Him or Me

by Veronica Larsen

  "What about you? What do you think about William?"

  Delilah swallows a mouthful of coffee. She sets down her cup calmly, but with the air of someone who's been waiting for the question, and says, "I think he's a twat."

  Jackson does a sudden coughing-throat clearing thing and looks away. Samantha folds her lips inward even as her eyes widen in her sister's direction.

  Delilah goes in for more of her drink, slurping from her cup. She's either unaware or unconcerned with how awkwardly the sound fills the silence in the wake of what she said. At first, I only nod, satisfied to hear those words aloud, and deciding, just in this moment, maybe Delilah isn't so bad. But the satisfaction is fleeting when I catch Grace's disappointed reaction.

  She's quiet, twisting the end of her dress between her thumb and forefinger, appearing to be lost in thought.

  I sense there's more to the argument with William she isn't sharing with us, or maybe it's affected her more than she's letting on. So, I step in to change the subject, to rescue her from the moment.

  "Who wants to hear about my project?"

  Jackson is the first to react, surprise etching across his expression. "You're finally ready to tell us?"

  "Tell you? I'm ready to show you," I say, reaching for my backpack on the floor beside me as I talk. "All right, so you all know I met with some investors in California a while back. Remember? When Jackson nearly died from the man-flu? What I didn't tell you is they helped me produce a prototype, and they are working on a video to launch a crowd source campaign because they think it's going to be a hit. They finally sent me the prototype, and, well…" Everyone's eyes are on me so I keep my own trained on the small ball of material I pull out of my bag. I hold it out, letting the shape unfold in front of me. They all just stare.

  Their anticlimactic reactions shouldn't surprise me. To the untrained eye it could just be an oddly shaped clothing item made of soft, gray material.

  "What the hell is it?" Delilah asks, taking it out of my hand and turning it over in her own.

  "Hang on," I say. "It's limp right now. You've got to blow on it to inflate it." And the second the words leave my lips, I look over at Jackson, whose mouth is already parted in preparation for a retort, but I beat him to it, "Yeah, that's what she said."

  "Actually, no," he says with a nod toward Samantha, "she never says that. I'm never in need of being infla—"

  "Go ahead," Samantha cuts him off, "show us what this thing does."

  "It's a nap, in an instant. I call it the Insta-napper. It's like an inflatable travel pillow, but one you wear over your head instead of around your neck…" I pause, their looks of utter bewilderment not exactly encouraging. "You know, so you can lay your head down on any surface, at any angle, and take a comfortable nap. It blocks light from your eyes and muffles sound at your ears and…it turns your head into a pillow," I finish, scratching the back of my neck.

  Is the room shrinking, or is it just my balls?

  "Can I try it on?" Delilah asks.

  I don't expect her enthusiasm, and it takes me a second to react, as I consider the possibility Delilah isn't so creepy.

  Maybe Delilah's down for anything.

  Maybe she's a ride-or-die chick.

  Encouraged by her interest, I instruct her to pull the material over her head, then to blow on a small tube extension. She does all this without hesitation. The pillow inflates around her head until it looks like she's encased in an overstuffed, T-shaped pillow, only her nose and mouth visible from the opening in the front.

  Delilah lets out a small, but pleasant, "Ooooh."

  "You look like an alien astronaut," Samantha says then perks up like a realization hit her. "No, an octopus! You look just like an octopus-human hybrid."

  Delilah feels around her head, her hands grasping blindly at the material and her lips quirking up in a smile.

  "Are you okay in there?" Jackson asks.

  "Feels nice in here. Cozy and dark. Like it's hugging my face."

  Grace remains quiet beside me, but the thought of spying her reaction sends a flash of apprehension through me. This is the first time I've allowed her to see what I've spent the better part of a year working on.

  I clear my throat.

  "Delilah, uh, lay your head down on the table. Carefully," I add, because she can't see what she's doing.

  She slips off the couch to get onto her knees at the edge of the coffee table in front of us, settling into a cross-legged position before laying her head facedown on its surface.

