Popcorn Love (11 page)

Glaring at the man over Elena’s shoulder, she calmly
asked, “Is there a problem here?”

The sound of her voice caused Elena to jump, but when
Allison placed a comforting hand on her back, she unconsciously
leaned into it.

“No, Allison, there is no problem. I was just saying
goodnight to Garrett.”

Garrett narrowed his eyes at Allison but then turned
his focus back to Elena. “Well, okay then,” he sighed. “I can
respect that you didn’t feel the same way about our date. Still,
I’m glad to have met you Elena, and I suppose I should thank you
for your candor.”

Elena nodded and offered him a strained smile. “Thank
you for dinner. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.” But before Elena and Allison could
retreat into the house, Garrett whirled back around with a hand on
his stomach. “Uh, sorry, just one more thing. I hate to be a
bother, but do you think I could use your restroom? I think those
Cajun spices are going to be a problem after all.”

Lip curling in disgust, Elena opened her mouth to
respond, but Allison beat her to it. “No way,” she answered, moving
out onto the porch. “You can hold it until you get home, or you can
stop at a restaurant or something.”

Allison wasn’t an idiot. She knew when to draw a
line, and she had been in enough dodgy situations to know how
fucked up people could be. She wasn’t about to let some stranger
into Elena’s house. It wasn’t that she thought Garrett was much of
a threat. The guy mostly just seemed awkward and a little
desperate, but she wasn’t about to take any chances.

“He has IBS,” Elena whispered.

“He’s got what?” Allison asked, not even bothering to
lower her voice.

Sweat started to bead along Garrett’s forehead, and
his cheeks were red in the glow of the porch light. “I have
IBS.”

Allison frowned. “The hell is that?”

“Irritable bowel syndrome,” Elena supplied as she
hovered just behind Allison.

Crossing her arms over her chest, Allison shook her
head. “Sorry but I don’t really care if your bowels are irritated,
dude. You’re not coming in this house. We don’t know you and we’ve
got a baby inside.”

Elena gently placed a hand on Allison’s shoulder.
“Relax, Allison.”

It wasn’t enough to shake Allison, and she only
continued to stare Garrett down. “Go on, man. Get out of here.”

Green eyes remained glued to Garrett even as he
turned and practically waddled back to his car. Allison didn’t move
a muscle, watching until his car was out of sight. When she turned
back around, her eyes met Elena’s, and the two women stood on the
porch for a long moment.

“Thank you,” Elena said. “But you didn’t have to do
that. I can certainly protect myself.”

“I know. But you’re also nice enough to let that guy
in, and I was kind of afraid you would.”

Elena smiled softly at her. “You are right. I may
have let him in to use the restroom.”

“See, don’t do shit like that. Do you realize how
dangerous that is? People are screwed up. They’ll give you some
crap excuse to get inside, and then you…Elena, you could get hurt.
Lucas could get hurt, okay?”

The slight tremble in Allison’s voice made Elena
frown. She reached out again and squeezed her shoulder. “Allison,”
she whispered. “Stop worrying. Do you honestly think he would have
hurt me?”

“No,” she admitted. “I really do think the guy was
just about to shit his pants.”

Elena laughed quietly. “I agree. You see,
I
am
a good judge of character as well, dear.” She then poked Allison’s
arm. “I let
you
in, didn’t I?”

“Oh, well, yeah. You’re totally an awesome judge of
character.”

Pleased to see her smiling again, Elena led them
inside, sniffing the air as they entered. “Popcorn again?” She
dropped her purse onto the small table in the foyer before making
her way toward the kitchen.

“Oh snaps! My popcorn!” Allison shot around Elena and
into the kitchen, yanking the puffy paper bag from the microwave
and dumping its contents into a giant bowl. She then grabbed a
couple bags of Reese’s Pieces and dumped them in as well. She
gently shook and bounced the bowl until the candies disappeared
into the popcorn and smiled as she turned around and held it out
toward Elena.

Elena wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “No thank
you.”

