by Voss, Deja
Or maybe he’s doing that thing where he’s not really worried about what’s on because he wants to make out. I highly doubt it. He’s had a million opportunities to make a move, and I’m not going to force his hand. I am playing with fire as it is being here, even toying with the idea of letting these walls I’ve worked so hard to build collapse. I like my job. I like my life. I can’t let the fantasy of what could possibly happen between us get in the way of my reality.
It’s not often that I get to spend time at his house with him alone. Usually, his roommate, Red, is around, and if Tank knows how to command a room with his quiet charisma, Red isn’t afraid to command a room by being the loudest, funniest, and most unpredictable person around.
Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against him. In fact, I find him just as attractive as Tank, only in his own way. He’s my “type.” Unpredictable, impulsive, collecting tattoos and battle scars like baseball cards, and always saying exactly what’s on his mind. Red and I would be a match made in hell. We’d probably end up dead in a year if we ever dated. The thought is slightly thrilling, but it’s never going to happen.
I have played out the scenario a million times in my mind—which one I would choose if I had to. Every time, I come up short. Tank is a rock, even-tempered, kind, quiet, and mysteriously sexy, but oh so normal. Red is explosive, funny, and comes from a background that I can relate to. Tank might be convenient right this second, but what if I make the wrong choice? The fact that I’m deliberating a choice to begin with shows me that maybe it’s just not meant to be. Maybe I’m just lonely after all these years.
I feel his chest begin to rise and fall harder than before, and he’s snoring away.
Either I bored him to sleep or this TV show did, and that’s probably my cue to get out of here. His grip tightens around my shoulder and I try to move, but I don’t want to wake him just yet.
Five more minutes, I think, trying not to close my eyes. It feels so good to be wrapped up in his arms, but I know I should probably go. Falling asleep together is more intimate, in my opinion, than sex. I don’t want to give him the wrong idea.
I hear the front door swing open and I just sit there, unblinking, trying not to make a move or sound.
“What’s up with the sex candle?” Red shouts.
“Hey,” I say weakly, peeking my head up from behind the back of the couch.
“Hey, Ollie,” he says, smiling at me, all teeth. “This is an interesting surprise.”
“Where have you been, dude?” Tank asks, snapping out of his slumber, jumping up from the couch like we’re in the middle of a fire drill.
“Doesn’t matter.” He shrugs. “I think you probably had a more interesting night than I did.”
“We closed the bar and ate sandwiches,” I say. “What the hell happened to you?” His left eye is nearly swollen shut, the skin around it bright red and puffy. His bottom lip is split open. He still looks hot as hell in his tight black hoodie and sweatpants. He’s got this tall, lean, powerful, muscular body that reminds me of a cheetah. Like he could just pounce on his prey and rip them into a million pieces at any second. “And what the hell is a sex candle? Is that why it smells like Terrapin Station in here?”
He chuckles, staring right at Tank, shaking his head.
“Do you guys want me to go?” I ask, their standoff making me slightly uncomfortable. I can’t tell if they’re about to fight or hug, but I feel like I probably don’t need to be here for it.
“No, you stay,” Red says. “I think it’s time we all had a little talk.”
“Are you high?” Tank stutters.
“No, I’ve been sober for two weeks. I have a fight coming up Saturday, remember? Seems like perfect timing in my opinion.” He walks into the kitchen and grabs a bag of frozen peas from the freezer and presses it to his eye. “You guys stay put for a minute.” I watch him walk back into his bedroom, shutting the door behind him, and I look to Tank, completely confused.
“Olive, you can go home now if you want,” he says. “In fact, I think you probably should.” He begins to usher me towards the door, grabbing my purse from the coffee table and handing it to me.
“You’re both acting really fucking weird. Care to explain?” The bedroom door swings open and Red walks out casually, wearing nothing but a pair of basketball shorts. All I can see are abs, abs covered in ink, and a shit-eating grin.
