by Max Monroe
The instant I stepped through the sleek glass doors of Marlowe’s, I spotted the girls and headed for their table. This was a popular restaurant in San Francisco that made you feel like you had been submerged in hipster the instant you stepped through the doors. Between the laid-back ambiance and the homemade French fries doused in horseradish aioli, I was a big, big fan.
“Sorry I’m late, guys,” I said and sat down in the chair across from Abby and Jen.
“No big deal.” Jen shrugged. “We’ve just been enjoying some cocktails while we were waiting.”
My eyes narrowed. Something was up.
The waitress came up to our table and set a menu in front of my seat. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“I’ll just take a water with lemon for now.”
“Would you like to wait for your other guest to arrive before you order?” she asked with a friendly smile.
“Yeah, that’d be great, thanks,” Abby responded and avoided my questioning gaze.
“Sounds good.” The waitress nodded. “I’ll grab some waters for the table.”
“Thanks,” I said, and the instant she walked away from the table, I looked back and forth between my friends. “Other guest?”
Jen ignored me. “Do you know what you’re getting to eat, Ab?”
“Uh, I’m not sure yet,” Abby responded and stared into her menu like it had the ability to teleport her somewhere else.
“Who else is coming to dinner?”
Half of my heart sped up, thinking that maybe, just maybe, it would be Reed.
“Girls! Girls!” A poorly executed British accent filled my ears, and I closed my eyes tightly in hopes that maybe I was hearing things. “I’m so sorry I’m late.”
Yeah, I knew that awful excuse of a posh London accent anywhere.
Simone was the mystery dinner guest, not Reed. Fucking hell.
I had the urge to click my heels together and start chanting, There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home. If I’d had on red, glittery heels and a dog named Toto, you bet your sweet ass I would’ve at least given it a try.
“Oh my God, you wouldn’t believe what happened to me on my way here!” she exclaimed and sat down in the chair beside mine.
Oh, fantastic. Even better.
I gave up the good fight and opened my eyes, only to be hit with the vision of Simone in lace and velvet and her boobs defying gravitational limits I wasn’t sure NASA had approved.
We’re definitely not in Kansas anymore, Toto. We’ve somehow taken the Yellow Brick Road to the land of fake and freaky.
And here I’d been feeling guilty about being thirty minutes late. No wonder these two devious bitches had begged me to have dinner tonight. They needed a goddamn buffer.
“Oh, I had no idea we were dressing down tonight,” Simone said, successfully offending everyone in one fell swoop, and I fought my fight or flight response. One solid punch to the nose or haul ass out of there? Neither seemed swift enough.
“Is anyone going to ask me what happened to me on my way here?” she questioned, and her face scrunched like she’d just sucked on a lemon.
“What did you say you’re going to get, Lola?” Jen asked.
I brought my hands to my hip and cranked up my middle finger like a jack-in-the-box so she could see. But for the sake of being polite, I pasted a fake-ass smile on my face as well. “Definitely the French fries.”
“Good choice,” a male voice chimed in, and I looked up to find three thirty-something men dressed in suits and ties standing beside our table. “Marlowe’s has the best French fries in San Francisco.”
I looked to my friends to see if they were as mystified by his presence as I was, but not one of them was looking at me.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he continued. “But we’d love to buy you beautiful ladies a drink to go with your dinner.”
“Oh, no need to apologize,” Jen said with a flutter of her eyelashes.
“Definitely no need to apologize,” Abby added with a coy flip of her hair.
“What brings you handsome gentlemen out for the evening?” Simone joined in, dropping her fake British accent into what I guessed was her attempt at a seductive purr.
The conversation continued on around me, but I just sat back and existed. I couldn’t bring myself to participate as I watched my smart, beautiful, capable, and confident friends interact with these men. Like chameleons, I witnessed each of them change from the versions I knew and loved—well, tolerated in Simone’s case—into something I didn’t recognize. All three of them laughed a little too much, smiled a little too easily, and chatted in this sugary-sweet tone that had me cringing internally. It was like they were being the versions of themselves they thought these guys wanted them to be instead of the people they actually were.
And I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it one bit.
“You’re quiet,” the guy standing beside my chair said while looking directly at me.
I had to work not to roll my eyes. “It’s because I’m a very shy person.”
“Cough, Bullshit, Cough,” Jen muttered.
I shot a glare in her direction, but this guy seemed completely oblivious.
“I like shy girls,” he added with a sly grin.
“What about shy lesbian girls?” I asked with a saccharine smile. “Do you like those, too?”
“She’s not a lesbian,” Abby announced on a laugh, and then her eyes met mine. “Stop telling people you’re a lesbian, ya weirdo.”
