by Carmen Faye
I carefully and quietly moved around the room, looking for a phone or any clue to whether Tarek may have just stepped outside for a moment. There was no landline, and my phone had been in my bag while I was working. I didn’t see Tarek or anyone else on the balcony. Just as I resigned myself to the couch, I heard a flushing sound.
“Nature called,” Tarek said, making his way out of the restroom he had mentioned earlier.
He passed through the kitchen and dining area and slowed as he entered the living room. His lips puckered a little bit, and he made a small grunt off approval. I pulled my legs onto the couch and sat on them to hide my calves. Then I pulled a throw pillow from the couch into my arms and held it across my chest.
“Sorry, I thought I was pretty covered,” I said, looking away. “I just couldn’t sleep. I figured if you were going to be up anyway we could keep each other company.”
“If we are going to keep each other company, I insist you have at least a second beer,” he said, making his way back to the fridge. “And you don’t have to cover yourself up around me. If you don’t mind me taking an occasional look, I promise not to touch. Well, I promise not to until you ask me to.”
“Why do I feel like you expect that I will?” I replied. “You said ‘until’ not ‘if.’”
“I tell more women no than I tell yes,” he said, pulling several beers out at once.
He held two in each hand as he made his way back to the living area. Before sitting, he opened a bottle and passed it to me. I made a slight face as the smell wafted under my nose, but I sipped it anyway. I looked Tarek over as he sat down in the chair near my end of the couch this time. It seemed he had also found a change of clothes for the night, but ones that hinted he didn’t plan on sleeping.
He had on jeans, boots, and a black shirt. The muscles of his upper body made the chest and sleeves of his shirt hug and accentuate their natural definition even more. His only accessory was a belt with a customized silver buckle that resembled Sheba.
“I suppose I could see that,” I replied, taking another sip of my beer and wincing slightly. “Women like a bad boy.”
“I suppose you tell more men no than yes. Men always see an opportunity with women in positions to serve them – bartenders, waitresses, and the like,” Tarek replied.
I shook my head and fiddled with the label on my bottle. I could feel myself blushing. I looked down at my lap, hoping my hair fell to hide my flushing face.
“No, people hit on a lot of my coworkers, but I’m not really someone who stands out in a crowd,” I replied. “I’m okay and all, but I’m not the kind of girl who most men give a second look. I don’t really mind, though. Most of the men I take a second look at are a letdown when I really look more closely.”
He took a few swallows from his beer, still looking at me. I could feel his eyes examining me the way I had examined him as he sat down.
“Well, I guess crisis agrees with you. The hardest thing for me tonight was taking my eyes off you when there was a gun pointed at me,” Tarek replied. “I don’t know many women who wouldn’t have been screaming and in a panic. I guess the same could be said for most men, but you really have taken tonight in stride.”
He tipped his bottle in my direction giving his nod of approval. I felt a little pleased with myself and tipped my bottle to his.
“You weren’t behaving like the people around us either. If you had fed me some sort of spy line, I just might have believed you,” I said, laughing.
“Being a bad boy biker isn’t enough?” he teased back, leaning forward onto his knees.
“No, it’s plenty,” I replied, settling down again. “Honestly, even if nothing else had happened tonight, getting on the back of your bike would be the most adventure I have had in a long time. My plainness extends all the way from my appearance to my life. I work, pay bills, keep steady groceries, and sleep.”
“Sounds exhilarating,” Tarek said, eyeing me with a touch of confusion. “I always thought the freest life would be one with no ties. If all you have is yourself, then you can be living whatever life you choose. There must be something that makes you keep going on the path you’re on.”
I thought for a moment.
“It’s safe, Tarek. That’s really all it is,” I replied with a small shrug. I swigged my beer and continued, “People leave or die. Either way, they can’t stick around forever. My people have all left one way or the other. Now, I just have me. I still need a roof over my head. That means there will be bills to pay. I get leftovers from a lot of events, but at home, I like to cook. I don’t make a lot of money, but I like to eat well. Outside of that, I guess the best things in life are free, so I have a little money saved up to have an adventure someday.”
“That’s what I don’t understand. Why live for someday? Today wasn’t guaranteed. We should always live like we are lucky for each breath because we are,” he replied, seeming somewhat angered. “Putting off actually living is like never really being born. We can’t wait and plan for when our life is really going to begin. It started when the doctor spanked your ass, and you took your first breath. Now we need to be seeking moments to take our breath away until the last one is taken from us.”
I was enthralled by his passion and leaned forward to listen more, watching him. He had become more animated as he spoke, gesturing with his hands, standing, and moving around.
“You seem very passionate about that. I guess that’s why you have the motorcycle and are tied into whoever would have you in situations like tonight,” I said. “Your life must be one exciting moment after another.”
