by Katia Rose
Maybe it’s creepy. Maybe it’s pathetic. It still doesn’t stop me from wanting to share the things that happen to me and picturing what she’d say in return. As I watch her peel the wrapper off her sandwich and take a tentative bite—one of the only tentative actions I’ve ever seen her make—I realize that there are two DeeDee’s in my life: the one who knows how much she means to me and the one who doesn’t seem to have a fucking clue.
This is the first time their images have ever crossed paths.
“Merci,” she says through a mouthful of ice cream. She pauses for a second to swallow. “Thank you. I, uh, I just...Monroe was busy, and—”
“DeeDee,” I cut her off, “I’m glad I could be there for you.”
The words hang heavy between us. In all the time we’ve spent together, we’ve hardly ever done heavy, but there was nothing light or easy about the way I found her tonight. I barely recognized her voice on the phone. For a second, I thought someone else had picked up, but the lurch in my chest heard her pain before my head had time to catch up. I didn’t know where I was going as I pulled my shoes on and ran out the door. We hadn’t even hung up yet. I was halfway down the street before she gave me the address, and if I hadn’t needed to look it up on the map, I would have kept her on the phone the whole way over.
She stepped out of the apartment building as soon as I came into view. She was right on the edge of a pool of light spilling from a streetlamp, like someone about to step into the glow of a spotlight. I paused before I could move into the circle of illuminated sidewalk, and I know I must have been imagining it, but I swear there was a moment waiting for us under that glow. She was shaking and timid, but if she’d stepped forward, and if I’d had the courage to do the same, I would have taken her in my arms and given her all the strength I had.
Maybe that’s not what she needed. Maybe it’s not what she wanted. She crossed over and met me in the dark instead, and all she did was lay a hand on my shoulder before she turned and started walking. It was like she didn’t trust her own voice to speak, and if the brightness in her eyes was anything to go by, that voice was on the verge of breaking. She was on the verge of breaking, and all I wanted to do was get her home in one piece.
As we walked through the dark and silent streets, I knew I’d go to pieces too if I couldn’t.
“How do you think they get the ice cream in the middle?”
“Huh?”
I look up from the corner of the carpet I’ve been staring at and find DeeDee licking her fingers, her sandwich completely demolished. My own is melting in its wrapper.
“Like, it’s just so perfect,” she continues. “How do they get it all to line up so well?”
“I mean, it’s a sandwich, DeeDee.” I can’t hold back on the sarcasm as I pull the wrapper open and inspect the ice cream inside. “You’ve made one before, right? Alignment is usually the goal.”
She uncurls one of her legs from underneath her and stretches it out to whack me in the shin. “Don’t make fun of me, connard! I have a curious mind!”
I keep teasing her. “Are ice cream sandwiches really such a source of mystery? What exactly is there to be curious about?”
She sits up straighter, a trace of the explosive energy that always seems to catch the eye of everyone around her sparking in her body once more.
“Well, like, do they put one cookie on first or both at the same time?”
“I think it’s probably a machine that does it.”
She makes a show of rolling her eyes. “Duh it’s a machine, but what does the machine do?”
“You really want to know, don’t you?” I glance between her and my sandwich before taking a bite. “Personally, I think it tastes great either way.”
“It’s just one of those things, you know?’ she continues. “Now it’s going to bother me.”
“We could look it up,” I suggest. “There’s probably a video about it.”
She laughs long and loud—maybe a little too loud for me to be convinced she’s back to normal, but it’s better than seeing the wilted girl she was just a few minutes before.
“We don’t have to look it up. I’m being cray-cray.”
“Jesus lord!” I wave my ice cream at her. “How many times do I have to tell you no one says cray-cray anymore?”
“I say cray-cray!” she fires back. “And how many times do I have to tell you no one says ‘Jesus lord’ unless they’re an old person or they live on a farm?”
“That is just stereotypical!”
“You’re stereotypical!”
Her accent makes it come out ‘tee-pee-cal,’ which just has me laughing even harder. She does her best to glare at me while she tries not to laugh too.
“Grab me my laptop,” I order, pointing to where it’s sitting on the side table next to her. “We are going to satisfy your curiosity.”
And that’s how we end up watching an entire episode of How It’s Made to learn all about the production of ice cream sandwiches. Of course, you can’t stop at just one episode of How It’s Made, especially when the sidebar has intriguing options like bowling balls and Lego. We’re deep into our binge and have each polished off another ice cream sandwich when I make the mistake of looking at the clock.
“Oh shit, it’s past four in the morning.”
“Whoa!” DeeDee sits up straighter on the couch, her eyes going wide. “You said shit!”
“I say shit all the time.”
She shakes her head. “No, you don’t. You hardly ever swear.”
“That is blatantly untrue.”
“Nuh uh.” She sinks back into the cushions. “You’re so innocent.”
I balk. “Innocent?”
You have no idea what I’ve thought about doing to you on this couch.
“I’m not innocent.”
She nudges my foot with hers. “Oh yeah? So prove it.”