“One of these days,” Allison said. “One of these
days, you will try it and then the heavens will open up and angels
will sing and you will be like, ‘I should’ve listened to Allison
sooner!’”

“Well, if that day ever arrives, you are more than
welcome to your ‘I told you so’. For now, though, I shall stick to
my theory that it is as disgusting as I imagine it to be.”

“Suit yourself.” Allison dug a hand into her popcorn.
Before she put any in her mouth, though, she looked back up at
Elena and said, “If you want me to go, I can just put this in like
a billion Ziploc bags and take it with me. No big deal. Unless you
would rather change into your jammies, plop down on the couch, and
rant to me about your undoubtedly lame date with crap-your-pants
guy?”

Elena’s lips parted with a wide grin.

“That option is totally on the table, too. Just
sayin’. You look like you wanna bitch about him, and I’m a good
listener.”

Her smile never wavered as she sighed and said, “Very
well, but I am most definitely going to need a glass of wine for
this one.”

* * *

“Ew, seriously? He did
not
say that at
dinner!” Allison gasped when Elena informed her of Garrett’s IBS
confession.

“Oh yes, he certainly did,” Elena told her, shaking
her head. “I was utterly mortified, of course, as was the waitress;
poor girl.”

“
I’m
mortified and I wasn’t even there.”
Allison shoved some more popcorn into her mouth as she relaxed into
the arm of the couch opposite Elena.

“Honestly,
who does that
? At dinner, no less,
and also while attempting to woo a woman!”

“Apparently Garrett does that,” Allison said, shaking
her head. “Poor dude. No one ever taught him proper date
etiquette.”

“And what do
you
consider to be proper date
etiquette?”

“I consider
not
talking about the high
probability of shitting your pants to be proper date etiquette.
Also, one should either bring their real hair with them or no hair
at all.”

Wine burned in Elena’s nose as she coughed and
laughed at the same time. Allison burst into loud laughter and
leaned across the couch to whack Elena on the back a few times.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to nearly kill you.”

“I am so glad I wasn’t the only one to notice that
awful toupee.”

“Notice! What do you mean
notice?
I didn’t
notice
the toupee; it noticed me. The damned thing was
flapping around in the breeze and waving at us, Elena! He
apparently forgot to extract the animal before he pasted its hide
to his head, because I’m pretty sure that thing was still
alive.”

Elena laughed so hard that tears streamed down her
cheeks. She waved her hand for Allison to stop.

“What? Don’t pee your pants from laughter, Elena,
because then you’ll have to admit that you and Garrett are a
perfect match for each other.”

Elena attempted a glare but it was a hopeless pose
while still laughing. Allison merely smirked.

“Seriously, though,” she said once Elena regained her
composure. “That dude should come with a warning label attached to
his forehead or something.”

She pointed her index finger at her own forehead and
mimicked writing the words she then recited in a robotic voice.
“Warning: Avoid Strong Winds and Spicy Foods. Subject is likely to
lose hair and shit pants.”

Elena dissolved into laughter once more until the
best kind of ache throbbed in her ribcage. She hadn’t laughed this
much in such a long time; in fact, she didn’t think anyone had
ever
made her laugh like that.

The decision to have Allison stay had been
surprisingly easy. Elena had always been such a solitary person,
but she liked having Allison around. Maybe it was because they were
so different. Maybe it was because Allison embodied everything
Elena had never been—easy-going, fluid, carefree.

It intrigued Elena even as it confounded her. She was
ever impressed by the younger woman’s confidence. Elena herself was
an extremely confident woman, but Allison’s confidence was
different. It was present in everything—the way she carried
herself, the way she laughed with abandon, and the way she
interacted with her.

Elena was drawn to it and she didn’t have a clue why.
She entertained the thought that it was because there was a part of
her that had always wished she could be more like Allison—younger
at heart, wilder.

Allison Sawyer was like a cheesy comedy movie—an
instant way to cheer oneself up after a bad night.

A happy sigh left Elena’s lips as she tucked her feet
under her and rested her head against the back of the couch. “He
was quite short as well, wasn’t he?”

