We Were Here: A New Adult Romance Prequel to Geoducks Are for Lovers (Modern Love Stories Book 1) (41 page)

Her hand pinched my bicep hard enough I knew it would leave a mark.

“Stop! The two of you are going to leave bruises.” In defense, I made a kung fu gesture with my arms. “Fine, no one said it was real cheese.”

Frenchie shot me a look from the corner of his eye. Lizzy hadn’t been kidding about him. So serious. So stern.

Nothing like Gerard Depardieu.

Which, in all honesty, was a huge relief.

I’d worried he wanted a green card more than he wanted an American girlfriend. But from all the love eyes he kept giving Maggie, and the not-so-quiet love sounds coming from her room earlier today, this was definitely more
Last Tango in Paris
than
Green Card
.

If true, we should probably hide the margarine. I’d have to talk to Maggie about the love that dare not speak its name. I could recommend some water based lubricants.

So much for the night not being awkward.

Immediately after eating, Gil excused himself to go to rehearsal. I wanted to point out the band never rehearsed on Fridays because Mark worked. However, I figured from his sour expression all night, he needed an excuse to escape.

I couldn’t blame him. The Frenchman had stolen his puppy. It hurt to watch him around Maggie.

For the past nine months, I’d optimistically hoped once they were back in the same space, they’d fall into their old platonic, barely suppressed sexual tension selves. For once, I was wrong. Very, very wrong.

The Berlin Wall may have come down, but a new wall had been built between the two of them. Sure, they were polite and even gave each other a hello hug, but a cloud of awkwardness hung over them like Pigpen’s dust cloud.

I didn’t know if Julien picked up on it, but the rest of us did. So many silent conversations had taken place in the last twenty-four hours using only our facial expressions and hand gestures, we could’ve all become a troupe of mimes. Ironic, oui?

Two weeks after the dinner, Maggie returned from SeaTac, red-nosed and puffy-eyed after saying au revoir to Frenchie. Later in the afternoon, the girls took over the living room with multiple pints of ice cream and sad movies from Blockbuster.

“Do you really think
Beaches
is the best thing to watch right now?” I walked through the living room on my way to the kitchen for snacks. A box of Cheez-Its called my name.

Four tear-stained faces greeted me. I flinched at the emotional messes sprawled on the couch and floor.

“It’s cathartic.” Maggie resembled a lab rat with her beady pink eyes swollen from hours of crying.

“You’re all insane.” I took another step closer to the safe zone of the kitchen.

Lizzy blew her nose. “We’re watching
Steel Magnolias
next.”

I paused. “I do love a snappy Dolly Parton quote.” I squeezed next to Selah on the couch and picked up Jo’s pint of Cherry Garcia.

“You can stay, but you cannot mock, and you have to get your own spoon.” Jo snatched her spoon away from me.

By the time the funeral scene came on, they were all laughing through their tears, promising they’d always be friends. Girls.

I’d been distracted by Tom Skerritt’s mustache every scene he appeared in. I liked his uptight demeanor and snarky banter with Ouiser. She reminded me of what I imagined Selah to be when she got old.

No way I’d ever tell her. Although, which would be worse? Mrs. Roper? Or Ouiser?

“Enough of the emo girl time. We should go out and listen to some live music. Dance away your blues.” I threw Lizzy’s old afghan over Maggie’s head.

“Are Inflammable Flannel playing this week?” Selah asked, always the instigator.

“I could use some angry rock music.” Maggie poked her head out from the tangled pile of pink and purple yarn.

“Speaking of music, Nirvana is playing the Paramount on Halloween. We should get tickets,” Selah suggested.

“With the cute new drummer?” Lizzy’s interest in most bands fell in direct relationship to the level of her crushes.

“Mmm . . . he’s very cute.” Selah’s
sleeping with musicians
phase had been in full force since last summer. First, Mark, and then two guys from a four piece out of Seattle. Not at the same time. Or maybe she had. After I accused her of being a groupie and she stopped speaking to me for a week, I didn’t ask. She didn’t share.

“What about San Francisco and Castro?” I’d talked about this for three years, ever since the road trip freshman year.

Seeing my pout, Lizzy crawled over to me. “I’ll go with you, Q. Maybe we can get cheap tickets and fly.”

“You’re the Wendy to my Peter.” I kissed the top of her head.

