Lingus

by Mariana Zapata

  A sharp, bony elbow stabbed me right in the spine. "He's done, KAB." Zoey informed me.

  I took a sharp breath, and turned to look at Nikki and Calum who were standing there staring at each other in silence. It was kind of creepy. "Nik, just call me when you're ready, I'm gonna go... do something."

  Like usual, she didn't respond to me so I looked at Zoey, who had dropped Officer Spanksalot's box on the floor and had her hands on her hips looking as serious as she could possibly ever seem. "You remember this, Kat Alba Berger, you are beautiful, smart, funny, and just plain awesome even when you say the wrong thing half the time."

  "Thanks, I guess," I laughed at her form of a compliment, and held up my hand for her to give me a high-five.

  I'd taken maybe two steps away from her when I heard her yell out after me, "You need some cock in your life and he knows what he's doing!"

  Unfortunately, even though I was two steps away from Zoey, Tristan was two steps away from me and heard her rant, as well as everyone else nearby.

  Chapter 11

  If my life were a commercial, that would have been the instant where time stopped and a man with a deep voice asked, "Need a moment?"

  I'd eat a Twix and my life would rewind just enough, so that I could tell Zoey to zip her lips and I could meet up Tristan with my dignity still intact.

  Regrettably, none of this happened. My face heated up enough to melt wax. I'm sure that it was the exact same shade of red as a fire truck. I ground my teeth as I looked down to compose myself for a second, only to see Tristan looking at me with a gigantic smile on his face. At least someone thought this was funny.

  I turned around to look at Zoey who had a hand slapped over her mouth like she realized too late that the shit that came out of it was that loud. I raised my hands up to my sides and mouthed, "What the fuck?" She mouthed back, "I'm sorry," and at least had the decency to look apologetic. If it were Nicole who had done it, I knew that bitch would have repeated it again, if not louder.

  "C'mon," Tristan called out to me, heading in the direction I'd walked from.

  The nicely dressed man that had screamed at him while he had been talking to me before was in front of Tristan, talking on his cell, and leading the way through the crowd. I trailed a little behind my newly discovered porn acquaintance. He kept glancing back every few steps, shooting me little smiles each time. It was strange how people turned to look at him every once in awhile. It was also really uncomfortable recognizing the looks of pure lust in many women's eyes when they spotted him.

  The only other thing that was more uncomfortable was how I felt right then. If it wasn't bad enough that I found out he did porn, now he knew I "needed some dick in my life." I liked what I knew about Tristan so far; he was funny, and so hot my eyeballs ran the potential of sizzling just by looking at him, but I just felt strange. I was probably being a hypocrite, and maybe a little sexist by allowing myself to feel weird since I could care less what Zoey did. Was it because I knew she was just with women, and Tristan was using his dick to fuck girls?

  My stomach churned at the thought again.

  Once we were out of the majority of the crowds, and heading toward a row of doors that lead somewhere else, the man in the business suit turned around to look at Tristan with a shake of his head, and then looked me up and down. "This is a terrible idea for your image, Tristan. I mean, she's really lovely but—"

  "Shut up, Walter," Tristan groaned, holding the door open for me to follow the man through the new hallway we were in.

  "You know how bad of an idea it would be to—," the man I assumed was named Walter continued. There were more doors down that way with a lot of people coming in and out of them. He stopped abruptly in front of a door to the right that said ‘Covert Entertainment.'

  "That's all for today, Walt. I'm leaving once I get cleaned up." Tristan cut him off again before ducking into the room we had stopped in front of. He motioned for me to follow before he shut the door in front of Walter's face with a loud sigh. He gave me a cheeky grin, but his face looked resigned and a bit weary. "Sorry about that. Walter is my manager."

  "Okay." I nodded before looking away.

  The room was pretty sparse with a vanity mirror, a chair on one side, couch on the opposite corner with a pile of clothes draped across it, and a small wardrobe. There was also another door to the right, probably leading to another dimension, knowing my luck.

  Tristan cleared his throat as he slid one of his slender hands up to his hair only to yank at the short strands. He pulled his hand away from his head, staring down at his palm. He frowned, before flipping it over to show me the black smudges trailing across it. "I hate this crap."

  "It's washable?" I asked him, referring to the black color in his hair. I felt so nervous for some reason. It was like my senior class salutatorian speech all over again, with sweaty palms and pits.

  "Yeah, it gets out after one or two rinses," he answered, looking down at his palm again. "Do you mind helping me wash it out in the sink?"

  I should have wanted to tell him no when I realized why he invited me here. Hopefully he wasn't stupid enough to think that we were going to get to know each other better. I knew deep within me that he wasn't like that. At least with me, he wasn't. He'd been nothing but kind and silly. Once again, another reason to deny that he wanted anything besides friendship with me. If he really wanted to, he'd have me pushed up against the wall, but he hadn't. Instead, I just nodded as I followed him through the door I'd seen earlier to find that it was a small restroom with a sink and a toilet. There was barely enough room for both of us to be in there together, so I had to squeeze into the area between the sink and the toilet. I saw him turn on the left knob for the hot water and spotted two white towels hanging on his right side.

