Boxing Room with other restaurants around the city. I knew he used it as an excuse to keep bringing me yellow roses. I agreed to it, but only on one condition, we chose places far enough away from the Tenderloin. The further away the better, the last thing I needed was another incident where I was confronted by a crazy fuck.
It was our fourth laundry day together and as usual we were sitting on the washing machines. Not that I was really counting how many Thursdays we hung out . . . Okay, so maybe I was, but I had to, Shane was so sentimental I didn’t want him to think I wasn’t aware of how many days we were friends or the fact that this next Monday marked the fourth yellow rose he was gonna give me. Each rose saved and pressed between the thin pages of a back-breaking huge Bible my friend’s parents gave me right before they kicked me out of their house. It was the perfect use for a book I only cracked open once to come up with a name for the streets. I never ended up finding a name from the Bible, not one I wanted to use while making a living. I ended up with the name Twyla after reading about a female warden at some prison somewhere who always carried the Bible under her arm.
The washing machines vibrated and whistled a loud tune on the spin cycle. It was my favorite moment with Shane, a moment where we just sat silent, nothing said, no cautious words, I didn’t have to watch what spewed from between my lips because he couldn’t hear me anyway. It was the moment I thought about telling him what I did and I visualized him accepting me for who I was and not what I had to do to make a living.
“Hey, I was thinking—”
“Well, there’s your problem right there. What are you doing thinking?” I interrupted, teasing him as I nudged my elbow into the side of his gut.
“Hah, hah, hah, very funny. No, seriously, I want to take you somewhere special tomorrow,” Shane said proudly.
“Special?” I asked.
“Yeah, I was thinking, we’ve been friends for over a month and I have never taken you over to my favorite place to just hang out.” His eyes dropped to my hands in my lap as I scraped the dark-red polish from my thumbnail.
“Shane, you know I don’t do surprises. Not like that.”
“Well, come on, just this one time let me surprise my friend Complicated Rose with something unexpected. I’ve followed your lead, kept your rules, let me just have this one little thing. Let me take you some place that is very special to me.”
He hopped off the washing machine, shuffled in front of me and wedged himself between my knees. His hands burned hot through my jeans as his fingers curled around my waist. It wasn’t uncommon that he’d find ways to touch me that told me he wanted more.
I pushed him back and pulled my legs up crisscross, resting my elbows on my knees. I looked down at my fingernails; they looked so naked without polish.
“I don’t know. Where is it? What time would we be back? It’s a Friday, and well, what am I going to tell Sybil? I . . . I . . . I just don’t know if that’s such a good idea.” I pulled my thumb up to my mouth and started chewing on my cuticle.
I knew I looked crazy to him, but he’d never get it. I couldn’t do a relationship. I couldn’t even kinda go there. We’d already spent way too much time together as friends, now he wanted to take me somewhere special to him without me knowing where it was? Hell no, that wasn’t gonna work for me, not for the prostitute who couldn’t throw a rock in the Tenderloin without hitting one of her tricks . . . okay, that was a little dramatic, but still.
“Rose, I’m not going to steal you away for the weekend. God knows the crazy hours you keep doing whatever it is that you do. I just wanted to take you over to the East Bay so we can go hiking, that’s all,” he groaned.
“Hiking? Do I look like a girl who hikes?” I said trying to lighten the mood and change the energy that ramped up between us.
“Yeah, I think you do! You look like a girl who should say yes to hiking with her best-guy-friend. Especially since he promises to have her back before her carriage turns into a pumpkin.” His eyelids closed half way in a lazy blink before his mouth broke into a sexy smile as he crossed his heart with his fingers pressed against his black T-shirt. If he only knew, if I’d let him into my head . . . he’d see the struggle I have had with having him as a friend.
“Fine, I can’t believe I’m going to agree to this . . . I’ll go hiking with you tomorrow. Where do you want to meet?”
“I was thinking I’d pick you up at your place.”
“Shaaaane,” I moaned.
“Rooooose,” he replied.
“Why are you being so . . . persistent?”
“Why are you being so . . . complicated?”