The laptop continues playing footage of little Lego pieces popping out of a mold, but I can’t hear the narration about melting points and production speed anymore. All I’m aware of is the thumping in my chest and the way a piece of her hair is slipping into her face. She’s so close I wouldn’t even need to move over to tuck it behind her ear. I could let my knuckles trail down her neck, cup her jaw with my palm. I could pull her into my lap and prove anything she likes. I could taste her. I could finally, finally taste her.
But that’s not what she came here for. She didn’t call me so I could have her calling out my name. She’s here because she feels safe, because her world was caving in beneath her feet and I’m the thing she grabbed onto to keep her standing.
People look at DeeDee and see something simple. They call her an open book and a good time, but I know she only ever lets them read the first chapter. She doesn’t trust easy, and if nothing else, I want to be someone she can trust with her whole story. If that makes me innocent, then I guess I’m as innocent as they come.
“I may regret offering this if she comes home unexpectedly and murders you in your sleep, but would you like to sleep in Paige’s room? She’s in Toronto all week for some DJ thing, and her bed will be way comfier than this couch.”
“I think I could beat Paige if she tried to kill me.”
I tilt my head.
“Okay, maybe not,” DeeDee amends, “but I’m still not scared to sleep in her room.”
The last thing I want to do is move away from her, but I get up off the couch.
“Do you want some fresh sheets?”
“Non, merci. Don’t worry about it.” She turns sheepish all of a sudden, springing up off the cushions and keeping her eyes fixed on the floor. “You must want to get to bed. It’s, uh, it’s really nice of you to let me stay. I know it is a lot. I’m a lot. I—”
“DeeDee.”
I cut her off when her voice starts to get thick, but she still doesn’t look up.
“Don’t worry about it. I mean it. There’s nothing I’d rather be doing.”
“I was...I was so scared.”
<
br /> She pulls her knees up to her chest and rests her forehead on them. I slowly sit back down beside her, like she’s an animal that could take off running at any second.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I ask when she doesn’t move.
“It’s stupid.” Her voice is muffled by her legs.
“I don’t think it’s stupid. I don’t think anything about you is stupid.”
She sniffs. “You mean that?”
“More than anything.”
My chest aches so hard I almost have to clutch the front of my shirt when she turns her head enough to give me a weak smile. All I did was tell her I don’t think she’s stupid, and she’s accepting it like it’s one of the sweetest compliments in the world.
I wouldn’t call myself a fighter, but as I watch her get up from the couch, I want to rip whoever or whatever did this to her to pieces with my bare hands.
“You are a very good guy, Zach,” she says with her back to me. “The best guy. Thank you.”
I stay silent for a moment as I gather the control to speak.
“Don’t mention it. Please. That’s, um,”—I swallow and force the last words out—“that’s what friends are for.”
“Right.” She nods and looks back at me. “Merci tellement.”
Then she strides over to the closest bedroom door.
“Um, DeeDee.”
She stops with the handle in her grasp. “Ouais?”
“That’s my room.”
“Whoops. Silly me.”
I feel my face getting hot. I’m blushing. I’m literally blushing like a teenage girl because she almost set foot in my damn bedroom.
“Paige’s is over there.” I gesture vaguely behind me.
She moves past me, and I hear her footsteps pause in Paige’s doorway. I pull myself together enough to face her.
“Goodnight, Zach.” She reaches for the handle and steps into the dark room. “Sweet dreams.”
“Uh, yeah, um, goodnight.”
I fall back onto the couch as soon as the door closes.
This is going to be a long, long night.
Six
Zach
APERITIF: an alcoholic beverage meant to be consumed before a meal, with the purpose of stimulating hunger
I wake up with a hard-on.
Of course I do.
I resisted the urge to jerk off like a pervert last night, even when I heard the shower turn on just after I got into bed. The knowledge that DeeDee was naked in the same apartment as me made it next to impossible to get any sleep for the rest of the night.
I must have dozed off at some point, because here I am facing the reward of being polite and not creepy: a near-painfully hard case of morning wood.
I feel like a guilty teenager.
I also feel like I’m going to start smashing furniture if my dick doesn’t get some kind of release soon. I haven’t heard any movement in the apartment. It’s only 9AM, and considering we went to bed past four, it’s safe to say DeeDee is probably asleep.
I shift in bed, and even the weight of the sheets is enough to have me holding back a groan.
This is bad.
I lay as still as I can for a few more minutes, but the situation doesn’t seem like it will be improving anytime soon.
“Dammit,” I mutter.
Fine. I’ll get off, but I won’t think about her.
I start with one of my trusted go-to’s: the hot female gym teacher at my high school. It doesn’t help with the guilty teenager vibes, but picturing her pulling me into the back seat of her Dodge Grand Caravan—yes, for some reason I never try picturing a sexier car than the one she actually owned—holds my attention for the first few strokes.
I clutch the sheet with my free hand, straining not to make any noise. I’m so damn hard.
And then she would reach back and take her bra off. It would probably be hard to do that in a minivan. She might hit her head. Maybe she’d be really flexible. I wonder if DeeDee is flexible...
“No,” I order myself. “No, no, no.”
