Totally and Completely Fine(93)

I leaned my hips back on the desk, arms crossed.

Gabe looked up at me, his face drawn.

“I should have seen this coming,” he said, balling his hand into a fist and giving the couch cushions a solid punch.

“Careful on the furniture, okay?”

“I’ll buy you a new one,” he said.

Silence reigned. I kept checking behind me to make sure no one was waiting at the counter, while Gabe leaned his head back against the couch cushions and stared at the ceiling.

“This is a fucking mess,” he said after a good five minutes.

“I would love to help you out,” I said. “But I don’t have any idea what is going on.”

He gave me a look—a long, searching one, and I was pretty sure he was just about to tell me what was causing his massive meltdown when his phone rang.

“Ollie? Where have you been?” he all but bellowed into the phone. “You can’t be at the theatre—I was just there. Yeah. Yeah. I know—I fucking know. Okay. Fuck. I’m on my way.”

He hung up and pushed himself off the couch.

“Gotta go,” he said.

“Glad I could help,” I said.

“You did, actually.” He dropped a kiss on my cheek on his way out the door.

I tried to settle back into my good mood, but the afternoon turned out to be quite busy and a little after three, Lena came into the store wearing an expression very much like Gabe had been wearing this morning.

“Great,” I muttered to myself. “Hi, honey.”

Lena grunted and went into the office, slamming the door behind her.

Like uncle, like niece.

“I have no idea what’s going on,” Chani said.

I turned, not knowing she was there—she must have been trailing Lena.

“Did you pick her up?”

Chani nodded, car keys twirling around her finger. “She called me.”

I wasn’t expecting that.

“She called you?” I asked, and then quickly apologized. “I didn’t mean to sound so incredulous. It’s just, she called you?”

Chani gave me a smile. “Trust me, I was just as surprised as you are. I think she tried Gabe, but he wasn’t picking up, and then maybe she tried Ollie, but she ended up calling me to come get her from Eve’s.”

“She was at Eve’s?”

“She didn’t say anything when she got in the car,” Chani said. “I think I heard a thank-you, but whatever happened, she wasn’t going to confess to me. I was just the chauffeur.”

I let out a sigh. Just when things had started to look up.

“I’ll have a talk with her about her manners.”

“It’s okay,” Chani said. “I’m honestly flattered she thought of me at all.”

I looked at my phone, even though I knew I hadn’t missed any calls or texts, and wondered why Lena hadn’t reached out to me.

“Are you busy?” I asked.

“Nope,” she said.

“Could I ask another favor? Would you mind the counter for a bit? I should go talk to Lena.”

“Of course,” Chani said.

She looked thrilled to be asked.

“I’d love to say this dysfunction is unusual for us,” I said. “But I don’t want to lie to you.”

She laughed. “Can’t spell dysfunctional without fun.”

We both winced at the bad joke.

“Why don’t you and Gabe come over to dinner tomorrow night?” I asked.

I loved my brother, but I wasn’t giving up my night with Ben.

“He’ll like that,” Chani said. “Sounds really nice.”

“Great,” I said. “Tomorrow at seven.”

“Now go check on Lena,” Chani said. “I’ll watch the counter.”

I opened the office door to find Lena in an almost identical pose to what I’d found when I went looking for Gabe.

What was with today?

“Lena? Honey?”

She didn’t lift her head as I closed the door carefully behind me.

“Are you okay? Did something happen?”

“Eve and I broke up,” she said, her voice muffled.

Fuck.

I hadn’t seen that coming—what had happened between last night and now?

With everyone.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, sitting down on the couch next to her. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“She’s just being ridiculous!” Lena threw up her hands, her whole body flung back against the cushions. “She wants to tell everyone that we’re together and thinks I’m a coward because I don’t want to.”

Oooof.

“That’s really hard,” I said.

“Yeah, I know,” she said, looking at me with a disdain I’d come to know well. “It’s all Ben’s fault.”

My chest got tight.

I’d been so happy that Lena seemed to be warming up to Ben. Especially now that I was willing to give this whole real-dating thing a try. This was the opposite of good timing.

“He made it sound like being gay is just the best thing in the entire world and that we’re like these special unicorns with our own families and elders,” Lena said. “But I don’t want to be a unicorn. I don’t want to stand out. I just want to get through school.”