by T Gephart
***
“Batman or Superman? Who do you choose?” She slowly sucked on her soda while we waited for our burgers and fries. Being that she was paying for dinner—not fucking likely—I got the choice of venue, The Juke Joint getting my vote.
“Well that’s easy, Superman.” I tossed back my answer without even thinking. The classic debate not even a question in my eyes. “Batman has no actual super powers, all he has is a sweet-ass ride and some accessories. He’s basically a Barbie.”
Alison almost choked on her soda as she weighed my point of view. “How can you say that?” Her laugh not only got my attention but that of the older couple sitting beside us. It was a really nice sound. “He fought crime, he saved lives. He’s a superhero.” She tried to pursue her argument, her reasoning clearly flawed.
“Ali, if you’re going to pick a dude who has a fancy closet, go with Iron Man. Tony Stark. Boom, zero fucks given about the secret identity and he built the freaking suit himself. Batman was a pussy.” My latest rebuttal earning me more giggles, her smile lighting up her whole face. And didn’t that make me feel like the superhero we were discussing. Seeing that grin and knowing I had something to do with it. Fuck. I’d pretty much do anything to keep that smile firmly in place, outrunning speeding trains totally on the table.
“Strong opinions, good to know.” She nodded as the waitress slid her chicken sandwich in front of her before hooking me up with my cheeseburger.
The game of twenty questions had started innocently enough. Like speed dating for a roommate, I thought we should cover the basics to try and alleviate any future concerns. Besides, those questions had melted away any freak out she’d been working up at the apartment with the chick in front of me relaxed and laughing. A far cry from where she’d been an hour ago. The game also had the added advantage of giving me some more insight into the girl I couldn’t quite work out.
“My turn.” I picked up a fry and popped it into my mouth. “Pancakes or waffles?”
“That’s tough.” She scrunched up her nose as she gave my question some serious thought. “I sort of love both.”
“No fence sitting, Alison. You need to pick a team. Go.”
“Waffles.” She answered under pressure. Her face not looking entirely convinced.
“Seriously? How can you improve on a pancake? It’s light, it’s fluffy, so basically you are eating a cloud. A fucking cloud. And you can flavor it however you want.” I feigned my disgust. “You and I can’t be friends anymore.”
“A waffle can be flavored.” She threw her hands up in disbelief. “And it’s international. Belgian waffles.”
“Hello, International House of Pancakes? Your argument is bogus.” No waffle would ever beat a pancake. It just couldn’t be done.
“Calling my argument bogus doesn’t win the argument but whatever, it’s my turn.” She conceded, not willing to pursue it further. Probably given she knew I was right. “OOOOoooohhhhh I have a good one.” Her face beamed with excitement. “Thong or panties.”
“On me? Or on a woman? Because you need to clarify if we are talking hypotheticals or probabilities.”
“You would consider wearing women’s underwear?” She lowered her voice as she moved her head closer.
The direction of the questions had taken a welcome and interesting turn. Certainly not one I had thought it would take, not unless I was the one who was throwing it out there. While our banter had been fun, it had been kept strictly PG-13. And up until this point I’d been a complete gentleman. Her cheeks pinked as I drew out my answer, me—enjoying every single minute of it.
“That’s not what I said.” I leaned back against the booth, not concerned about lowering my voice. “If we were to assume I was hypothetically female, and which would I prefer to wear there would be a choice. If we were talking about the probability of me preferring either on a woman, then that would be another choice. As for me wearing either as a man, then choice would be none of the above. See? Too many holes, counselor. Requesting a side bar.”
“Okay, let me clarify, your honor.” She grinned giving up on the dinner she had in front of her in favor of our conversation. “On a woman, not you—”
“Thank you.” I nodded, approving of her amendment.
“—which do you prefer? Panties or a thong?” She cocked her eyebrow as she waited for my response.
“Yes.” The answer flew out of my mouth with very little thought, my concern being on which of those two options she was currently wearing and whether or not I would get a chance to find out.