  She lets out another, "Oooh," sound, which is muffled this time.

  "What are those for?" Jackson asks, pointing to the top of Delilah's head, where the Insta-napper forms a T-shape.

  "You can shove your hands in there, to rest in. The way you'd lay your hands over your head if you were setting your forehead down on a table to nap."

  As soon as I say it, Delilah sticks her hands into the top of the Insta-napper.

  "This is really comfortable," she says, in a dreamy voice. "I need one of these to nap on planes."

  "When do you ever go on planes?" Samantha asks.

  "I'm thinking about it now."

  "Well, the point is to create a napping environment anywhere," I say, still not looking at Grace, despite the way she shifts beside me. "Anyway," I go on, clearing my throat again before tapping Delilah's shoulder to get her attention. She's gone very still and quiet, like she's already fallen asleep. "It's just a prototype."

  I show Delilah how to deflate the pillow and pull it over her head. My intention is to shove the thing away immediately and hope someone else changes the subject as mercifully as I changed the subject for Grace.

  "It's awesome," Delilah says, as her face reappears.

  Coming from her, the compliment only emphasizes the strangeness of my invention.

  "Let me try it," Grace says.

  My gaze swings to her and our eyes lock.

  "You don't have to," I say.

  "Come on," she pleads, "I really want to."

  I hesitate, but her tone is so genuine, I have no choice but to hand over the limp pillow. She pulls it over her blonde locks and inflates it. With nothing but her nose and rosy lips showing, I'm hopeless to keep myself from noticing how gorgeous her mouth is when it rounds in surprise.

  "Holy shit, this feels amazing," she says. "It's like a little nest for my face."

  She gets to her knees in front of the coffee table and proceeds to lay her head down and stick her hands into the top of the pillow the way Delilah did.

  "The design is ingeniously ergonomic. This is the perfect napping position," she says. I wait for her to burst out laughing, but when she doesn't, I realize she's serious. She falls silent for a second then lets out a little satisfied moan. "It's hard to care about looking ridiculous when you can't see yourself and also, it's so comfortable…"

  That little moan of hers?

  Fuck. It might as well be a hand wrapping around my dick.

  But most of all, I'm taken off guard by the relief flooding me at her approval. I guess I didn't realize how much her opinion matters to me.

  Samantha and Jackson take turns trying on the Insta-napper, and soon it becomes apparent everyone in the coffee shop is watching us. We're a group of adults pulling an inflatable pillow over our heads and taking turns lying our faces down on the coffee table and every surface we can reach.

  It takes another twenty minutes for everyone to settle down. By then, our coffees are drained and we're all getting ready to head back home so Jackson can get ready for his night shift. We leave the girls behind at their apartment door and stroll the few additional feet to our own. Well, I stroll; Jackson and Samantha swap spit for a few seconds as the rest of us clamber to get away from their nauseating PDA.

  "Is it weird," I ask Jackson as I close our apartment door, "how your girlfriend lives down the hall? Don't you ever need space? Doesn't it ever get exhausting?"

  "I'm always tired. Just never of her."

  I
lay a hand over my chest and he seems to know I'm about to mock him because he heads to the kitchen without waiting for my response.

  "Bro, I think my panties just melted," I call after him.

  He waves me off.

  I sit on a stool behind the kitchen counter and watch as he rummages through the refrigerator, probably looking to make a quick dinner before work. The guy can pack away food like a garbage disposal.

  "Question," he starts, setting down a container of vegetarian lasagna Samantha prepared for him yesterday. "You and Grace…"

  "Yeah?"

  "Nothing. It's just, I can see it—you two, together. And judging by how often I catch you staring at her ass, I'm guessing you can see it, too."

  "You know, for a brain surgeon, you really should pay attention to details. She has a boyfriend."

  Maybe noticing something in my expression, Jackson sets his palms down on either side of the counter and gives me a curious look. "That can change, Heath. If you really wanted it to."