“Everyone sit down,” he says. Tank looks like a deer in headlights, unmoving as he stares down his friend. “I just had a long night of thinking and I’m feeling like it’s time to make peace with some shit. Coach’s orders. The fact that you’re here is kind of a perfect coincidence.”
He sits down in the recliner with a groan, propping his feet up on the coffee table and pressing the bag of peas to his eye.
“Olive, you look terrified. You’re not in trouble. Nobody’s in trouble,” he says calmly. The way that Tank’s palm is pressed in the small of my back, still edging me out the door, has me intrigued. I pull away and sit down on the end of the couch, and he sighs.
“You sound like my dad. Or a cop. Or someone who’s been going to AA,” I say to him. “And can you please let me do something about that lip of yours? It looks like shit. It’s stressing me out.”
“God, you’re so thoughtful,” he says. “I think I have some cream in the medicine cabinet. Do you want to go grab it for me?”
Chapter 4
Red:
“What the fuck, dude?” Tank scolds me in a half whisper from across the room. I can tell he’s pissed. I can see by the look on his face that he’s trying to rationalize taking a swing at me.
But he won’t.
He’s too rational. He’s too calculated. There’s a reason some force of nature brought us together as best friends. Sometimes I think he’s the only reason why I’m still alive today.
When it comes to matters of Olive, though, I might be pushing things.
“Did I interrupt something?” I ask, even though I don’t need to. The only thing I interrupted was his twisted love for tormenting himself. It endears me the way he cares for her. He’ll never make a move though.
Hell, neither will I. At least, not without Tank around.
“Where were you?” he asks. “I thought you’d be home when we got here.”
“And then when I show up you shove her out the door?” I shake my head and smile at him.
I hate that I love this chick so much. I hate it with every fiber of my being. If I could make myself feel any other way towards her, I would do it in an instant. For my sake, and for Tank’s.
I hate that I care about Tank so much. Growing up, I never had the luxury of having friends, and loyalty wasn’t even in my vocabulary. Tank was the first person I’ve ever known who wouldn’t throw me under a bus to serve their own interests. It’s the least I can do to offer him the same respect.
All these feelings are pouring through me right now, and although I usually bury that shit deep down, tonight’s been kind of surreal.
“So what happened to you?” Olive asks, coming out of the bathroom with a little pot of ointment in her hand. She looks ridiculously adorable in Tank’s clothes. His t-shirt comes down past her knees, but I can’t stop looking at the foot of skin that’s showing between her calf and her foot. Who would’ve thought a shin would turn me on? I swear, this girl makes me crazy in ways I didn’t think were possible.
She dabs at my lip with a wet cloth.
“I got my ass kicked is what happened,” I say. “Bad.”
“I’m sorry,” she says as I wince.
“Don’t be. I had it coming. Probably one of the best things that’s happened to me in a long time.”
“Hold still,” she says, her pouty lips just centimeters from mine as she examines the cuts on my face. Even without make-up on, she’s perfect.
“Do you ever feel like you’re just going through the motions?” I ask. That’s pretty much my life in a nutshell as of late. Everything is perfect by my f
ucked-up standards. I have my club, I have a roof over my head, a little money in the bank, and my career as an underground MMA fighter is starting to really pick up steam.
I guess when you’re used to living your life hungry, and worried about if you’re going to get stabbed in your sleep, being comfortable starts to make you paranoid.
“Well sure,” Olive says. “It kind of feels good, though, doesn’t it? I mean, I think we’re entitled to it at this point in our lives.”
I watch out of the corner of my eye as Tank finally walks across the room and sits down on the couch. I know I’m driving him nuts right now. I hate to do it to the guy, but this is the only way things are ever going to be right. This is the only way to clear the air and move on with our lives, either with or without her. I’m sick of seeing him sad. I’m sick of bottling this in. It’s bleeding over into my fighting, too, and I can’t have that right now. Not with everything I have on the line this weekend.