“Yes is not an answer, Rusty.” She drummed her fingers on the table top, her earlier embarrassment completely forgotten. “I wasn’t allowed to fence sit on breakfast food, you can’t on this.” Her confidence made her even more attractive if that were even possible, ditching the awe shucks routine in favor of grilling me further.
“You want an answer?”
“Yes, I do.” She met my eyes without flinching.
“Panties, thong, bare—It’s all in the way it’s worn.” I let the words settle before I went on. “Damn, you could put a girl in granny panties, but if she is working it right, then it’s the sexiest thing I’ve seen. So it’s more to do with who is wearing them rather than what they are.”
I watched a slow breath blow out from her lips. “Well, that . . . that seems fair.” The confidence she’d had a minute ago finding resistance like that long steady exhalation.
“My turn.” No way was I giving her a reprieve. “Top or bottom?” An elaboration not needed.
It might have been inappropriate. There we were having a nice dinner, enjoying friendly harmless conversation, and it had disintegrated to talk of underwear and sex. I hadn’t started its decline, just merely keeping up. And I was enjoying the hell of it. Pushing her buttons. It was fucking riveting, waiting to see if she’d duck and weave or if she’d meet me head on. I knew which one I wanted and to my absolute delight she didn’t let me down.
“Well, Rusty.” She cleared her throat before giving me her full attention; her eyes on me giving me a wicked thrill. “In this instance, it’s your question that is flawed. Are you talking hypothetical’s or probabilities?” Her lips twitched at the edges as I enjoyed the show.
Well. Fuck. Me.
“Can I get you anything else?” The waitress, who placed our plates in front of us maybe ten minutes before, interrupted. Her timing, fucking terrible.
“No, we’re good.” I tried to wave her off, the show of we’re-all-good wasted when she didn’t leave.
“You want a refill on your drink, honey?” She nodded toward Alison’s almost empty glass, clueless as to how much my balls hated her right now.
“Yeah, sure.” Alison glanced between the glass and the waitress, the interruption definitely throwing her off.
“I’ll be right back.” She grabbed the glass off the table, oblivious that had she left shit alone, she probably would have earned that bigger tip she was trying to secure.
With the waitress leaving, so did the happy vibe we had going on, an awkward silence taking its place.
“I’m just going to run to the bathroom.” Alison slid out of the booth, clearly needing the time out. Run being the operative word. Great. Seriously fucking perfect.
Whatever easy flow we’d had going on left when she’d walked away from the table, and as much as I wanted to dig a little deeper, it wasn’t going to happen tonight. If at all. My dick wondered if I’d locked us into a sad situation of endless flirting, while my head told me it was the right thing to do by letting it go.
While Alison was busy in the bathroom, I’d used the time constructively and settled the check. Oh, sure talk had been thrown around about picking up the tab, but she had a better chance of her shit ending up in mismatched, unlabeled boxes than she had of paying for dinner. All of which translated into a whole bunch of never-gonna-happen.
“Sorry.” Her constant need to apologize never too far away as she slipped back into her seat. “I’m sta
rving.” Her dinner gained the attention she’d previously given me.
“Yeah, me too.”
Just not for what was on my plate.
“You are just letting some girl move in with you. Are you insane?”
“Only in the morning.” I laughed.
Angie was in fine form today. She’d been pacing in my living room for the last ten minutes, more than a fair share of fucks flying around. It was just like old times.
The chick who’d been my closest friend since tenth grade rarely worried about me and the ladies. Jealousy wasn’t her thing, at least not with me. Then again, we’d never been romantically involved, preferring to be the kind of friends who didn’t swallow each other’s bodily fluids. It just worked. So when she’d stopped by this morning wanting to work on some material before we hit the studio, I had no hesitation sharing the news of my soon-to-be living arrangement. She hadn’t shared my enthusiasm.
“Rusty, this isn’t a joke. What do you know about this girl?” The twenty questions started.
