Interference

by Sophia Henry

  “Oh…oh!” she says, voice getting louder, hand abandoning its post on the couch cushion and clutching at my sleeve. I had this character on my list, but it looks like she’s getting away.

  “Oh, thank God,” Theresa sighs, shoulders relaxing and fingers loosening their hold on me. She’s made starburst prints on my shirt.

  “I think I might love—” I start to say, and before the rest of my sentence can make it out, Theresa pushes a warm hand over my mouth.

  “That’s it, Alec. I’m making you coffee.”

  She pats my head, mussing up my already unstyled hair, then makes her way into the kitchen. I don’t even have to tell her I prefer no sugar, little bit of cream. I only had to tell her that once and she’s remembered ever since. Probably another reason why I’m in love with her—people don’t really remember Alec Tucker, but she does.

  A choking cry comes from the television, and I hear Theresa cuss by the coffeemaker. “Pour me another shot,” she says as the second character on my list is devoured.

  After she gets me coffee and swigs her liquor, we settle back into the couch together. She’s soft and warm and it’s like all our other nights, but it feels different somehow, and I’m not sure if it’s the fact that I’m buzzed or if it’s the fact that I’ve told her I love her three times tonight and took them all back. I’m in deep, dark, crazy, freaking love with one of my best friends and I want to say it again, but this time I want to mean it, though I’m not sure how to do that now that I’ve cried love all night.

  “Hand me that blanket?” she asks, nodding to the quilt tossed over the arm of the couch. I lean up so I can get it for her, then she unfolds it and throws it over the both of us.

  I could kiss her.

  Maybe.

  I’m not sure if I possess the ability to make a move. I’ve never done it before. Girlfriends, sure…once I knew they were into me, I was all over that. But making the first move when I’m so unsure of the outcome has never been my forte. It’s why I don’t try out for anything, even when my teachers, friends, and family all push me to audition for Broadway or big-time shows, or even the small stuff like off-off Broadway or my best friend’s low-budget movie. Putting myself out there feels like jumping into a shark-infested pool with a paper cut on my finger.

  But with Theresa, I want to risk it. Because, hell, I could kiss her.

  “Well, that was a bust,” she says, snapping me out of my head. She clicks off the TV and frowns at her list. “Not a single one of mine got the ax tonight.”

  I smirk. “Give it a couple episodes. I bet they’ll all be gone by next season.”

  She nods, covering a yawn with her arm as she stretches it high to the sky. Her very blessed chest sticks out, and I know she isn’t wearing a bra, and I know if I look for more than a second, I’ll be taking that image back to the bedroom tonight.

  “Well, I better get going.” I stand up, knocking the quilt to the floor.

  “You can always sleep here, you know.” She grabs our glasses. That’s the offer she makes nearly every Sunday when I’m over. But I know what will happen if I spend the night. She’ll say, “Just sleep in the bed with me,” and I’ll say, “I’m really good on the couch,” because if I sleep in the bed with her it’ll be nothing but an eight-hour boner and lousy attempts to talk it down. And then if I end up on the couch, it’ll just be tossing and turning and walking halfway down the hall to her room and then changing my mind before turning back.

  “Yeah…it’s not a good idea,” I say with a chuckle, which abruptly ends when I realize what I just said out loud.

  Her captivating brown eyes narrow in confusion. “Why not?”

  Oh, shit. “Because I think I might love you.”

  Then she does the worst possible thing…again. She laughs.

  “Man, I thought we had you sobered up.” She shakes her head and sets the glasses in the sink. “You aren’t driving anywhere.”

  She spins around, resting her ass against the kitchen counter, and I hold on to the wall because my heart’s about to pound clean out of my chest. My hand’s shaking and I can’t see straight and hell, maybe I am drunk, but it doesn’t matter.

  “Theresa…I’m being serious.”

  “So am I.” She smiles. “You’re wobbly, Alec.”

  “Yes, I am,” I tell her, and her smile fades a little. Her eyes hold mine and I see her gulp. The air around us snaps. “I’m drunk and stupid and…”

  She tilts her head slightly, watching with intense concentration as I take a step toward her. “And…?”

  The words get caught. Now they get caught. Because they are way real and she knows it. I can see it in her eyes, and I’m not sure if I want to say it but I’m going to anyway.

  “And I really think that I’m in love with you.” My hand slips off the door frame, and I take a deep breath. “Please…say something?”

  Chapter 1

  PRESENT DAY

  Someone messed with my ringtones. I never programmed them when I upgraded, but I know that “Call Me Maybe” doesn’t come Samsung standard.

