The Best of Fools (Jane Austen Book 2) (9 page)

Batman. Ever-inspiring.

This was cause for rejoicing.

I didn't lose a toe after all.

I never thought I'd say this, but I actually dreaded when Donovan came over. It became one of those things where he sorta morphed into this other being when he was around Zoe. An obnoxious being. And no, I'm not just being mean here. I admit I can be a little cynical and meanish, but this is just reality.

I made myself comfortable on my new couch, elevated my foot, took my pain meds, and sketched some jacket designs while Donovan and Zoe watched a movie all cuddled on the other couch. That's normal. I'm totally okay with cuddling. What starts to creep me out is when girls or guys snap their fingers and their partners jump to serve them. It's nice and all to sacrifice for each other, but the keyword there is "each other," okay? That means both people jump to serve
each other.

Not so with Don. Zoe this. Zoe that. She wanted a drink, he got it. She wanted an Oreo, he went out and bought some. She wanted milk, he bought a freaking cow.

Pen to paper, I watched Zoe out of the corner of my eye as she started moving her shoulders around. Then she rubbed her neck.
Wait for it, wait for it....

"My back hurts so bad," she said. I knew it. Called that one a mile away.

And next, the inevitable....

"Want me to massage it?" Donovan said as expected.

She'd deny it at least once.
And ... action!

"Oh, you're sweet, but you don't have to do that."

"No, I want to. I don't mind."

"No. It's okay." Oooh. A double denial.

"Come on. Turn over."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course he's sure," I said. "Just turn over already."

They stopped and looked at me.

I looked at my paper and shrugged. "Just trying to help move things along here."

"Don't be jealous because you have no one to rub your back for you," Zoe said.

I pointed my pencil toward her. "Pegged me."

"Okay," Donovan interjected. "Calm down."

"I'm calm," I said as I drew another pocket on the jacket design.

"Ugh." Zoe flipped over to her stomach, obviously not calm. When Donovan began to rub her shoulders, she whined and told him to go lower or higher or press his thumbs in more. "Donny, really? You call this a massage?

"I'm trying," he said.

"Try harder. This feels like something a first grader would do."

I sincerely hoped he had thrown that diamond ring out the window by now. What was he thinking?

"Donny!" she shrieked. "That's too rough." She sat up and motioned for him to lie down. "Let me show you how it's done."

He leaned down on his stomach and smirked at me. I smiled back, hiding my laughter. "Score," he mouthed. I shook my head, thankful that he was aware of how ridiculous she was acting.

He smiled during the entire massage as she instructed him on how and why her methods were so much better. "Can you show me that one again? I'm not sure I got it," he said about fifteen times.

I never understood his taste in girls.

Never would apparently.

"So," I said. "I'd like to go to Boston before I get the boutique started. I was thinking this weekend."

"With your toe?" Donovan sat up and looked at his very agitated girlfriend.

"I planned on bringing my toe, yes." I smiled.

Zoe rolled her eyes. "I thought I told you I didn't feel comfortable with that unless I could come?" She inched away from him and looked at her lap. "What's more important to you? Her? Or me?"

He did
not
want to answer that, but I nodded for him to say what she wanted to hear.

"You, babe," he said. "Of course."

"Then I want to come."

"You know," I said. "I've been having doubts about it anyway. Maybe I should just stay home."

"Really?" He searched my eyes for sincerity.

I gave him the most real fake sincerity I could manage. "Yeah. I don't want to upset Mom."

"Well." He eyed me up again, squinting. "Think about it a few days and let us know."

Oh, I'd think about it all right. And he'd forgive me when I left without them.

No freaking way I'd go on a car trip with Zoe. Absolutely not. I'd rather lose my toe for good.

I planned to leave Saturday morning. So I spent Friday night at Autumn's house so I could leave without anyone bothering me or asking about it. Anyone meaning ... the entity I now referred to as D and Z.

Autumn grabbed her iPad to rent a movie while I attempted to warm myself in her bed. She brought an enormous bowl of ice cream to me.

I pulled the blankets to my chin. "How in the hell do you expect me to eat ice cream when your air conditioner has made it, oh, below ten degrees in here?"

"Hell wouldn't be that cold."

"Huh?"

"You said how in the hell, but hell isn't cold."

"How would you know? Maybe hell is nothing like you imagine. Maybe it's worse. Maybe it's everything you hate about your life but fifty thousand times worse. Maybe it's the absence of everything good. Maybe it's—"

"Whoa. Put the horses back in the stable!"

"Sorry." I picked up the iPad. "Horses have been reigned back in and stabled. What shall we rent?"

"How about—"

"Really, though. What do you think hell is?"

She smacked the bed between us. "I knew it."

I blinked.

"I so knew you'd bring it back up. Horses may be in the stable, but they still won't stop yapping." She took a generous bite of ice cream and waved her spoon at me. "You're too deep for me."

I laughed. "Okay, okay. I'll let you pick the movie this time."

"Yeah, since you made me sit through another man flick."

"Not a man flick."

"Anything on National Geographic or the History Channel isn't considered a chick flick." She tapped the device a few times and brought up what I hoped, but knew, she would bring up. "This"—she clicked the rent button—"is gonna be so good."

I dropped my jaw and pretended to snore.

She whacked my arm. "Come on. It'll remind you of Alistair."

