I let out a grunt and turn with an armful of food toward the living room.
She follows me out of the kitchen. I can feel her right on my heels and know that if I wanted to give up conscious thought in favor of food and television, this is the last place I should have gone. I can’t help but spill my guts to my sister; it’s like a reflex.
“What are you doing here, though?” she asks. “Did you have a bad day at work?”
I settle on the couch and flip on the TV. “It was fine.”
“Did something happen with the team? I heard about Cody and Jess.”
“Yeah, but he seems to think they’ll be okay.”
She sits and pulls her leg up on the couch so she can face me. I feel the pinpricks of her stare on the side of my face. “Then what has you stress-eating junk food?”
“Hunger.”
“Luke.”
I sigh, taking a bite of sandwich and chewing it slowly while I think. Swallowing, I tell her, “I think I fucked up with a girl I like.”
Margot jerks upright, shaking her head quickly. “Sorry, what?” She laughs awkwardly. “Funniest thing, it sounded like you said something about liking a girl.”
I rip open the bag of chips and reach for the remote. “Never mind.”
“Are you serious right now?” she asks, sitting next to me. “A girl has you eating chips by the fistful?”
“I’m just hungry, Margot. Lay off.”
I turn to Jimmy Fallon and Margot does, in fact, lay off. She digs her hands into the bag of chips, joining me in my late-night emotional munchies. But I can almost hear the interest build in her until she’s sitting upright again, hands clenched in fists at her side, just waiting for the commercial break.
When it comes, she releases a tight breath. “Tell me about her.”
There’s no avoiding this, there really isn’t. And maybe I came over because I actually wanted to talk. Who the fuck knows, but I’m here now, so I may as well let it all out. “Her name is London.”
“I don’t know a London. Is she from here?”
“She went to UCSD, studied art. I didn’t meet her there, though.” I scratch the back of my neck. “She works at Fred’s.”
“Sexy cocktail waitress?”
I throw her a wary glance. “Sexy bartender.” I ignore her amused snort. “Anyway, our entire first night together I called her Logan and she didn’t bother to correct me. I don’t know if she ever would have. Dylan said her name when we saw her next and I was horrified, but she didn’t care.” For some reason, this detail feels important. It says so much about her, and about the “us” that has existed for the measly two weeks.
Margot snorts. “I like this girl.”
“Yeah, well, she likes you, too.” When I look at her, I see her eyebrows raised in a silent question, so I add, “I told her about your abusive role as my supervisor in Doll Salon.”
My sister smiles proudly.
“We hooked up a few times, and—”
“In one night, I assume?”
“No, asshole. Over a few different days.”
“Wow.” She rolls her eyes. “Long-term then.”
I take a sip of my water and set it back down on the table. “You wonder why I don’t like talking to you.”
“Oh, please. I’m the only one you like talking to because I don’t stroke your enormous ego.” Punching my shoulder, she urges, “Go on.”
“She’s wary of guys. Her long-term boyfriend cheated, and I get the feeling there’s been a long line of assholes in her life. The thing is, there’s attraction there, but I’m not sure she actually likes me. Said I was a cliché, a manwhore, douchebag, whatever.”
“I mean, I really like this girl,” Margot says, digging in the bag and taking another handful of chips.
“But she’s smart and funny and pretty and . . .” I’m so out of practice talking about girls and feelings in the same conversation that I flounder a little, settling on “there was something there. Between us, I mean.” But then I tell Margot about what Daniel said tonight, and about the guys teasing me about sleeping with every hot female bartender in town.
It’s a few seconds before Margot says anything, but when she does, she puts her hand on mine first, to soften the blow. “They’re not wrong.”
“Margot,” I say, turning to face her. “That’s not helping.”
She can tell in my voice that not only am I not in the mood but I really am feeling like complete shit.
“Sorry. I just want to be honest.”
“I know you do,” I tell her. “It’s just that, for the first time in a really long time I feel sort of weird about how I’ve been with girls. I always justified it like they were only after one thing, too, and maybe some of them were. But I know that wasn’t always true. And Cody made some crack about not being able to go anywhere where a woman wouldn’t be crying over Luke and . . . Jesus. Am I that bad?”
“You’re asking your sister if you’re as bad a player as your guy friends who are actually out at bars with you say you are?”
“I mean, does it seem like I’m that bad?”
She adjusts how she’s sitting on the couch so that her knee rests on my thigh. “Honestly?”
“Honestly.”
“Kind of. I mean, sometimes we’ll be out for drinks and your phone will be buzzing constantly. You don’t even notice it anymore. Or, we’ll be having a nice dinner and some girl will walk up and start talking to you and I can see you struggling to remember her name. It’s . . . I mean, I’m used to it now but, yeah. It’s sort of shady.”
I lean my head back against the couch, disengaging from the conversation and tuning back into the TV and whatever game Fallon is playing with David Beckham.
“I didn’t mean to make you feel bad,” she whispers. I know this conversation is making her anxious. Margot has a constant struggle with frankness and guilt when it comes to busting my balls.
“You didn’t.”
“It’s just . . .” she starts, fidgeting with her pajama top, “you went from Mia—and only Mia—to everyone. There was no in-between.”
“I haven’t wanted anyone the way I wanted Mia,” I argue.
“But someday you will,” she says. “Maybe it will be London. And you said she’s wary of guys, and then she sees you tonight at the bar? No wonder she keeps you at arm’s length. Would you trust you?”
A sour weight settles in my stomach. “I know.”
“Look, I’m not saying you need to go through the AA of players or anything, but maybe look at what you’re doing and who you are. Your life is this perfect combination of luck and ambition, but you treat women like gym equipment.”
I choke on a sip of water. “Margot. That’s horrible.”
She raises her eyebrows as if to say, Well?
“Just learn to treat a girl the way you want to be treated,” she says. “And I don’t mean by playing with their private parts.”
I snort. “‘Private parts.’”
Rolling her eyes, she says, “You were a really good boyfriend to Mia.”
This rattles me somehow. It’s easier to remember the end, when I was lonely and she was broken and we didn’t ever seem to get each other right. I turn to look over at her. “Yeah?”