“This conversation makes me want to be one,” I muttered.
Was it so hard for women to just enjoy a night out together without random, annoying men trying to find their next one-night-fuck? It was so obvious when it came to guys with those intentions, it was written all over their faces.
And these three guys all but screamed, “Let’s fuck.”
God, what was with my friends?
I hated what I was observing. My friends acting like people they weren’t, hiding the very best parts of their personalities with these façades. The second these guys had come to our table, they’d become completely different people—besides Simone. She was always fake and shallow and befitting of the attention she tried to garner. She’d just added a seductive purr that was more black cat screeching than playful sex kitten.
But seriously, why couldn’t my friends just be themselves?
Why put on an act?
I was starting to think, when it came to dating, the real art of conservation was dead. What used to be rare and finely sculpted words had morphed into overproduced one-liners.
Most men didn’t care or didn’t know how to actually converse with a woman. And so many women wanted to find their “person” so badly they ignored the red flags.
Women overlooked the fact that a man saying things like, “You look really hot in that dress” was, in reality, a very objectifying thing to say, and it said a lot about the person saying it. Instead, they took it as a compliment.
Or, they portrayed themselves as someone they weren’t.
Was it so hard just to be yourself? And more importantly, why would you even want to be anyone but yourself?
“Be you. Not what some faceless Simon behind a computer tells you to be—and not what the person you’re trying to impress wants.”
The exact words Reed had said in his YouTube video filled my brain.
Oh. My. God.
That cocky, know-it-all bastard was right.
Reed Luca was right. Goddammit, he’s wonderful.
Jen’s too fake, too fucking cheery laugh filled my ears, and I fought the urge to groan out loud. Abby and Simone joined in, laughing far too hard at something one of the Three Suited Stooges had said.
Yeah. I didn’t want to be a part of this charade, and since Reed Luca was the reason for my epiphany, it was only fair he be the one to help me get the fuck out of it.
I pulled out my phone and shot him a text message.
Me: I need your help. Call my phone wit
h a fake emergency.
His response chimed in a few minutes later.
Reed: I thought you were at dinner with your friends?
Me: I am. Simone is also here.
Reed: Ah, now I understand.
Me: So, you’ll bail me out of this?
Reed: Sure thing, Roller Skates.
Me: Oh, and can you come pick me up, too?
After tapping send, I crossed my fingers under the table in hopes he wouldn’t let me down on this one. I needed to get the hell out of Dodge.
I also wanted to see Reed.
But minor details, right?
I mean, a girl could only handle so many epiphanies in one night.
Reed: You’re a demanding little thing tonight, huh?
Me: Yep.
Reed: Where are you?
Me: Marlowe’s
Reed: I’ll only do it under one condition.
Me: What’s that?
Reed: Before you leave the restaurant, pick up a to-go order for me at the bar.
Me: You love their fries, too?
Reed: Like you wouldn’t believe. They have amazing burgers, too.
Me: Mind ordering two of those meals? We haven’t even ordered our food yet.
Reed: At your service, Princess Lo.
Me: Thanks, smartass.
The initial trickles of guilt filtered into my belly, and I started to question my decision to just up and leave my friends. But when I glanced around the table and it was apparent no one even noticed my complete retreat from the conversation, that guilt started to subside. And when Jen started laughing like a hyena over some cheesy joke one of the men had told the table, that guilt washed the fuck out to sea.
Yeah. I had no shame in this game.
My phone lit up with another text and I smiled.
Reed: Give me five minutes to call in this order, and I’ll call your phone.
Me: You’re the best.
Reed: I know. ;)
There was no doubt in my mind that Reed Luca really did think he was the best.
Bizarrely, I was starting to think it, too.
I hung up with the restaurant and picked up my landline phone again to dial Lola’s number.
Turns out old habits die hard and all that, and since the moment I’d stopped texting Lola about her needing a rescue, I’d completely lost track of what I’d done with my cell phone. I also didn’t really understand all the fancy “smart” things about it and had instead used my old system for locating the number for Marlowe’s—a menu, buried under a stack of other menus, in my junk drawer.
Considering that I was way better with words than numbers, it surprised me how well I’d remembered her number. I guess mooning over it for the first couple of nights after I’d entered it into my contacts and talking myself out of using it all the time had paid off.
Who am I? This is pathetic.
“Hello?” she greeted between the first and second ring, and just like that, I forgot all about questioning why Lola made me feel the way she did and how much I couldn’t understand it. Instead, I laughed, a picture of her face conjuring perfectly in my mind.
“Phone was in your hand, huh?”
“Yes, yes, that’s right,” she confirmed.
“It’s that bad there?”