I snored louder.

She pinched my nose.

"Ow!"

"That's what my mom does to my dad." She laughed. "We'll be watching movies and when he falls asleep he snores so loud we can't hear. So she taps him, but nothing happens. The only thing that works is when she knees him in the shin or pinches his nose."

I laughed. "Sounds romantic."

"Well, they may not be Mr. and Mrs. Austen, but I like to think it's romantic in their own little way."

Something about those words stuck with me. For some reason I had never thought of it before. I always felt this pressure to be like the kind of romance my parents had, but maybe I needed to find my own romance. Maybe love wasn't Jane Austeny to me. Maybe it was something I hadn't discovered yet.

That kinda intrigued me.

"Ready?" She hit play.

"Ready as I'll ever be." I sighed as the movie started. Some indie film called
Like Crazy
about two peeps loving each other ... like crazy, I assumed. But as the movie progressed I felt something I'd never felt before. I felt my cheeks pulling my lips into a smile as the couple fell in love on screen. It was natural. It was real. It wasn't Jane Austeny or bursting with sparks. It was so ... nice.

The credits came up and I smiled as big as possible.

Autumn flopped back into her pillow and grunted. "Horrible ending." She looked back at the screen as though it would suddenly reveal the ending she hoped for. "Worst ever." She landed in the pillows again.

I crossed my arms over my chest and smiled. "Loved it."

"Are you serious?"

I nodded. "Loved it a lot."

"But that ending...."

"Was real."

"Annoying."

"Beautiful."

And so I learned ... beauty is annoying to some people. My beauty, at least.

Is it bad that I liked that?

Maybe it was the movie that I couldn't stop thinking about or maybe the emotional sound of
Secrets
by Jennifer Thomas as it serenaded me from my car's speakers. Whatever it was, I was now sitting in my car as gas poured into it and I was doing the thing.

The thing girls do when they like someone.

I was looking up every picture imaginable. Of Alistair. And zooming in. And feeling feelings. But not
the feels
. Just ... feelings.

A rap on my window and a boisterous laugh. What the?

Donovan pointed at my phone. "I told you!"

Great. I shoved the phone away. "I was—"

"You were just what?"

"What are you doing here?"

"Just got back from Autumn's house. Stalked you here."

The pump clicked. I got out and scooted around him. "But why were you at Autumn's?"

"I'm not dumb."

"You can't come with me."

"I can do whatever the hell I want, Jane. She doesn't own me."

"But...."

He opened my trunk and put his bag in. "I'm coming."

"When you're in love the person may not own you, but aren't they part of you? A part you don't want to piss off?"

He smiled. "Too late for that."

"You pissed her off?"

"Almost daily."

"So ... it's over?"

"I don't know."

"You bought a ring, Donovan." I shook my head. "See, this is exactly why I don't trust emotions."

"I didn't buy that ring." He grabbed my shoulders and pushed me around the car and into the passenger's seat. "Not recently anyway."

"Huh?"

He sat down in the driver's seat and turned the ignition. "Bought it for you."

He said it so casually. Like what the heck? He just said that and was he serious?

"Oh." I slapped his arm. "One of your dumb jokes again. I'm not falling for it this time."

He accelerated the car and turned out of the gas station. "I'm serious."

"No you're not."

He laughed. "I bought it when I was fifteen."

"What?" I laughed. "Now I know you're full of it."

He stopped at the red light and turned serious on me. "No, Jane. I really did."

I cleared my throat. "You what?"

"I bought it for you. I just figured it would be you and I saved up everything I could when I worked at the grocery store."

"Donovan James Slovak."

"Jane Maryanne Austen."

"Oooh. Not the middle name too."

He smiled. Playfully smiled at me like he smiled at his girlfriends. "I'm serious, you know."

I looked out the window. "I know."

We drove all the way to New York without saying another word. And I didn't feel the need to. Neither did he. The music filled in where we lacked and it filled in perfectly. Everything was comfortable with Donovan. Everything. Even awkward moments. That's how close we were.

He turned to me as we crossed the bridge over the Hudson River. "Wanna stay in New York for a night?"

I shrugged. "Why not?"

"That's exactly why I love you."

The words stayed there. In the air. Staring at me in a way only words could.

I nodded. "And ... suddenly this is strange."

"I didn't mean that." He shrugged it off. "I got over you years ago when you rejected me for the seventh time."

"Me? Rejected you? You never asked!"

"I implied."

"Well, either way it doesn't matter. You know how I am about guys."

"Yeah. I guess I was hoping you'd change."

"Maybe I will." I watched the sun glisten in the rippling water below. "Maybe I already am."

"If you were looking at that dude's pictures, you're changing."

I laughed. "Don't keep bringing it up."

"Oh, you know I will. Right after I bring up some different normal people music."

"Normal is as normal does and I'm not doing it."

I took a shower in the hotel while Donovan watched reruns of our favorite show,
The Office
, on Netflix. Part of me couldn't wait to get back out there and watch it with him. But part five of me—because I have many parts—had this weird nervous, sinking, trembly feeling rising in my stomach. Not like butterflies. Like worms.

Sorry, that was kinda sick.

What I mean is I was nervous. The end. Nervous to watch
The Office
with my best friend. And that nervousness made me nervous. So I took a long shower, hoping to rinse away the nausea.