“I guess,” I say. “I don’t know. I kind of had a breakthrough tonight. My sparring partner was this young kid, squirrelly as fuck. Usually, I can take him down with one punch. But something was bugging me. I didn’t want to.”
“I know you’re a crazy guy, but letting someone beat the shit out of you for no reason isn’t really like you,” Tank says. “Are you going to be ok by Saturday?”
“I’m fine.” I push Olive’s hand away from my face. “That’s enough. Thank you, Olive.”
She looks at me with a sadness in her eyes, like she knows exactly what I’m talking about. Of course she does. We’ve lived very similar lives.
“Can you go get me some ibuprofen from the bathroom?” I ask her. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s no problem.” I hate making her run around like my errand girl, but I need one more minute alone with Tank. I’ve been waiting years for this moment, he’s been waiting years for this moment, and I’m finally in a clear enough state of mind that I know now’s the time.
“What are you trying to do?” he growls at me. “Just because you got hit in the head and had some ‘spiritual breakthrough’ doesn’t mean now is the time for any of this. It’s 4 a.m.”
After my training session at the gym, I showered up and went to leave, but my coach was waiting by the door. He gets me. He knows something’s not right. The rain was coming down and he suggested we go to the diner across the street and wait it out. Normally, I’d say no, just get on my bike and suck it up, but I knew I needed to talk to the guy. Not just about fighting or training. I needed him to snap me out of this phase.
Three hours and a pot of coffee was all it took for me to realize I’m getting complacent in this loop. Loop of trying to ignore her. Loop of trying to ignore his feelings. Complacent to the point that it’s making me do dumber things than I normally do. I need to come clean if I ever want to break through to that next level.
“Does it really matter what time it is?” I ask. “Are you going to let me do this or what? Worst-case scenario, she leaves, and we both get a good night’s sleep and wash our hands of this Schrödinger’s cat shit.”
“You’re a quantum physicist now? How hard did he hit you?”
“Red,” Olive calls from the bathroom. “I’m not seeing it!”
“Oh shit, it’s on my nightstand,” I call back. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” she says, walking into my bedroom.
“You have thirty seconds to talk me into this,” Tank says.
“You have thirty seconds to talk me out of it,” I smirk. “You need to take this on the chin like a man, no matter what the outcome is.”
“Don’t scare her off, man,” he says, looking sad and dejected. “I love her.”
“I know you do, bud. And so do I. This is for her own good.”
“What if she says no?”
“Do they ever?” It’s not like we haven’t been through this before. We’ve shared plenty of chicks in our day. Tank dazzles them with his dark and romantic brooding, and I go in for the kill.
“She’s not a fucking dirty birdie and this isn’t some sloppy drunken threesome of regret.”
“We’ve both been putting in the legwork for two years now, Tank. You think I haven’t thought about the best way to do this a million times in my head? Besides, I’m not trying to fuck.” I shrug. “I have a fight coming up. I have to keep it in my pants for the next five days. You, however…”
“Do you need water?” she asks, tiptoeing from my bedroom into the kitchen. “Tank, do you want anything while I’m up?”
“We’re fine,” he says, glaring at me.
“You trust me?” I ask him as we both watch her walk through the house, carefree and unsuspecting.
“Do it,” he says, resting his head in his hands.
Chapter 5
Olive:
I don’t know if these two think I have a hearing problem or if they don’t realize their walls are paper-thin. I took my happy time in the bathroom, listening to them argue in hushed tones. I know I’m missing a lot of information, and I couldn’t make out everything, but I’ve heard enough to become fairly uncomfortable with the situation. The entirety of my ‘friendship’ with these two is coming back to me in bits and pieces, and I don’t know why I didn’t see it sooner. They’ve been playing some weird game with me.
“So how are we going to do this?” I ask, handing Red the bottle of ibuprofen. “Like, who goes in what hole?”
