CHAPTER SIX

Once we were in Jenn’s car, things got a little easier. Mainly because I was sitting in the back seat of her extremely clean Mini Cooper and was able to stare out at the grainy scenes of downtown Seattle that whipped past my window. A foreign city was as good of a distraction as any.

I also understood what Dex meant by whether I liked good music or bad music. I didn’t know who the hell we were listening to, but I knew that Jenn knew all the words to this auto-tuned female pop star who “sang” about washing her teeth with whisky or something. If it was grating to my ears, I could only imagine how bad it was to Dex, the man who actually composed music and could sing.

After Jenn nearly side-swiped a few parked cars (I noted that Dex kept his eyes closed for most of the drive), we arrived at a cute-looking café in the cobblestoned district of Pioneer Square.

Jenn parked the car beside a nearby meter while tourists outfitted in GORE-TEX jackets shared the sodden brick sidewalks with local riffraff and homeless folks. I waited for Dex to get out of the car before I could climb out between the back two front seats. He grabbed hold of my hand and steadied me until I was on the sidewalk, and gave it a warm, unnecessary squeeze. I quickly yanked my hand out of his. His eyes widened momentarily at my reaction, like a brown-eyed owl.

Not cool, Dex, I thought, but put on my best face as we turned and entered the warm café.

The normal tinges of apprehension swarmed through me as I scanned the unfamiliar restaurant looking for people who probably knew a lot more about me than I knew about them. I hate that feeling but it comes with the territory of being on the internet.

“There are the fuckers,” Dex said, pointing at a table in the corner beneath vintage travel posters. I followed, hiding myself behind Jenn (even though that was like trying to hide an apple behind a carrot) until we stopped in front of his friends.

“Well, look who it is,” a lanky African-American dude in a purple polo shirt and wire-rimmed glasses announced and got out of his chair. He gave Dex a quick hug. “Where you keeping yourself, Ghost Boy?”

The guy looked at Jenn and gave her nothing more than a polite nod. Then he moved his head over to look at me and raised his eyebrows. I returned the action.

“I’ve been moving,” Dex said. He patted the guy on the back and pointed at me. “Dean, this is Perry.”

Dex looked past Dean at the other two people at the table, a ponytailed man-boy who reminded me of too many people I went to high school with, who was wearing a tee shirt that said “Ironic Statement”, and a woman who I recognized as the other Wine Babe, Rebecca Sims.

“And this is Seb and Rebecca,” he continued. “People, this is the infamous Perry Palomino.”

“The face breaker!” Seb cried out with a dorky guffaw and then started slow clapping.

“Easy now, Seb,” Dex told him and then shot me a cheeky look.

I sucked in the urge to retort something snarky and just smiled at the three of them. “I’m the face breaker. Nice to meet you all.”

I sat down across from Rebecca and Seb and next to Dex. Seb asked the couple how the move had been going. As Dex and Jenn explained, I took stock of Rebecca.

She was quite breathtaking, with an old-fashioned kind of beauty that fifties film stars were famous for. She was dressed in a lacey grey V-neck shirt that was well filled out and added to her classic look. Her hair was as jet-black as mine but cut into a chin-length bob with angled ends. Her eyes were dark and sexily hooded, her nose was long and broad, her lips were angular and made for the maroon lipstick she was wearing. Aside from her skin tone, which was so pale she was almost translucent, she could have passed as Dex’s sister.

She hadn’t greeted Jenn when we arrived, only Dex and me, which I thought was odd since the two worked together. I mean, they were the Wine Babes. If only my cousins knew I was having lunch with them, they’d totally die.

She took her eyes away from whatever Dex was saying (I was doing a pretty good job thus far of drowning out anything that sounded too coupley), and placed them on me. Unlike Dex, though, her eyes weren’t mysterious or intrusive. They were just frank and regarded me with a strange sort of respect that I wasn’t used to.

“So, Perry,” she said in a rich British accent. It took me by surprise but then I realized I had never heard her speak on Wine Babes before. To tell you the truth, I hadn’t seen more than one minute of the show. To watch it had been like pure torture, though, in retrospect, it would be a piece of cake after this week.

“It’s so nice to finally meet you,” she continued. “We’ve all heard so much about you; we’ve been watching you almost every week, yet for a while there, I think we all thought that perhaps you were a ghost yourself.”

“Nope,” I said, smiling at her and noticing that the other conversation had stopped and now everyone was looking at me. “I can be scary but I’m definitely no ghost.”

“So what was it that Dex said that made you punch him?” Seb asked, leaning low on the table in excitement.

“Sea Bass, shut the fuck up,” Dex said, reaching across the table to smack him.

I glanced at Rebecca, catching a sort of come on, spill look in her eyes and then looked at Dex, whose attention was now on Jenn on the other side of him.

“It’s hard to remember,” I said, leaning back in my chair and crossing my arms. “I think it had something to do with the fact that he confiscated my phone because he didn’t want me checking my emails while I was ‘on the job’ or maybe it was that he planned on keeping us on the island on my actual birthday because, to quote/unquote, he didn’t think anyone in my family would actually notice if I wasn’t around.”