Okay, her bra is off. She wants me to put her tits in my mouth. Yeah, that’s good. I wonder if she still works at the high school. Wow, she must be like, fifty years-old by now. Do I really want to have a fifty-year-old’s tits in my mouth?
Maybe I should take this fantasy off the go-to list. Truth be told, it doesn’t matter how many times I start off picturing someone else. When it’s late at night or early in the morning, when I’m aching for release, when I’m about to hit the edge and let go, all I have to think about is wrapping that candy pink hair around my fist as her hips rock back onto mine, and I’m gone.
“Dammit,” I pant. “Fuck.”
I want to know what she sounds like. I want to be the one to make her feel good. I want my name on her lips.
I want my cock inside her.
I stroke myself even faster, the fantasy of her skin on mine spurring me on until I can’t hold back anymore. I come all over my hand and let my head drop back, the muscles of my neck unclenching as my breath and heart continue to race.
For something that should be so bad, this feels way too good.
I lay there for a few minutes before finally hauling myself out of bed. I get cleaned up as best I can and pull a pair of sweatpants on to head to the bathroom.
I can probably have breakfast ready by the time she wakes up. Maybe I’ll even spell ‘Hope you didn’t hear me jerking off to the thought of screwing you senseless’ in pancake letters.
I’ve just stepped into the living room when a cheery greeting rings out.
“Good morning, Zachy Zach.”
“Holy fucking shit!”
I jump a foot in the air when I turn to the couch beside me and see DeeDee sitting there.
Right. There.
As in, right there on the couch that’s against the wall of my bedroom—the bedroom in which I just came while thinking about her.
The situation gets even worse when my leap of terror sends me crashing into a bookcase behind me. The corner jabs into my shoulder blade, and I swear again as my bare feet somehow slip out from under me. My back rakes along the bookshelf’s edge as I slide to the floor and land right on my tailbone. I let out a long groan as pain shoots up my spine.
DeeDee gasps and rushes over. She’s wearing the same tight black pants and crop top as last night, but her feet are bare like mine, and when she squats down in front of me, I see she’s got next to no makeup on—or what I think is next to no makeup; makeup is a mysterious thing.
It’s those details that make the moment feel intimate, comfortable even, despite the splitting pain ricocheting up and down my back. Her face is pinched with concern where it’s only inches from mine, brown eyes warm and gentle. She looks younger without all that black stuff ringed around them.
It takes me a second to realize she’s jabbering away in French too fast for me to follow. I catch the words ‘let me see’ before she puts a hand on my shoulder and presses lightly, urging me to bend forward a few inches.
That’s when I remember I’m not wearing a shirt. Her fingers on my shoulder send a shiver running through me.
“Merde, Zach!” she shouts after getting a glimpse of my back. “You’re all scratched up.”
“Feels like it.” I can’t help hissing when her fingers graze a tender spot and set off a sharp stinging sensation.
“Désolé!” she yelps. “Sorry, sorry. It’s pretty fucked up. Come on. Can you get up? We should get it cleaned.”
She hooks a hand under my forearm and places the other on my bicep to guide me to my feet beside her.
“There we go, Monsieur Hastings. Just like that.”
I search for something—anything—to focus on besides the warmth of her fingers twined around my bare arm. That’s when I notice she’s got a pair of headphones tangled around her, one side still nestled in her ear while the other hangs loose, all caught up in her hair.
“Uh, DeeDee, I think your headphones are trying to strangle
you.”
“What? Oh.” She reaches for the cord and then laughs. “I guess I pulled them right out of my phone when I got up. I was listening to music before you decided to come out and put on a show.”
“You had headphones on?” I clarify as she starts to lead us to the bathroom. “All morning?”
“Ouais. Why?”
I let out a small sigh of relief. “Uh, no reason. What were you listening to?”
We make it to the bathroom, and before I know what’s happening, DeeDee’s sitting me down on the closed lid of the toilet and turning me around so she has access to my back. I couldn’t resist her hands if I tried, and I need the distraction of obeying orders if I’m going to continue ignoring the fact that I’m shirtless and she’s touching me, so I let her carry on.
“I’m not going to tell you,” she says from behind me. “You will laugh.”
“DeeDee, I just ripped my back open and probably bruised my tailbone for life by tripping over my own feet. I’m not going to laugh at you.”
She makes a hurumph sound and asks where we keep the Polysporin.
“I’m not going to put any stinging stuff on it, okay? I’ll just use this cloth with warm water and then put the Polysporin on.”
I grunt out my agreement and focus very hard on the baseboard I have my eyes glued to as she starts to dab my back with the cloth.
“You’re kind of tense, Zachy Zach. Does it hurt too much?”
You can hurt me any day of the week.
Yeah, this situation has gone from bad to worse.
“It’s fine,” I assure her as her strokes start to get lighter. “It’s really not that bad. Also, you’re avoiding my question.”
“Why do you want to know what I was listening to?”
“I just want to know...you.”
Her hand goes still.
“As in, like, you know, your taste in music...and stuff,” I blurt before I can throw myself any farther under the bus. “I don’t really know what you like—in music! I’m, uh, curious.”