“What do you want this to be?” she asked quietly.
I thought about it for a minute, but I really wasn’t sure how to answer. Whatever this was, it was foreign to me. I didn’t know what to call it.
“What are my options?”
Lia raised both eyebrows at me and tilted her head a bit. I only shrugged in response, so she tapped her finger against her bottom lip as she answered me.
“Well, you could buy me a giant diamond and be my fiancé.” Lia dropped her finger down and tapped her chin instead. “Or we could just go to Vegas and have Elvis or maybe Darth Vader marry us. If commitment isn’t your thing, we could just be fuck-buddies.”
She turned her eyes back to me and smiled softly as I raised my eyebrow at her.
“Then again, maybe we should just try the boyfriend-girlfriend thing for now and see what happens,” she suggested.
“It seems a little more…realistic than the other ones,” I admitted. I took a deep breath and looked into her eyes. “I’ve never done this shit before.”
“What? Dated?”
“Have we been on a date?”
“I guess not.” She eyed me with a cynical gaze. “What do you mean, then?”
I didn’t even know what I meant, which was part of the problem.
“I’ve never put a label on a…a relationship,” I said. “I don’t even know what that means—boyfriend. Should I go get flowers and chocolates now?”
“That doesn’t seem your style,” Lia snickered. “Have you ever bought a girl flowers before?”
I licked my lips and considered the daffodils I had yanked out of a window box for Bridgett. Since they were neither bought nor ever delivered to her, I had an honest answer.
“Never bought a girl flowers. Bought a few other things, I guess.”
“Such as?”
“Is this normal girlfriend-boyfriend conversation,” I asked, “me telling you what I’ve bought for other chicks? What did William get you for your last birthday?”
Lia’s throat bobbed up and down as she looked away from me.
“Fine, you made your point.”
The tension in her face and her refusal to look at me told me enough.
“I must be a boyfriend,” I said. “I’m already pissing you off.”
She looked back at me, and her face relaxed as she cracked a smile.
“That isn’t a requirement,” she said, “just in case you were wondering.”
“Duly noted. All things considered, though, I’ll
likely piss you off again.”
She looked at me for a long moment.
“I just want to know more about you,” she said. “I still want to know what happened to you.”
I shook my head.
“I need to get to my apartment,” I said. “You also need to get your shit out of this little hellhole.”