Now, though this was all completely true, I said it in a purely jovial tone with just the slightest bit of edge to it. And the way everyone at the table laughed and gasped, I could tell they thought it was shockingly hilarious. But Dex was looking at me in total surprise. I could almost hear his gruff, shocked voice in my head asking, What are you doing?

I gave him a quick, unimpressed look and tried to hide my smile.

“Well, Perry, you’ve done what we’ve all wanted to,” Dean said, flashing his broad smile at us. He was extremely likeable. He leaned across the table and held out his hand for a high five. I attempted to return it but Dex stuck out his own hand and held my arm down.

“OK, OK, so I deserved it. You guys done with the witch hunt now?”

“Are you done being a shithead?” Rebecca asked with a cool smile.

Seb and Dean let out a simultaneous “Oooh” like the audience in a bad sitcom.

“And I thought you guys were my friends,” Dex said, and though it was in a flippant voice, I could pick up the strained twitches at the corner of his mouth.

“Friends are allowed to punch friends when they are being a shithead,” Rebecca said, leaning across the table and faking an uppercut to his scruffy chin.

He smiled, genuinely at that, and cupped his hand behind my head, his thumb stroking against my hair affectionately.

“Only Perry is allowed to do that.”

I closed my eyes briefly at the gentleness of his touch. It was automatic and involuntary. He took his hand away. Rebecca was staring at me in a half-amused, half-knowing way that made her hooded lids take precedence, but only said to Dex, “Well, Perry and Jenn, of course.”

“Of course,” I heard Jenn pipe up from the other side. “I get first dibs.”

Everyone laughed at that, though mine was forced, and the waiter appeared with more menus in hand. Despite the fact that I hadn’t eaten since my Weight Watchers English muffin that morning, I wasn’t hungry at all. I ordered a cup of coffee and a small bowl of Tuscan tomato soup to ensure I’d survive until dinner time without fainting.

To no one’s surprise, Dex ordered a Jack and Coke.

“Isn’t it a bit early for that, you lush?” I asked, eyeing it as the waiter plunked it down on the table, sending bubbles to spray out in the air.

“We’re on vacation, kiddo.”

“Technically, Dex,” Seb pointed out. “You and Perry are working this week. The rest of us are on vacation.”

Dex ignored him and tilted his head to me. “We’re at least on vacation for today. Tomorrow we work.”

He took a lengthy sip of his drink and I looked over at Seb and Dean. “So what do you guys do at Shownet?”

Seb looked appalled. “You mean you’ve never seen Gamer Room?!”

I shrugged, no, obviously not.

“Oh, come on Seb, no one’s seen your show,” Rebecca teased, pulling on his ponytail.

“Well, excuse me if we don’t have two foxy ladies such as yourselves showing the latest video game cheats.”

Jenn snickered. “Could you imagine? If I hosted Gamer Room, the entire male population would be locked in their basement playing video games. It would be a country of nerds.”

“Is that what I am to you miss Jennifer, a nerd?” Dean asked, folding his hands in front of her, his dark eyes glinting beneath his frames.

“Yes,” coughed Dex, with a grin. Before Dean or Seb could protest, he quickly said, “I’m no better than you guys. I’d be online with you playing Call of Duty if I could.”

“Instead you’re out there hunting fairy tales,” Jenn sniped. “I don’t know what’s better.”

Her tone surprised me. I leaned forward to get a better look at her. She was rubbing hand sanitizer on her hands again.

“Fairy tales?” I repeated, trying not to sound defensive but failing miserably.

On cue, Seb and Dean went “Ooooh” again.

I avoided looking at Dex and kept my eyes on her. Surprisingly, Rebecca aligned with me and said, “Yeah, Jenny. What do you mean by fairy tales?”

She shrugged and put her sanitizer away.

“I just mean that ghosts don’t exist. And neither do unicorns. Or happily-ever-afters. Fairy tales.”

I sat back and finally had to look at Dex. He was smiling, sure, but it was an uneasy smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He was looking straight forward at a space on the wall between Rebecca and Seb, obviously feeling stuck in the middle.

“I see,” I said slowly. I wanted to argue with her but I had been doing so well so far. We had been getting along and as much as I wanted to, I didn’t need to rock the boat.

Finally I said, “Well that’s fair enough. There’s definitely more unbelievers that there are believers.”

“And more smart people than dumb people,” she added before stuffing a dainty forkful of salad in her mouth.

Dex tensed beside me; I think he knew I was about to go volcanic on her.

I didn’t though. I took in a quick, deep breath, calmed my newly caffeinated nerves, and pasted on a huge smile.

There were so many things I could say. More smart people than dumb people? Did she just dare insinuate that I was dumb and that she, she, who didn’t know the difference between “What’s New Pussycat” and “Stairway to Heaven”, was smart? My brain was on overload.