Gia's hands were shaking so badly she could hardly get the zipper open on her coin purse where she kept her spare change. Her mouth was so dry; she just needed something to drink. Stepping up to the counter, she ordered a large cup and took it to the soda fountain near the front window. First she filled it half full with water, gulped down several swallows, and then started to fill the cup again with Sprite. From the corner of her eye, she recognized Ricky's truck pull into the parking lot.
"Why won't you leave me alone?" she growled under her breath. A man who had stepped up behind her looked at her curiously, and then followed her gaze out to the parking lot where Ricky was now backing into a spot.
"You all right?" he asked. "Someone bothering you, young lady?"
Caught off guard, she turned around to face the man, sloshing her soda over her hand as she did. Probably mid-forties, the guy reached around her to steady her cup, and with his other hand, tugged a clump of napkins from the dispenser on the counter nearby. "Oh, gosh. I'm sorry. Did I get you?" Gia asked, her nerves zinging like an electrical surge through high wires.
"Not a drop on me," he assured her. He dabbed at her hand with the wad of napkins, "And I don't mean to be nosy, but I overheard what you said. I have a daughter about your age, and I just wanted to make sure you're not in any trouble." He glanced out the window again, but didn't say anything else.
Gia peered around his shoulders to see Ricky launching himself out of his truck and dashing like a mad man toward the nearest entrance, nearly getting taken out by a car just leaving the drive-through. She let out a short gasp when he leapt onto the curb to safety, but it dissipated almost immediately when he dragged open the glass door.
"Hey!" he called out, eyes on the man who was still dabbing at the spilled soda on Gia's arm. "Get your hands off my girlfriend."
Gia's eyes widened in stunned surprise as Ricky strode toward them, fists clenched at his sides.
"You mess with her, you're gonna have to deal with me," he snarled.
The man straightened his shoulders and stood a little taller. He did let go of Gia's hand, but stayed right beside her in what she could only call protection mode. "Is this guy bothering you?"
Ricky pulled up short and practically sputtered, "Am I bothering her? I just watched you through the window, old man. You're the one manhandling her." He started forward again, but Gia stepped in front of her would-be savior. The older one.
"Ricky, stop. Stop!" She put a hand up, ready to strike him if he came any closer. "What are you doing? Are you out of your freakin' mind?"
"I saw him, Gia. I saw him grab you." Ricky stared at her like she was the one out of her mind.
"He didn't grab me, you idiot. He grabbed my cup to keep it from spilling because I almost knocked it over."
"But—but I saw him grab your arm." The look of disbelief coupled with relief on Ricky's face stirred up conflicting emotions in Gia, making her want to cry and laugh at the same time.
"I think you'd better leave, kid," the older man said. He'd stayed behind Gia, but when she looked back at him, she could see it wasn't because he was afraid. He'd wrapped a hand around a one of the heavy metal pump canisters that held condiments, ready to take action should Ricky make any more threatening moves.
"It's okay, mister. Sorry about all of this." She stepped toward Ricky and put a hand on his chest, pushing him back a few paces. "He's just a little overprotective, you know?"
The man didn't let go of the canister altogether, but he relaxed his stance slightly. "Seems more aggressive than protective."
"I know. He just doesn't like me wandering around alone." Gia turned so her back was to Ricky and looked the older man square in the face so he'd believe her. "He's not dangerous—"
"Looked pretty dangerous to me," the man cut in.
"Well, he might be dangerous to someone he thought was going to hurt me."
"Hey. I'm right here," Ricky interjected from behind her.
"Shut up, idiot," she growled, not bothering to look at him. Instead, she addressed the man again. "He'd die before he hurt me or let me be hurt, so you don't have to worry, okay?"
She suddenly noticed how quiet the little shop had gotten, how the few other diners—a couple of guys at one table, and a woman and two children at another—were hushed, wary. Her eyes darted over to the register counter where the employees were paying close attention to what was going on. Three of them had cell phone cameras rolling and Gia closed her eyes in humiliation. "Come on, Ricky. Let's get out of here." She spun on her heels, darted around him, and left out the door he'd come through. He'd shoved it so hard it had stayed open.
She heard Ricky's apology to the man before she pulled the door closed behind her. "Sorry, man. No hard feelings, okay?" He followed her outside a moment later.
She was beyond livid now, pacing back and forth at the back of the truck where the people in the shop couldn't really see her. Ricky approached slowly but didn't come past the wheel well.
"Sorry, Gia. I really thought that guy was working you over."
She stopped and stomped her foot, hard, and pain shot up the front of her shin. "In front of all those people? What? He was just going to grab my soda right out of my hand and make a run for it? Or was he going to throw me on the ground and have his way with me right there on the cold, hard tile? No wait, there was a nice rubber mat on the floor—"
"Stop, Gia." Now Ricky came around the end of the truck, his hands out, his face earnest. "I'm sorry, okay? I just freaked out when I saw him grab you."
"He. Didn't. Grab me!" She threw her nearly empty cup and it hit him square in the chest, sloshing the clear sticky liquid all down one side of him. "He didn't grab me," she said again. She started around the other side of the truck, but Ricky lunged for her, grabbed her arm right above the elbow, and pulled her to a stop.