  I stop trying to wave down a taxi from the corner of 46th and Broadway and reach into my pocket instead, giving an awkward smile at the woman who’s obviously judging me on my taste in music as she walks by.

  Theresa’s name and cute-as-all-hell profile picture flash on my screen, and I force back the whoop in my gut that does come standard when it comes to her.

  Theresa is, in a word, complicated. She’s also a lot of other things, but I’m gonna go with that. I never know what to expect when she calls (or drops by my apartment or shows up at one of my performances), so I’m tentative when I answer.

  “Hey…?”

  “Defcon five crisis. I need you…like tonight.”

  A large lump rises in my throat and I gulp it back, choking myself a bit. This request wouldn’t sound abnormal if it wasn’t for the last night we spent together. Because I told her right before I let her “need” me that it wasn’t going to mean anything, I’ve been trying to keep to my word. But I’m not sure I can handle another unattached evening.

  “More information, please,” I say.

  “One of my bachelors got disqualified. Turns out he’s still married. I need an available, sexy, and looks-good-in-a-tux James Bond type, and—”

  “Jace is taken?” I say with a grin, finally getting a taxi to stop for me. Theresa’s been coordinating this Valentine’s Day charity auction since the first of the year, and told me herself that Jace probably would’ve been the top-dollar bachelor if he hadn’t gone and fallen in love with his film agent.

  “I meant you,” she huffs, and I envision her loose brown locks blowing around her face, how the sun angling through her apartment window is probably highlighting the little bit of red in her hair. She’s most likely pacing, toying with the bottom of her shirt—which is probably black, sleeveless, and flowy. That particular shirt feels good against bare skin, something both she and I have attested to.

  Ah, damn it. I blink, shaking my head, and remember I’m supposed to give an address to the cabbie. I stop my thoughts before they go too far, and say, “Train station.”

  “No, wait, don’t get on the train,” Theresa says in the phone. “I need you to be the replacement bachelor. Will you, could you, pretty please? I’ll cook you anything you want.”

  I snort into the phone. “Can you guarantee it’ll be edible?”

  She hesitates. “I will order you anything you want.”

  A laugh rocks my body, and I watch the fare tick up on the cab’s meter. I guess I could; it’s not like I have anything going tonight. Single on Valentine’s Day doesn’t mean I have a lot of plans, even with Landon back in town. He and Lizzie flew in from their new house in L.A. to pick up some extra stuff they couldn’t get during the first move. It’s been nice, since Landon has been here to balance out the XY-to-XX ratio. While Theresa and Lizzie have been stressing over just about everything having to do with this auction, Landon was able to conv
ince a high-profile actor to participate. It was a much calmer week after that.

  “Wait a second,” I say, sitting upright. “Aren’t the bachelors supposed to be, you know, successful and shit? What’s my bio going to say?”

  “Six-pack abs?” she offers.

  “More like a four-pack.”

  “Knows how to have a good time.”

  “Oh yeah…spending every waking hour managing a Bed Bath & Beyond and auditioning for off-off Broadway plays is sure to get the bid up.”

  “Has a sense of humor.”

  “I don’t even have a witty comeback for that.”

  “Alec…,” she growls in her half-amused voice, and I refuse to let my mind wander back to her hair or what shirt she’s most likely wearing. “You’re a damn catch. Please say you will?”

  The cab turns a corner, nearing the train station. There’s probably not much Theresa would ask of me that I wouldn’t do for her. But still, I’m not sure I’d exactly help bring in money for the charity. Maybe a buck or two. And I’m gonna need a sweeter deal for that humiliation.

  “You’re going to need to bribe me with a lot more than takeout.”

  “Name it,” she says without hesitation, and I know I shouldn’t—it’s counterproductive in my attempt to move on, but the words come out anyway.

  “Play for me?”

  The line goes quiet, and I’m ready to let out a laugh and pretend I was kidding. Maybe we’ve gotten to the point when we can joke about what we could’ve had, what I thought we did have for a moment.

  But I can’t laugh. We haven’t gotten there yet.

  Theresa clucks her tongue twice, something else that is so damn small but ties my gut into a thousand different knots.

  “I can do that.”

  My eyebrows lift. “Really?”

  “You do this for me, I will totally do that for you.”

  The cab stops at the station. I look up at the giant billboards and keep my ass firmly planted in the backseat.

  “Can you bring me a tux?”

  She breathes a sigh of relief, and I can sense her smile, which makes me smile, then it makes me frown. Getting over someone is a real bitch, pardon my French, especially if you gotta be friends with this person.

  “Not that kind of auction, but yes, I can take care of wardrobe. Jace has a guy over on 33rd Street.” Of course he does. “I’ll text you the exact address and you can meet up with him there. Thank you…you are a lifesaver.”