  It's what I expect Jackson to say. He's always gotten what he wanted.

  The career he wanted. The girl he wanted. The life he wanted.

  Everything just falls at his feet.

  Me? Nothing goes my way. Not for as long as I can remember.

  "It could only change if she wanted it to," I say. "Let's think about it for a minute. The choices are the guy making a six-figure salary, promising to take her to Italy for their one-year anniversary…and me. The guy who got laid off from work and has spent the past few months crashing at his brother's place and inventing a napping contraption. Yeah, I see what you mean. It's ridiculous she's not already falling at my feet, begging me to ravage her."

  "You should try inventing a contraption to steal girlfriends," he says.

  "They already exist. They're called Yorkshire Terriers and William has two."

  "How do you know what kind of dogs he has?"

  "I follow him on Instagram."

  "I didn't know you had an Instagram account."

  "I don't, but you can still follow people. You know, with your eyes."

  Jackson pauses to stare at me.

  "What?" I ask.

  Shaking his head, my brother puts his plate into the microwave. "You look like you need a pep talk. Wish I could give you one, but the guy does have great hair. And yeah, your hair is good, but the guy also has money."

  "Grace is happy, and she and I have a good thing going, hanging out as friends. I never said I wanted more."

  I turn my attention pointedly to the phone in my hand, scrolling through my messages.

  That's how I drop the subject. Pretending I don't want her. Pretending I don't already miss her like I wasn't just with her.

  But I'm not an idiot. I mean, for fuck's sake, I'd choose William over me, too.

  Samantha is a midwife, my brother a neurosurgeon, Grace a schoolteacher, her boyfriend a successful real estate agent. Even Delilah owns her own health and wellness studio. And me? I'm an unemployed inventor of a contraption to facilitate adult naps.

  I've been tuned in to the slightest of hints she might want me in that way. Sometimes I feel like a hungry dog waiting by the dinner table. I know I shouldn't hold my breath. Me wanting her is selfish. I've got nothing to give her and she deserves everything. William could give her anything she wanted. She tells me all about his romantic gestures and I'm glad she does. It's a reminder I'm not that guy. Even if I had the money, I still wouldn't be the romantic guy. The one who says and does the right things. I've never been that guy. I've never even given a girl flowers before because I can't, for the life of me, figure out what the hell they mean.

  She's the one who's unavailable and seems perfectly content to remain with William. If I got my hopes up every time they got into a fight, I'd lose my fucking mind.

  At the end of the day, I know Grace. If she so much as suspected I wanted her that way, she'd stay away from me and I wouldn't have her at all. Because she would never put herself in a position where she could be unfaithful. Grace knows what she wants and what she doesn't.

  I'm here. I'm right in front of her every day.

  If she wanted to be with me?

  She would just say so.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Grace

  I ALMOST DIDN'T COME.

  The idea of driving an hour northwest of the city to set up camp in the middle of a state park didn't appeal to me at first. Especially considering the day I've had. I still don't get the idea behind camping. We rented all this gear just to experience the discomfort of leaving modern conveniences behind.

  And yet…

  We're cocooned by trees on all sides, the air is crisp and clean, the elevation making what would otherwise be a stifling hot night, cool and energizing. It's just the five of us, four tents set up a few feet away from the fire. I have to admit, this isn't so bad.

  Beside me, Heath makes an exaggerated hand gesture toward the flames in front of us, his voice twisting into a caveman's accent, "I make fire."

  "That's right," I say. I poke into the flames with a stick and a small smile twists my lips despite my mood. "With your bare hands and a lighter. You better hurry and piss a circle around our camp so other fire-making men don't come and claim it."

  "Let them try," he says, puffing out his chest.

  No one else pays attention to us.

  Samantha sits on Jackson's lap, across the fire from us, their heads bowed close as they whisper things we aren't privy to. Delilah sits to my right, but a few feet away, obviously in her own world as she roasts a marshmallow until its skin is burned, peeling it off, eating it, then doing it again.