Allison nodded as she finished up her popcorn and sat
the bowl on the table beside her. “Totally. I bet you were
regretting your heels as soon as you opened the door.”

“I think Vivian must not have actually met the man
prior to setting me up with him.”

“I think Vivian must have been drunk or something
when she set you up with that guy. You sure you wanna trust her to
set you up on a third?”

She shook her head. “I know. I must be losing my
mind.”

“Eh, maybe this guy will be the worst of ‘em,
yeah?”

“I certainly hope so.”

* * *

About an hour later, after Allison finished cleaning
her dishes and tidying up, Elena walked her to the door. Once
Allison was out of sight, she retreated back into the house and
walked down the hall toward Lucas’s room. Once she made sure he was
still sound asleep, she retired to her own room, dropped onto her
bed and pulled a small bottle of lotion from her bedside table.

As she lathered the lotion over her feet and hands,
her phone beeped on her dresser.
It must be Vivian asking about
the date
, she thought. Elena hopped off the bed and went to
grab the phone; she had quite a few words for her best friend.

But when she swiped her finger across her lock
screen, a notification box popped up and informed her that she had
one new text message from Allison Sawyer.

Elena’s brow arched but she quickly pressed to open
the text. A soft chuckle escaped her as she saw that it was a photo
of Allison and Lucas. Her son’s face was tucked into Allison’s
chest and it was obvious that he was laughing. Allison was smiling
brightly as well.

Elena smiled and pressed to save the picture into her
phone’s photo gallery. She felt that smile still painted across her
lips even as she crawled back into bed and even when her eyes
fluttered closed and her breathing grew deep.

“Elena, please, must you always take so long to dress
yourself?”

Elena’s neatly flipped hair swished around her face
as her head poked out of the open closet doorway. She narrowed her
eyes at the woman sitting on the end of her bed. “Mother, it has
barely been twenty minutes. Stop being so dramatic, and, for the
record, I have done much more in that time than dress myself.”

“Do tell, dear, because as far as I can see,” Nora
replied, pointing toward the visible parts of Elena’s crimson bra
and the naked flesh of her stomach, “you
haven’t
actually
dressed yourself yet.”

A few strands of hair flew away from Elena’s face in
the gust of air she huffed out. “Perhaps that particular task would
have been finished already had I not been repeatedly interrupted by
your barks of impatience and endless questions about my utterly
disappointing dates.”

Elena ducked back into the closet as Nora chuckled
deeply. The elder woman glanced toward her own reflection in the
mirror above Elena’s vanity and patted a hand at her hair where it
was pinned up and rubbed down a few wild strands.

“Speaking of,” she said, “when is Vivian due to
arrive?” The three women were attending a Broadway show that
afternoon.

“Soon.”

“Oh, well thank you for being
so
specific,
darling.”

Appearing from within the closet a moment later, a
smile planted itself across Elena’s painted red lips. She slipped
on her heels then posed dramatically in front of her mother, one
hand on her hip and another lain delicately across her forehead.
Bright red pumps made for a striking splash of color, paired with
Elena’s form-fitted black dress. Her hair was slightly curled
around the edges and lay gently against her olive complexion.

She had done this often as a little girl. She would
dress up in various outfits carefully selected from her own clothes
and a few of her mother’s, decorate her hair with a sparkling
headband or clip, and paint her face with bits of lip gloss and eye
shadow. All dolled up, Elena would put on a mini-fashion show for
her mother, walking an imaginary runway while stopping every few
steps to strike a pose. Nora, of course, applauded the show while
praising her daughter’s stunning beauty and stylish attire. She and
Elena frequently liked to joke that those little shows had been the
promising start of Elena’s career.

Nora clapped now at her daughter’s pose as well.
“Flawless, my dear. Simply flawless. Takes me right back to when
you were a child.”

Elena laughed and walked over to kiss to her mother’s
cheek before using her thumb to wipe away the lipstick left behind.
She then turned back to her vanity to grab a few pieces of jewelry
to match her outfit.

“So, Daddy is taking Lucas to the children’s museum?”
she asked as she popped in her earrings.