  He was staring at me through his black-framed glasses when I looked back at him. "Is there something on my face?" I asked.

  He smiled and shook his head. "No." Tristan looked at me for another heartbeat or two before taking off his glasses and placing them in the front pocket of his jeans.

  "Are those prescription glasses?" I blurted out another awkward question.

  He nodded slowly. "I'm farsighted." Tristan ran a hand through his jet-black hair again, grimacing when he was halfway done with the action, probably remembering that it stained his skin. "Kat, I—," he sighed. "The water should be ready now."

  Tristan dipped his head closer to the sink and he was so tall that he had to bend over at the waist to get parallel with it. I had to scoop my hand under the tap to get a steady stream of water over his scalp. A faint swirl of charcoal tainted the vivid white color of the sink as the hair color washed off easily with the help of his fingers pulling at the strands. Within a couple of minutes, the auburn color started peeking out from under the black. It took about ten minutes of running water, using one hand to scoop water onto his hair while using the other to help him rub and scratch at the temporary hair dye to get about ninety-five percent of the color off.

  "Thank you," he said softly, once we were done. I put a towel over the back of his head for him to dry off. "Did you get your autograph?"

  "I did," I replied. "His voice was a little squeakier in person."

  He chuckled, still facing down while he ran the towel through his damp hair. It was still a bit darker than it had been earlier when he'd taken his cap off, but nowhere near the shade it was at when he was in Lingus mode. "Most of us are a lot different in person," he said simply, but I felt like he was trying to convey more into his words. It didn't escape me that he said us, like he acknowledged the fact that he really was a porn star despite the fact that he didn't tell me about it earlier. It suddenly hit me why Nikki thought he looked familiar when I first saw him at Calum's booth. She'd seen his work before. My stomach clenched at the mental picture of the poster he had by his booth with the big-busted bitch.

  "I see," I mumbled out. "I won't tell anyone your real name, if that's what you're worried about."

  Tristan's
bright green eyes looked right at me like he was trying to look through me. "I'm not, I know you wouldn't tell anyone."

  It was so awkward in the tiny restroom; the tension felt suffocating. I didn't like this weirdness, whether it was with him or with someone else, I'd hate it. Tristan dropped the towel, which was then more black than white, on the floor and waved for me to follow him out of the bathroom almost as if he read my mind. Don't check him out. Don't check him out. Don't check him out, I repeated to myself to no avail.

  I didn't want to look at him but really, who wouldn't eye-molest the shit out of him? I bet if my grandma were still alive she'd probably fondle his perfectly round ass. It looked like he'd cut a soccer ball in half and then stuffed the two ends under his tight ass jeans.

  Ugh. Why? Why?

  Why couldn't he have a flat ass? A butt chin? At least a really crappy personality? I could live with that. I could use that as a reason to leave, but I know he didn't. Even if he was a porn star, I knew he wasn’t a bad person. My bullshit-meter had become finely tuned after a year of teaching pathologically lying fourth graders. I'd be able to tell if he was full of shit but he wasn't.

  "This is really making you feel weird, isn't it?" he asked me all of a sudden, stopping in front of the couch to pick up the black hoodie he had on earlier.

  I wanted to tell him no, but I couldn't. "Yeah, a little. I just... I don't know. I just thought you were some bored guy that's really friendly and now... you have fans that probably think... I don't know. I don't know what I'm saying." It was a struggle to express what I was feeling because I really didn't know what I thought or felt exactly.

  "I am some bored guy that was friendly to you." He gazed up at me through those long, dark eyelashes without saying anything. He shrugged more to himself than to me, I thought. "Can I tell you something, and you won't laugh?" he asked, but I was nodding before he even finished the question. He shook his head in amusement just a little. "It's hard—"

  My phone started ringing obnoxiously loud right then. "Hold on," I told him, digging through my purse for my phone. Yanking it out, I saw the picture I had for Nicole, which was actually of her ass crack, displayed across the screen, so I knew I needed to answer the call. "Yes, Madame?"

  "Let's go, Slut McGee. If I hear Zoey cry one more time about how hungry she is, I'm going to kill someone. Meet me in the parking lot, or do you want us to wait inside for you so you don't get lost?"

  "I'll meet you by your car, Nikki." We each said a quick bye before I hung up the call and tossed my phone back into my purse.

  "You need to go?" Tristan asked, zipping up his hoodie.

  I nodded at him. "My friend, Nicole, is ready to leave." I told him, starting to make my way over to the door. "Umm, I think she invited Calum to our friend's birthday party next week so you're welcome to come too, if you want." I blabbered like a moron.

  "Okay," he said, standing there, hands shoved into the pockets of his hoodie.

  "Well, I guess hopefully I'll see you... there." My hand was on the knob, and I felt bad for just storming out of there. "Bye Magellan," I added not bothering to make any eye contact before throwing the door open and hustling down the hallway to leave.

  I was about halfway to the door when I realized he never got the chance to tell me what was on his mind.