"Do not walk away from me, Gia. Please. How many times do I have to say 'please' to you?" He shook her gently when she kept her back to him. "Do you hear me? I'm begging you to stop and talk to me. I'm begging you to forgive me. I'm an idiot, okay? I'm a fool. And yeah, you're right. I'm playing the jealous boyfriend card."
His voice hitched and cracked like he was on the verge of tears himself, and Gia squeezed her eyes shut and covered her ears with her hands like a little girl trying to shut out the ugliness of the world. But she heard his next words loud and clear, even though they came out in barely more than a hoarse whisper.
"It's because I'm in love with you." His grip on her arm loosened, but he didn't let go. The air between them practically sizzled with the tumult of emotions they were both experiencing. "I love you, Gia," Ricky said, his voice throaty and ragged with feeling. "Not just as your buddy. I want to be your boyfriend. I want you to be my girlfriend. For real."
Gia's heart ached with the impact of the words, realizing in that moment how badly she'd longed to hear them from him. Her body trembled with the need to turn around and throw herself into his arms, to tell him that she was sorry for yelling at him, sorry for throwing her soda at him, and that she loved him, too. But something in her had opened up this week, maybe even before that—a wound, an old scar she'd forgotten she even had—and here in this meaningless random parking lot, spoken in anger and frustration, words that should have been the most precious of all shared between them, were somehow tainted, tarnished by the events of the week that had brought them here.
"Gia?" he murmured, her name a plea.
What was stopping her? What was holding her back? This was Ricky, for Pete's sake! Rickaroni. Fred to her George. The dynamic half of their duo. Why couldn't she make her feet move? The question formed on her lips as she thought it in her head, coming out incomplete and ambiguous. "How long?"
Ricky's hand skimmed down her arm until he curled his fingers around hers. He tugged gently, but she didn't budge.
"How long?" she repeated, louder this time, her jaws clenched, not caring that she didn't clarify. This was Ricky, after all. He should know exactly what she meant.
"I don't know, Gia. For a while, I guess."
She jerked her hand out of his and rounded on him, thrusting the heels of both palms into his chest and sending him stumbling backward a few steps, tripping over the plastic cup she'd thrown at him. He didn't bother picking it up. "You guess? I don't want you to guess, Fredrick Zander. Tell me. How long have you known you loved me?" she demanded. But that wasn't really what she wanted to know. Not exactly. The bridge of her nose prickled and she knew she was going to start crying at any minute. "How long have you been lying to me?"
Ricky's eyes widened, his mouth opened and closed a few times, but when no words came out he shook his head, clearly not sure what she wanted him to say.
"How long have you known you loved me, Ricky?" she asked again, her voice snagging at the back of her throat so that his name broke halfway through.
Ricky made to move toward her, but she put her hands up to stop him and took a step back. He halted and reached up to rub the back of his neck with one hand, a grimace twisting his features. "I guess—I think—I mean," he nodded, just the slightest up and down movement at first, then more vehemently, like he was crosschecking his facts. "I know I've loved you since the first day I saw you. It was the second week of school, on a Tuesday. Sixth grade. Gia, you knocked me off my feet, do you remember?" He didn't move closer, but he dipped his head toward her, shoving his fingers in the front pockets of his jeans as though to keep from reaching for her. "I fell off my bike when you smiled at me and that was it. I was in love." He chuckled and raised his eyebrows sheepishly. "Or maybe it was when you let me look up your skirt, but I can't be sure of the exact moment."
Gia remembered that day, but apparently not as vividly as he did. "So you were a perv back then, too." She might have been teasing, but she wasn't smiling. This all felt broken. Wrong. The timing was off or something was misfiring somewhere.
Ricky shrugged, "Nope. Just a twelve year old boy going belly up for a twelve year old girl. You don't know how glad I was that you were wearing shorts under your skirt that day. I would have spontaneously combusted right there in the parking lot if you'd flashed me an actual real live panty shot."
Ah yes. A purple skirt with lots of ruffles. Ruffles the wind wouldn't leave alone. She'd learned the hard way to always wear something under that skirt. But even though she wanted to laugh at the memory, to tease the man in front of her who'd been that skinny, short, awkward boy on a bicycle that was too big for him, the truth of his revelation was beginning to burn. "So you've been lying to me for more than seven years," she said, her eyes resting on the wet half of his shirt where it stuck to him, clinging to the outline of his chest muscles, the ridge of his collar bone, the rounded curve of his shoulder. "You've been pretending to be my friend all this time."
"No, Gia. No." He took a tentative step toward her, but she held her ground. If he touched her, though, she thought she might release like a coiled spring. "I haven't been pretending at all," he insisted. "You are my best friend, and I have tried to be a best friend to you, too."
"So, then, you've been pretending not to love me." She knew she was goading him. Not because she wanted to, but because if what he said was true, that he'd loved her through junior high, through high school, since graduation, if he'd been in love with her this whole time and she'd only just started to realize it? Then she was either as dumb as a rock, or Ricky was really, really good at faking his feelings. "You played me, Ricky."