“What?” Tank stammers. “Olive, what are you talking about?”
The way Red is smiling at me makes me want to punch him in his other eye.
“Quit with the bullshit,” I say. “Have you guys really been so nice to me for the last two years because you wanted to get me in bed?”
“Well yeah,” Red says, swallowing a handful of pills.
“Red, stop,” Tank barks. “Olive, it’s not like that…”
“Jeez, I’m flattered,” I say sarcastically. “All these years of doing whatever I could to be taken seriously by you guys and the club, working my ass off and keeping my legs shut, and it still comes down to this. You’re no better than the sleaze balls that come into the bar and hit on me and try and get me to come home with them. I take that back. You’re worse than them. At least they’re upfront with their intentions from the start.”
I grab my purse off the coffee table. It’s not the fact that they want to hook up. Hell, I’ve dreamed of hooking up with them so many lonely nights over the year. It’s the fact that they haven’t been straightforward about it. This creepy premeditated thing isn’t flattering at all. It’s embarrassing, actually, knowing that, all along, I’ve just been some piece of meat dangling in front of them until they were desperate enough to pounce.
“Olive, sit your ass down,” Red says, pointing to the couch. “If you think for one second we’d spend two years just trying to get in some girl’s pants I’m kind of disappointed in you. I mean, come on,”—he motions to Tank, a cocky smile on his face—“if we’re being truthful here, you’re just as guilty, wouldn’t you say?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say. “I gotta go.” He infuriates me the way he sees right through me. The way it’s almost like we share the same thoughts.
Poor Tank is all I can think. He’s too nice of a guy to get dragged into this bullshit. The look on his face isn’t that of a guilty man. It’s of a guy who just lost his house in a fire. He reaches his arm out and grabs my wrist.
“Ollie, seriously,” he says. “Just hear us out. Then you can go home and never talk to us again if you want.” The way he slips his fingers in between mine and squeezes.
“You get five minutes,” I say. “Ya’ll have had two years to sort out these details.”
“Exactly,” Red says,“and if everyone agrees to be a hundred percent honest, it won’t even take five minutes. I bet I can knock this out in two.”
“You’re eating into your time with your cockiness,” I say. “Clock is ticking.”
I wedge myself into t
he corner of the couch, doing my best to keep a comfortable distance from both of them.
“I think you should let Tank kiss you,” he says.
“Red, I have been celibate for the last two years and have watched enough porn to know that’s exactly how these things go down.” Seriously, I am way too sober for their bullshit right now, and pissed off too. “Why don’t you guys just kiss each other and let me go home.”
“You know that’s never going to happen, right?” His voice is low and he pulls the bag of peas off his swollen eyeball, staring right at me. “Just trust me, Ollie? Let the man kiss you.”
They’re both staring at me, but not like a piece of meat. It’s almost like they’re asking me to donate an organ or something, like this is a matter of life or death.
“Fine,” I say, not exactly enthused. This definitely isn’t how I imagined things would be if we ever actually did hook up. As Tank presses his lips to mine, though, I instantly know what Red is talking about. It’s perfect, the way he gently caresses the back of my head, his tongue barely parting my lips. It’s electric. I’ve never felt a kiss that was so careful but powerful at the same time.
“Now is that how someone who just wants to get in your pants would kiss you?” Red asks. He looks at his watch. “Less than two minutes. I’m good.”
I still have more questions than answers, but I don’t want to stop kissing him.
“Now let me,” Red says.
“Your lip,” is all I can squeak out, my brain not thinking in full sentences.
“It’s ok,” he assures me. “You won’t hurt me.”
He kisses me much more gently than I would’ve expected from this domineering loudmouth; it’s so different than it felt with Tank, but somehow equally as perfect, equally as powerful. Different but the same.
The same in that he’s right. This is how you kiss someone you care about.
“See?” he asks, brushing my bangs out of my face while I try and catch my breath.