I hoped that my words came across as only the observation they were meant to be and not another judgment. Tarek didn’t seem offended. Instead, he finished off his beer.
“I’ve just seen what life can be like when people settle or put what they really want on the backburner,” he said, shaking his head. “I always want to feel like I’m doing what I want. I always want to feel like I’m moving down the road, not letting the world move around me. I want to create an effect, not be affected.”
“Yeah, I guess I could say that nothing has really come of playing it safe that I probably wouldn’t have survived either way,” I replied, thinking about my life. “My mother left my father and me when I was a child. I really had no control over that. My dad died of cancer; we fought it all we could. He spent his last days with people running tests, sticking him with needles, and shoving medicine down his throat. My life since then has been to maintain the status quo of our home. It’s not much, but it’s what I have left.”
“You are what you have left. You need to build on you and enjoy your own company. If your dad were here, he probably wouldn’t regret all the medical stuff, but he probably would miss not doing more when he could,” Tarek said. “There were probably things you two would talk about doing when he got better. He would probably wish he could go back in time, drop everything, and just do them.”
***
Tarek
“You’re right,” Annie sobbed, taking a larger swallow of her beer. “You are absolutely right. When he got close, he knew his time was coming. For him, our someday plans turned into ‘I should haves.’”
She turned her bottle up and let the last of her beer run down her throat as tears slowly began to crawl down her cheek. I wasn’t really sure what to do so I took a quick gulp from my bottle and sat it on the coffee table. I removed the empty one from her hand and placed it near my own.
“Hey, Annie, I didn’t mean to bring you down. I was just talking. I meant to keep it light, I’m just not so great at that,” I said encouragingly. “Outside of talking bikes with my brothers, I don’t really make a lot of small talk, especially with women. My usual conversation with a girl is just to ask what she wants. That covers from where to eat out to just about any other public interaction, and in bed, there is more private interaction.”
“You didn’t ask me that,” she said, laughing softly.
Then she quickly cla
mped a hand over her mouth. She pulled her legs up to her chest, but put them back down quickly, probably remembering that she only had her underwear on beneath the men’s shirt she had decided to sleep in. I caught a brief glimpse of black and white panties.
I smiled and chuckled a little as well, and she relaxed again, laughing at herself more openly.
“I don’t really drink beer because I’m fond of the taste, but I’m a little bit of a lightweight too. After two drinks, I am feeling it. I need to stop now, though, because none of my varieties of drunk really suit spending the evening with a man I barely know after a life-threatening situation,” she said, straightening her legs and placing her feet firmly on the floor.
“You have a little wild side that comes out when you’re drunk? I’m surprised you ever drank enough to find out. Well, have another beer. I would love to meet your other self,” I said, unscrewing another beer and setting it on the coffee table in front of her.”
“I really try to watch myself now. I drank a lot right after my father died and did things that were so out of character for me. I wasn’t a mean drunk or promiscuous,” she said, on the defensive. “I guess I was just more like you described. My mindset would change. I drank because I was sad and in my drunkenness I wanted to be happy, so I would just do what I wanted. I did hook up a couple of times, but not like the bar crawl or party hookup. It was more like, wherever my drunken search led, I accepted whatever comfort was there.”
“So, if it only led to the house next door, then you ended up in your neighbors bed?” I asked, teasing her. “If drinking is going to make you want to have sex, I can’t promise I’m going to be a gentleman.”
“No, not like that. For example, one night I was drinking, after the loss of my dad, I really wanted to go back to the cabins we used to stay in on my winter break from school. I knew I shouldn’t drive, so I got a bus ticket. On the bus, I rode with a guy who was going to stay at a buddy’s place after his wife and daughter were killed in a car accident. He needed to get way from his house for a while,” she said.
As she told her story, her eyes became distant. She sipped this beer more easily and spoke more freely.
“I remembered seeing the headlines about the accident. I told him about my dad, and we hit it off. We talked the whole ride to The Forks, Maine. I was sober enough by the time we got there to realize that I had not made any lodging arrangements for my spur of the moment trip, so he offered to let me join him. We stayed friends after, but neither of us was really in a place to make it more than what it was when we got back to the city,” she said, slowing coming back to the present. “Fate only made our paths cross, not intertwine.”
I shook my head.
“Every day should be filled with moments like that. You need to follow where your feelings lead. Maybe you won’t form a lifelong friendship with every person you meet, but I guarantee some single moments make a lifetime worth it,” I replied. “If you and that guy really had something, fate wouldn’t have had to do more than introduce you. One or both of you would have been determined to make it work.
She waved me off and wiped at her face with the sleeves of the shirt she was wearing. She sniffled a little and cleared her throat.