  "What's wrong with you?"

  I startle at Heath's question, and it's only then I realize I've been staring at Delilah's marshmallow burning for too long.

  "Huh?" I ask, trying to play it cool. I don't want to ruin anyone's day talking about my stupid thoughts.

  "When you get quiet like this, it worries me you might have fallen victim to a body snatcher. So, what's wrong? Are you down William didn't come. Did you kill him?"

  "What?"

  "I mean, what happened, why are you so down?"

  I blink at his question, not realizing the mood I'm projecting. "I'm not down, it's just…William's upset I told him I needed time to think about it."

  "Think about what?"

  I glance at Samantha, who looks to me as she says something to Jackson, and her brows pull in as though noticing something in my expression. I smile and she returns my smile then, to my luck, Jackson tells her something and makes her laugh.

  "This." I reach into my pocket and show Heath what's pinched between my thumb and forefinger.

  "Is that a ring?" Delilah blurts out from off to my right.

  Samantha and Jackson go quiet. Heath's mouth parts, but he doesn't even make a sound.

  Damn it. This is exactly what I didn't want. To ruin the mood with my stupid drama.

  "Holy shit, Grace," Samantha says. "That thing is huge."

  "When did he propose?"

  "Did you say yes?"

  "Are you pregnant?"

  The questions come at me so fast I'm not sure who asks them. I'm not ready to talk about it with everyone all at once.

  Heath must sense how overwhelmed I am, because he says, "Woah, give her a minute."

  Everyone falls silent.

  Heath gets to his feet, brushes flakes of wood from his palms, and holds out his hand to me.

  I look at it then up at him.

  "Let's go for a walk," he says.

  His clear blue eyes have a calming quality to them I can't resist. I can't help but want to lean into their intensity. The argument with William rings in my ears, making me hesitate. Ignoring this, I take Heath's hand and allow him to help me up.

  It takes me a few seconds just to dust off my pants.

  That's the thing about outside—it gets everywhere. On your clothes, in your hair. On itself. Everywhere.

  "We'll be right back," Heath says t
o the others. "Grace suggested I piss a circle around our camp, just to be safe."

  "Have fun." Jackson makes a gesture of salute, but adds a wink which seems out of place.

  Samantha looks like she wants to object, her lips turning down, but Delilah claims her attention, pulling her into a conversation just as Heath and I turn away.

  "Shirt looks good on you, by the way," I say to Heath.

  He looks down at himself and smirks. "This old thing?"

  It's a gray t-shirt with black lettering that reads Sex, Drugs, and Sausage Rolls. I gave it to him for his birthday last week, to add to his collection of obnoxious t-shirts.

  Twigs break under our feet as we walk, bumping shoulders every few steps. We stroll down the trail and the sounds of our camp fall away. For a while, neither of us speaks. The silence out here in the woods is strange, a sound in and of itself which I'm completely unfamiliar with. True silence, stillness. So peaceful, it's almost eerie.

  "Are you thinking about how zombies could jump out of those trees and eat our faces?"

  My hands shoot up to the sides of my head, blown away he's read my mind. "Holy shit, dude, it's all I can think about right now."

  "It's possible. We have no clue what's going on in the city. The zombie apocalypse could've happened and we wouldn't know. Or it could've started here."

  "Do you think we'd make it?"

  "You and me? Yeah. But the others?" He hesitates, looking back the way we came even though the trees already obstruct the view of our camp. "Delilah would be the first to go. Samantha and Jackson will be caught making out or humping, but the good thing is they would die together."

  "I'd miss them," I say, a small pang in my chest at the thought.

  "Our chances are better without them. I mean, you know…not to be an asshole, but it's true."

  "No, no, I totally agree."

  Heath shoots me a satisfied smile and I soak up the moment. Our mental synchronization never ceases to amaze me.

  We walk in silence for a few seconds before he says, "All right, talk to me. For real."

  Talk to me. Three words, so simple, yet I feel my insides threatening to unroll in front of him.