“Oh, look. You’re concerned. That maternal instinct has kicked in and you haven’t even had the baby. I’m so freaking impressed.”
As I said, jealously wasn’t an issue, if we were going to bump uglies we would have done so by now, but seeing her so wound up was kind of touching.
“Of course I am concerned.” She paced some more, her hands just as restless as her feet as she waved them around. “The boys see you hook up with a crazy girl at a bar and then you’re shacking up with her. It wasn’t so long ago that you were pulling me away from situations like that.”
Ordinarily I wouldn’t have explained. My need to elaborate nonexistent. But with Angie, I didn’t mind. Shit was tight between us and keeping stuff from her wasn’t on my agenda.
“I’m not shacking up with her. We haven’t even fucked. We’re not together like that.”
My initial intentions were definitely to fuck her. Every time I saw her, my dick got hard. And as far as looks went, she had it going on. Long brown hair, hazel eyes and legs for fucking days, what’s not to like. The awkward crap just made her more endearing, like she wasn’t used to the attention. The possibility she wasn’t all that experienced kind of excited me. Like climbing Everest, she was begging to be explored. Granted it was a departure from my usual flavor—the girls I usually went home with knew their way around a dick—but she intrigued the hell out of me. And that didn’t happen often. Not something to be ignored.
Although chances were the fucking was now off the table, it didn’t mean that I still wasn’t curious on what made her tick. The fact she wanted my help just made it easier. Not that I would ever be a scumbag and use that shit to get her into the sack. I instantly liked her and the more time I spent with her the more I wanted to her be around, so if we just ended up friends who didn’t fuck, that would probably be okay too.
“What if she’s a psychopath and kills you in your sleep?” Angie was once again dragging up worst-case scenarios.
“At least I wouldn’t feel anything, there are worse ways to go.” I laughed.
We’d already established Alison wasn’t an axe murderer, and she looked like the type of person who would apologize for killing a fly, so I was fairly confident I wasn’t going to be rocking a tombstone any time soon.
“Rus, this isn’t funny.” Angie obviously didn’t see the humor or share the sentiment. Marriage had clearly made her boring.
“Sure it is. Do you hear yourself right now? Oh, what if she kills you in your sleep. Where’s the girl who would walk the streets of NYC with a loaded Glock in her purse? Balls to the wall, no fear?”
“I have more to lose now, and so do you. You’re going to be an uncle, damnit. I need you.”
“And I’m going nowhere.” I threw my arms around her and pulled her into a hug. “Anytime you need me, I’m going to be right here, babe.”
It was around that time when I had my arms around Angie that Alison came stumbling through the door. Her arms stacked with as many boxes as she could carry.
“Oh, hey. Sorry, I just wanted to drop the last of this stuff off.” Her eyes widened as she looked from Angie to me. Assumptions clearly made.
“That’s cool, Ali. This is a good time actually ’cause I can introduce you to Angie. She’s the singer in the band but more importantly, my best friend.”
“Hi, Ali.” Angie moved from my side and held out her hand. Whatever she thought she was doing, she was failing miserably. Her voice was devoid of warmth.
“Hi,” Alison blinked, lifting the box higher—her excuse for not reciprocating the greeting. The handshake wasn’t happening. Great. This was going to be fun.
Silence.
And wasn’t this fucking heartwarming, the two of them eyeing each other like they were about to step into a ring. Just all kinds of loved-up feelings radiated from both of them as the temperature in the room dropped below zero. Awesome.
“Well, I’m going to go. See you at the studio, Rus.” Angie gave me a hug followed by one of her death stares before moving to the door. Not sure if it was for mine or Alison’s benefit, the conversation and her objection, far from over.
“She seems nice.” Alison waited until the door had slammed before giving a half-assed smile, walking past me to get to her room. Her feelings for Angie, pretty evident.
“You are a really bad liar. And for the record, Angie and I aren’t together. She’s a friend—we’re tight, but she is also pregnant and married to someone else.” The need to set it straight was pretty high, not because I owed her anything but because I didn’t want it to turn into an epic misunderstanding. The kind that promotes ideas about me being an asshole who knocks up a woman and then invites another to share his house.