"I don’t get it, Gia. Why are you doing this?" He turned away from her, spotted her cup on the ground near his feet, and kicked it so that it went skittering out of sight under the car next to his truck. "I wasn't lying to you. I wasn't trying to trick you, or play you. I was just waiting. For the right time. For you to be ready." His sentences came out choppy, short, frustration ringing in his tone.
"For me to be ready? Ready for what?" she challenged.
"I don't know. Never mind. Forget I said that about you." He shrugged his shoulders so roughly, she winced. She could see his fists balled inside his pockets and felt his frustration in every word . "Like I said, I was just waiting for the right time."
"And this—" she flung out her arm in the fading twilight, waving her hand at the odd collection of vehicles in the lot around them. "You thought this was the right time?"
"No, no, no. Of course not. But I was kinda under the impression it was now or never, the way you were storming around and throwing crap at me." Now he was waving his arm around, too, gesturing in the direction he'd kicked her cup.
"You're accusing me of acting like a freak? Let's see." She held up her hand and started ticking things off with her fingers. "Monday you practically launch yourself across the parking lot to all but accuse Jupiter of getting frisky with me. Tuesday you lurk outside in the parking lot, spying on me like a stalker—yeah, I saw you," she added when his eyes rounded in surprise. "Then you don't talk to me all week, but you show up this morning acting like nothing happened. You try to—to—I don't know." She twirled a hand in the air near her head. "To get all up in my personal space in Granny G's pantry. And now this whole ridiculous show of... of whatever this is!"
"Wait. Wait just a minute. Up in your personal space? What does that mean? We're always in each other's personal spaces, and it's never bothered you before. Or has it? Maybe you've been lying to me, too!" Ricky interjected, his hands shoved deep in his pockets again, his shoulders up, like it was all he could do to keep from grabbing her and shaking some sense into her.
"You wanted to kiss me," she blurted out. "It was written all over your face."
Ricky took a step toward her and dipped his head so his nose was less than a foot away from hers. "Yes, I wanted to kiss you," he practically snarled. She could see that his pupils were huge in the waning twilight, the blue irises like rings around black moons, he was so close. "I really, really wanted to kiss you. I thought I might die if I didn't, but nope. Still standing here, still an idiot, still begging. Because I want to kiss you now, too, but I'm afraid I'll lose a limb if I try. I love you, Gia!" He wrenched his hands free of his pockets and cupped her face between them. "I love you. Please give me a chance to prove—"
"No!" She ground out, trying to pull away, but his fingers curved around the base of her skull and he didn't let go. The pads of his thumbs brushed against the hair at her temples in tiny, caressing movements that made her skin tingle. She grabbed his wrists, but instead of trying to pry his hands free, she just held on. "No," she said again, this time without quite as much force. "Stop, Ricky. Please."
"Gia..." His voice was a whisper; he was so close she felt his breath against her lips. And because she suddenly wanted his kiss more than anything else in the world, she turned away, wrenching her face from his grasp. She still clung to his wrists, his empty hands in the air between them, his fingers wide, then closing into fists. Every muscle and tendon in his forearms was rigid under her hands.
"No. Not like this," she said, trying not to cry, wanting something more, but what, she didn't know. He lowered his arms to his sides and she released him, lifting her eyes to his. She felt a single tear spill over her bottom lid and his gaze followed its trail down the curve of her cheekbone. He didn't touch her. "You know what's so ironic about all of this?" she asked, a dry, humorless chuckle making its way from her throat. "If I were your girlfriend, I'd have broken up with you tonight. But I can't even do that because you never asked me out."
"I'm asking you now," he declared, his voice ardent, hushed. "Be my girl, Gia. Be my girlfriend."
Another tear slipped down her cheek, hung from her jaw for just a moment, then fell to her chest just above the neckline of her sweater. It seemed to burn a hole through her skin, piercing fascia and muscle, through the bars of her ribcage, until it bore a hole into the innermost chamber of her heart where it turned to ice. "No. Not like this. No."
"No?" It was a question asked in the hope of getting a different answer, but the expression on his face told him he knew it was asked in vain. His eyes dulled, his mouth tightened, and she felt him pull back just the tiniest bit.
She simply shook her head. She swiped at another tear before it fell and then turned away from him. Everything inside of her sagged, not with relief, but with weariness of soul and exhaustion of spirit. "I need to get back to the coffee shop. I was going to walk, but it's going to be completely dark soon, so if you wouldn't mind, I will take the ride."
"You won't come to dinner tonight?" But she could tell, even without looking at him, that he already knew the answer to that. She didn't bother responding. "Of course I'll give you a ride. Are you sure you don't want me to take you home instead?"
"No," she murmured, not sure if he could hear her. "I already made arrangements to be picked up from the cafe in about half an hour and I don't want to call back and cancel. I'd have to give some explanation and I'd rather not."
From the corner of her eye, she saw him nod slowly. "All right." He circled her and pulled open the passenger door for her. "Climb in."