“Freedom! ’90” ~ George Michael

LIZZY STUMBLED OFF
the curb next to me.

“Are you okay?”

“I tripped over my flames.”

For her Joan of Arc costume, I’d sewn lamé and starch-stiffened cotton flames to her shoes. If she stood still, she looked like a woman in a white dress. When she walked, she appeared to be on fire. It was brilliant, if I said so myself.

Next to her, my costume was a cliché.

“Nice Wendy and Peter Pan,” a drunk girl shouted at us. “Where’s the pixie dust?”

The man next to her threw glitter into the air. “I’ve got it right here!”

“I’m not Wendy.” Lizzy pouted. “Everyone thinks I’m Wendy.”

“Martyrs and saints aren’t the typical San Francisco costumes, my dear.” I pointed at the two girls standing next to us with shaved heads. “Sinead O’Conner, yes. Patron saint, no.”

As soon as we got closer to Market Street, crowds filled the road and sidewalks. The heart of Castro sat a few blocks to the west, but the Halloween festivities spiraled out from there. Everyone dressed in costume, including several massive groups. We passed through an entire deck of cards and the cast of Wizard of Oz, including dozens of flying monkeys.

I’d stumbled into another world. Sure, I’d gone to clubs and gay bars in Seattle, but San Francisco was the mothership, gay heaven. I could have been on the planet of Transexual Transylvania with all the Dr. Frakenfurters from
Rocky Horror
parading around.

I wanted to stand still, absorbing everything around me. I wanted to run through the streets. I didn’t want to miss a single thing. I barely resisted clapping my hands in glee.

I couldn’t believe the rest of my friends weren’t here with me. They’d stayed in Seattle to go to the Nirvana show at the Paramount.

I could’ve gone with them, but I’d dreamed of coming here for Halloween for years. Probably since high school. I’d imagined Castro like a rainbow Oz at the end of a multi-colored brick road.

Lizzy had been a good sport and ditched her dream of seducing the long-haired drummer to join me. She would always be up for an adventure.

I think the club we went to sophomore year really opened her mind to the fun of hanging with the gay boys. She made a fabulous hag—a high compliment.

Everywhere I looked were half-dressed men. October in San Francisco wasn’t exactly warm, but they didn’t seem to mind. Apparently, leather—even ass-less leather chaps—really held in the body heat. I wondered if body paint and glitter had similar insulating properties.

“So many leather boys.” Lizzy spun in a circle as she took in the crowd around us.

“So little time.”

“They don’t seem your type. I thought you liked preppy guys.” She pointed out a guy dressed as a nerd, complete with thick black frames and a cardigan. He was adorable.

“Now we’re talking.” Unfortunately, he held hands with another guy dressed as a nerd, too.

My fantasy of locking eyes with someone across a crowded space, the world falling silent around us as we recognized each other as soulmates began to fade.

Music pulsed from the doorways of bars and clubs along Market and Castro as we wandered the streets. The crowd surged around us, continually erupting into whoops and blowing whistles while dancing.

Hands grabbed my waist and spun me around. Before I could register the face, someone’s tongue thrust into my mouth. The hands moved from my torso down to my ass and squeezed.

Well, howdy.

My kissing stranger’s fingers stopped squeezing and his tongue slipped from my mouth. Opening my lids, a shocked expression in a pair of unfamiliar brown eyes greeted me.

He jumped back. I could see he’d dressed like Captain Hook, complete with wig and a very large hook.

You know what they say about pirates with large hooks, right?

He was cute. Very cute. Not much older than me.

“You’re not Darren.”

I licked my bottom lip where the tingle of his breath spray still lingered. “Not even close.”

“I could die.” He blushed despite his makeup. I could see the red slide down his neck to his exposed chest. “You’re in the same costume.”

“I won’t tell Darren if you don’t.”

“I—” The crowd pushed us apart and he yelled the rest of his sentence, “I’m sorry. You’re a great kisser.”

“Did you just make out with a complete stranger?” Lizzy sounded awed beside me. “That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Strange and completely random, but totally cool. A man kissing another man in the middle of the street, and no one cared. I’d never kissed a stranger before.

At least I usually got a name first. By usually, I meant the two other times I’d kissed random guys at clubs.

“The night certainly has become more interesting. Come on, Peter, let’s go have an adventure.” Lizzy tucked her arm under mine and pulled me up the hill, dancing her way through the crowd.