  Chapter 12

  Fifteen minutes and eight wrong turns later, I found Nicole's silver Mercedes in the parking lot.

  The closer I got to the car, the more I realized that I was going to be facing the Spanish Inquisition as soon as I got in.

  Zoey was already sitting in the passenger seat, offering me a quick wave through the window as I slipped into the back passenger seat. I looked up to see Nikki adjusting the rear-view mirror to face where I was sitting while Zoey moved the mirror on the visor to see me as well. They stayed quiet, staring at me through the reflection.

  "What?" I asked, because their silence was stifling.

  "Oh, you know what." Nicole responded with an inquisitive purr.

  Zoey raised a perfect, dark eyebrow at me. "Spill the deets."

  Nicole snorted as she cocked an eyebrow at Zoey. "Deets, Zo? Are you watching ABC Family again?"

  "No," she answered quietly, looking away before sighing in resignation. She was a terrible liar. "Yes! Okay, I have been. They have entertaining programming! Leave me alone."

  About a year and a half ago, Zoey had broken up with her long time boyfriend, Blake, because he said he "had it" with her profession, and then continued on tearing her a new one. Our little ray of sunshine and love got really depressed, and somehow ended up spending two straight weeks watching everything and anything on ABC Family. I tried to explain to her that real teenagers didn't say things like "L.O.L" and "L.M.A.O" when they talked in person but it took us months to break her out of the lingo she picked up.

  Secretly, I watched a couple of shows on there every once in awhile, but I would take that to the grave with me.

  "Oh lord," I huffed to myself, because I knew they wouldn't give a shit whether I wanted to share or not. "I just helped Tristan wash the hair color out. That's it."

  "Wait. Tristan?" Zoey asked.

  Only the top half of Nicole's face could be seen in the mirror, but I knew her expressions well enough to know she was confused. "I thought he was Robby Lingus?"

  "Tristan is Robby Lingus, dumb and dumber." I said with a roll of my eyes.

  "Huh," Nikki whispered to herself. "And Tristan is the guy who caught you pulling out your wedgie?"

  Zoey started giggling as she turned in the seat to look at me face to face. "I can’t believe you did that in front of Robby Lingus.”

  I snapped the seatbelt in. "Why are both of you calling him by his entire name anyway? That's stupid."

  "You never call Andrew Wood just Andrew, asshole." Nicole said, and she was right, I didn't. I mean, I could just call him Andrew but he wasn't just any Andrew, he was Andrew Wood. Nikki started reversing out of the parking spot, making funny noises from the front seat. "I knew black wasn't his natural hair color," she mumbled. "You really didn't know who he was?"

  "Nope. I just thought he was some guy." The more I said and thought that, the more it genuinely bothered me. It seemed to be that everyone knew who Robby Lingus was except me. It wasn't like I watched porn all the time, but still. This was exactly like the time everyone else knew not to drink from the punch bowl except me, and I ended up drunk off my ass.

  "He's really nice, Kat. I've met him a couple of times in passing." Zoey said in a cheerful voice, her gray eyes still peering at me through the visor mirror. "Did he ask you for your phone number or anything?"

  Part of me felt like such a fucking loser, while the other half was relieved. The loser half was disappointed he didn't make an effort to at least try to build a friendship with me, because I thought maybe he sensed that we got along really well, but maybe he was just that nice and funny to everyone? He probably was. The other part of me was relieved that he didn't ask me for my number, or even make an effort to give me that idea. I was an only child, I didn't know how to share and I wasn't willing to learn. What was I going to do if I started developing feelings for a porn star? I already felt mopey about the situation after just three talks.

  "Nope."

  Zoey frowned, flipping the visor up. "Well, whatever. You don't need any real dick as long as you have batteries."

  "Oh yeah, thanks for that smooth move, Zo. Real smooth." I groaned, reminding her of the embarrassing outburst over by the booths.

  She gasped, and I saw her throw a hand over the left side of her face. "I'm sorry, Kat!"

  "It's fine," I grumbled back, knowing I couldn't stay mad at her even if I tried.

  Nikki had been surprisingly quiet for too long, which I knew from experience was never a good thing. Her intense hazel eyes were locked on me through the rear-view mirror. "You wouldn't do a porn star?"

  "The jealousy would eat me alive," I said with a sigh. "I don't want to set myself up for
heartache being with someone who was with other girls on the side, Nik. No offense, Zo." I finished knowing that even though Zoey's situation was different, her job had still cost her a pretty good relationship, but we all knew now that a pretty good relationship wasn't a great relationship.

  "So, what you're trying to say is that you wouldn't let him fertilize your flower?" Nikki snorted.

  Zoey made a stupid noise that sounded like a cough and a choke. "You wouldn't let him hide his salami?"

  "Pump gas into your tank?"

  "Hibernate in your cave?"

  "Catch a ride on the Kitty Kat Express?"

  "Tenderize your meat?"

  I groaned between laughs. "And I wonder why none of us have steady relationships."

  Chapter 13

  I tugged at the bottom of my dress for the fifth time in the last thirty minutes, earning a scowl from Josh.