“Um, yeah,” she said. “So, you said something about talking bikes with your brothers. You have brothers? How many? I was an only child, so large families are entertaining.”
“I was actually referring to my riding brothers, the War Hawks,” I said, clarifying. “I have one brother. We don’t have a lot to talk about these days, but I’d still say we are pretty close.”
“Oh, well that’s interesting,” she said, perking up again. “Tell me more.”
“Nah, none of that is really all that interesting,” I said, standing up to clear the bottles and have the last beer I had brought to the table.
“Well, of course not for you. No one is amazed at their own life,” she replied, getting up and following me to the kitchen. “It takes looking at life through someone else’s eyes to really see the best of our own world.”
I drank the last of the bottle I had and put all the empties in the trash under the sink. I turned to open the new one and faced Annie, standing with her arms folding and tapping a toe at me.
“What?” I asked, opening my beer, taking a drink, and shrugging.
She slowly walked toward me and unfolded her arms to gesture as she spoke. Her motions resembled a makeshift sign language with over exaggerated movement for emphasis.
“Come on, Tarek. Tell me about riding hogs with your boys and slamming back a few drinks after a good bar fight,” she said, revving her hands and then pantomiming boxing. “Did you and your brother fight a lot as kids or maybe play wrestle? I’ll bet you were a sweet child, a far cry from the man standing here with me. To someone like me, who hasn’t had a sibling and has lived a fairly stable life, you live a version of the dream. I would have loved to have a sibling when Mom left, or Dad died. If I had someone to get away with, maybe I would have had my adventure by now.”
She paused briefly; I guess imagining how her life could have been or how mine was.
“You live alone. You need to try doing things that could make you happy alone. I am usually my own best company. There is a difference between being alone and being lonely,” I replied. “And my brother was older and never really had much time for me. The only wrestling I have much practice in is wrestling women out of their clothes and into bed.”
She seemed surprised but pleased at my comment.
“Fine,” she said. “Then I guess we can talk about that. I have only had a few relationships and fewer sexual partners. What’s it like for a man like you? I’ll bet guys like you live a life pretty similar to rock stars. I’ll bet there are places you go and ride Sheba knowing there will be a flock of easy women hoping to go home with a guy like you.”
“I suppose. There will always be a woman who throws herself at the bad boy,” I said, trying to choose my words. “I don’t really care for a woman who throws herself at anyone, not that I have a problem with a woman who goes after what she wants. I just don’t have patience for women who are seeking some kind of validation from sleeping with me or being associated with me. I don’t want to waste my time on a dead fish that only looks like a trophy catch. What I get out of a woman like that isn’t worth hitting my brakes.”
“At least I can say I have never been accused of being a dead fish,” Annie said, placing her hands on her hips. “I guess in a way I am a bit of a romantic. My dad never let go of the idea that Mom would come back. I guess I look for worthy experiences until my great adventure; a life with someone doing something that really makes me feel like I’m living.
She sighed and stood beside me, leaning back against the counter. I leaned back against the closed refrigerator. She turned the side of her hip, repositioned herself against the counter to face me, and began to stare at me.
After a long moment, I asked, “Are you about to try to seduce me?”
She cocked her head and seemed to come to a conclusion from eyeing me. Then her face changed as if my words only now reached her ears. She scrunched her face slightly, weighing her thoughts on my question.
“No, but I am in my thinky-drinky place. I feel kind of chatty,” Annie said, turning away from me and making her way toward the stairs. “Still, I’m just wondering if this isn’t another moment where the universe has placed you on the same path as me.”
“Like your cabin buddy?” I called out.
She stopped at the landing and looked back at me. Her cheeks reddened again. I was beginning to enjoy when things made her blush. The shy smile at the surprise and pleasure of a favorable comment looked good on her. It emphasized the pout and pucker of her lips.
“Maybe, but I don’t necessarily mean sex, not that I wouldn’t. I mean, the thought crossed my, um,” she stopped herself mid-thought, growing flustered and tongue-tied. “That wasn’t my thought initially when this conversation began. That’s not what I was thi
nking about a moment ago. Although, I have noticed that you are attractive and have a look about you that does lead to a particular array of fantasies and then their opposite in contrast.”
She bit her lip again and looked away, embarrassed. She stepped away from the stairs and back into the kitchen a little. She began talking again but avoided making eye contact.
“What I was initially thinking was whatever the cause of tonight, our paths didn’t have to cross the way they did. Moments, choices, and fate brought us to where we are now,” she said, pausing to bite her lip. “I don’t necessarily want to fulfill a bad boy fantasy, but there is something about you. Maybe this is another moment in my life where I should just go along with whatever the universe seems to have in the works.”
“If the destination is disappointing, we could always say we had a good time getting there,” I said.