“You don’t have to explain stuff to me, remember? Just roommates.” The fake smile got a little bit crazier. She wasn’t even halfway convincing, her face telling me that she wasn’t feeling the all-good she was trying to convey.
“It’s okay if she pissed you off. She can be abrasive sometimes.” And that was putting it mildly, but saying Angie could be a bitch behind her back wasn’t productive and not conducive to the conversation either.
“What? Angie? No. I don’t even know her. She was fine.” She scoffed like I was talking out of my ass. Her hands hugged the box still locked in her mitts.
Fine. That was bullshit if ever I’d heard it. And I’d heard some shit in my time, so I would know. Alison, fine. Yeah, I didn’t think so.
If I didn’t know better I might have thought it was jealously, but I unfortunately did know better. Her chill directed at Angie’s resting bitch face, not a pissing contest over me.
“Put the boxes down, Alison. I think we should start your training right now. Yeah, actually this is a good opportunity.”
If we were ever going to get past the charade she seemed to play, we needed to start it now. She was so tightly wound I wasn’t sure she wasn’t going to levitate off the floor and bounce off the walls. That was going to have to go.
“Rusty, I’ve got to get these things put away. I’m fine—” She shoved past me as she made a move for her room, the path cut off by yours truly. She wasn’t getting out of it that easily.
“You agreed, remember? Whatever I said, you would do. So put the boxes down.” Her resistance eased on her prized cubes of cardboard so that I was able to pull them from her hands. The floor, their next destination.
“Okay.” Her arms limbered up in front of her. “What is it you want me to do? Sand the floor? Or paint the house?”
“Sarcasm, I like it.” Was a hell of a lot better than the passive shit she had going on. “But, no. I’ve got something else in mind.”
Alison had a chip on her shoulder. I knew her for all of five minutes and I could see it. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, it was there—hanging out, making shit harder than it had to be. That had to stop. Immediately.
“Then what is it?” she asked impatiently, the foot tapping thrown in for good measure.<
br />
“You have this whole holding back thing happening and it needs to stop. You’re so tightly wound, one of these days you’re going to snap. If you are truly going to not give a shit, you actually have to not give a shit.”
There wasn’t a doubt she had it in her. I’d seen a glimpse of it when she came into the bar and made out with me and then again in the street when she’d asked for help. Of course last night it had shone through as well, right before she clammed up again. Underneath the restraint was the real her trying to get out, the one who would be kicking ass and taking names. The Alison she deserved to be.
“Is this about Angie?” She wrongly assumed, her hands on her hips as she waited for my instruction. “Because I told you it was fine.”
“If you’re going to lie at least make it convincing. But no it’s not about Angie. You were pissed-off just now and what did you do? Pretend that you weren’t. If you’re pissed-off, get pissed-off.” I moved closer getting toe to toe, needing to be right there with her.
She took a step back, putting some distance between us. “I thought the idea was for me not to give a shit, not get upset over trivial stuff.”
“Here’s the thing. And it’s a radical idea so you’re going to have to trust me on this. But, in order to not give a shit you have to accept your feelings as they are. Meaning if you want to get angry then get angry. Then it’s done. No more holding onto it. What you’re doing—shoving it down—is not doing you or anyone else any good.”
“So what, you’re a psychologist now? Your advice sounds questionable at best. Get upset to free yourself? How would that even work?”
There was no reason for me to be involved in any of this. Asking her to come live with me, agreeing to help her be more like me—whatever that meant—made zero fucking sense. This whole situation was an exercise in what-the-fuck. And I wasn’t the type of guy who liked a project, so the fact that I was doing this was baffling. Yet, here I was. Fucking compelled.
“Let me ask you something. When your boyfriend dumped you and then fired you, what did you do?” I was fairly sure I knew the answer. Her kicking his ass was probably not what went down.