  “I know.” And a sucker. I slump back against the taxi seat. “See you tonight.”

  —

  “Dude, what the hell kind of auction is this?”

  I yank at the very thin and tight red T-shirt I’m sure only went on so easily because my torso is covered in oil. Jace told me it’s what Theresa wants me to wear, and because she could literally tell me, “Dance, monkey, dance!” and I would, I squeezed myself into it.

  “You gotta wear something that tears easy,” Jace says, waving a piece of black fabric at me. He fists each side, and it rips like paper. “More you rip off, the higher the bid.”

  I stare down at my stomach and wish I’d at least had a six-week warning to prepare. “I thought this was for charity.”

  “It is.” Jace shrugs and tells his “guy” to find a shirt that isn’t for a “twelve-year-old,” and the guy nods in exaggerated agreement. I look down again and the tight shirt has rolled up to show off my belly button. I’m a belly-dancing monkey.

  I grab the back of the neck and slide it off, chucking the now oiled-up shirt at Jace’s face. He tosses the shirt away as though it were on fire, and it gets wedged between a pair of blue-and-red Nikes. We’re in a walk-in-type man closet, the likes of which I’ve only seen in the movies. Lots of suits and blazers and ties and shoes, et cetera, et cetera, but there are other clothes in here for metro guys. I assume dressing rooms for big-time theaters look like this.

  “Don’t you have any jeans?” I pull at the crotch of the flimsy-ass pants I’m wearing. Pretty sure they’re trying to castrate me.

  Jace shakes his shaggy head and opens up a drawer on his right. “You’re wearing about a thousand dollars there. Enjoy it.”

  “These are a thousand dollars?” I ask, pulling the material away from my thighs. I look like I belong in Arabian Knights.

  “I said enjoy it.”

  “This coming from the man in average-Joe clothing.” I wave at him. “I’m not a woman.”

  He laughs and crouches down to get blindingly white and red shoes that I most likely will scuff before I leave the premises. “Why’d you agree to do this thing if you didn’t want to get out of your red vest?”

  He’s talking about my Bed Bath & Beyond uniform. At least that thing doesn’t cut my scrotum in half.

  “Theresa asked me.”

  He nods. “That’s all it took, didn’t it?”

  “She’s a friend.”

  “Bull. If I asked you to oil up and get bid on by a bunch of strangers, would you?”

  “Hell yeah. I love you, man.”

  “See?” He straightens, holding the winning pair of shoes. “It’s not about friendship. It’s about love.”

  I rip the shoes from his hand. Ever since Jace fell in love he thinks he’s all insightful and knowledgeable and shit.

  He’s not wrong. But it’s still annoying.

  “I can’t help it,” I say. “It’s been years, and I still can’t help it.”

  “Well, have you even tried?”

  “Tried what?”

  “To get over it. Over her.”

  Good question. It’s not like I’ve been swearing off women altogether. I go out, kiss, make out a bit, but when it gets to that part when things should probably go further, I can’t seem to, um, rise to the occasion unless I’m thinking of Theresa. And, well, that just ruins it for the both of us.

  “Sort of.”

  Jace puts his hand on my shoulder. “Other women, man. You need another woman.”

  I shrug him off because I’m still not wearing a shirt and I’m not evolved enough to let another man touch my oily shoulder. “There is no other woman. I can’t see anyone else.”

  “I know. I used to be the same way.” That gets a gut laugh out of me. Before Shay, Jace had eyes for practically every woman.

  Jace puts his hands up in his defense. “What I mean is that sometimes the best things you find are in unexpected places. Take a look at Shay and me. I was after another woman when I fell for her.”

  “No offense, but you weren’t exactly in love with another woman.”

  “Not the point.” He looks at his “guy,” who’s finally come back with a larger shirt, then back at me. “I mean this with all the sincerity of a bro, Alec. Theresa and you? It’s not happening. So find something worthwhile somewhere else. Might be where you least expect.”

  The definitive statement should gut me, but maybe I’ve already been gutted to the point where there’s nothing left. Fact is, I’ve been thinking the same thing. I do need to find someone else. Put myself out there. Stop thinking about the one I’ll never have. I could find her where I least expect.

  “Like at an auction?” I ask him.

  He smirks. “Yeah. Like at an auction.”

  Guess it’s not a bad idea. If someone bids on me, they get me for the whole night. Jace fell in love in a week. Landon said it took him a day to fall in love with Liz. Maybe all I need is one night.

  One thing first…

  “Hey, man, can I please get better-fitting pants?”

  He laughs, then shoves a pair of jeans at me.

  Experience the first rush of love

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  Sophia Henry, Interference