“Yes,” she said. Her voice dropped in volume and changed tones—this one consoling. “I completely understand.”
“There’s an emergency here. And according to the restaurant, it’ll be ready to come to a head in about twenty minutes.”
“Oh, my God,” she said, feigning shock. “Are you sure you can wait that long?” she asked in a near panic. Chuckles rolled continuously like waves in my chest.
“I’ll leave now,” I offered.
“But I’m here with my friends—”
I understood immediately what she was getting at, and my chest puffed out in confidence. There was nothing I could handle better than distracting a group of people from an awkward encounter by making it even more ridiculous. I reminded her of the same. “Don’t you worry, LoLo. This is your best friend Reed you’re talking to.”
“Okay, I’ll see you soon.”
“Looking forward to it,” I told her honestly, and she hesitated.
I waited, and it was worth it when her response finally came. “Me too.”
My hand paused before leaving the receiver as I hung up the phone. She hadn’t argued with me or herself about our friendship status.
Maybe it’s just because her friends are there?
I shook my head to clear the questions and moved—into my room to grab a pair of socks, to the chair at my desk to swing on my jacket, and over to the door to pull on my boots and grab my keys and wallet.
It was a short walk down the block to my old Toyota Corolla that I never used—I preferred walking and public transportation on a daily basis because of the entertainment value they provided—and thankfully, it started up on the first crank—something it didn’t always do.
I actually knew quite a bit about cars. A little pang of a memory sounded in my chest—rebuilding the engine to my dad’s 1967 GTO with my friend Brandon while our other friends were at parties in college. We’d had our share of beer while we were doing it, but I wasn’t about getting wild. And neither was he. We didn’t fit. We didn’t conform.
At least, not until graduation. As my dad liked to put it, Brandon had matured. He had a steady job and a steady family, and I hadn’t talked to him in three years.
I wonder what he’s up to?
But tonight wasn’t the time to employ my mechanical skills, and it wasn’t the time to get lost in old memories.
I had a woman waiting on me, one whose friendship was still alive and growing.
Lola’s group wasn’t hard to find when I got there—it was the rowdiest table in the place. Three men hovered over the seated women, flirting and inserting themselves into their night mostly seamlessly. But there was one flaw in the stitch, a tiny thread popping when it should have laid flat: Lola.
In a half-seated, half-crouching tiger, she had her right leg hooked back at an awkward angle, and her toe dug into the floor. She looked like she was ready to bolt.
I hadn’t personally met Jen or Abby yet, but Lola had spent part of our time in Golden Gate Park earlier that day telling me about them. Perky. Pseudonormal. Intelligent, talented, and pointedly organized. The way she talked about them made them seem like one person most of the time, but I knew they had to have some differences once you skimmed below the surface. I already knew enough about Simone not to bother.
“Lola!” I called as I approached the table casually, hoping to give her tense muscles some reprieve.
“Oh, my God!” she yelled—and I do mean yelled—as she jumped up to standing. Her cute little pumps made her legs look six miles long, and the short hem of her T-shirt dress didn’t hurt either. It floated just below the curve of her ass. “Reed! I’m so sorry about your sister’s…uh…cat…uh…Mr. Sprinkles’s death,” she mumbled, picking up her bag from the table and clutching it under her arm so she could be ready to run.
I laughed outright as I stopped in front of her. “It’s terrible, huh? Poor Mr. Sprinkles taken way before his time. I felt like I barely got the chance to get to know him.”
“Who’s this?” a guy in a suit standing right next to her interrupted before she even had time to laugh. I leveled him with a look. One I rarely employed and personally hated, but conveyed my point all the same. Step away from the woman.
“Her mortal enemy,” Jen said through a laugh at the same time I said, “Her boyfriend.”
Jen looked confused, and she wasn’t the only one. The eyebrows of the guy standing closest to Lola pulled together. “I thought you were a lesbian.”
A smile tugged one side of my mouth higher than the other as I slipped her hand in mine and did what I do best—lied.
I also couldn’t deny the surge of satisfaction I felt knowing that Lola had told these guys she batted for the other team. I
had no claims to her, but it didn’t change the fact that I wanted her to give me those claims.
I sure as fuck didn’t want to focus my attention on anyone else but her.
Lola tumbled closer to me as I gave her hand a yank, but she didn’t put up a fight. I was her only lifeline, and getting out of here was way more important than a million dollars. “She was. I’ve always had a crush on her because…” I paused and gestured in a way that said, “Look at her, right?”
The guy smiled his agreement, uneasy and pissed off to be cockblocked as it was. He’d noticed the way she looked. In fact, it was the only thing he’d bothered to notice, and quite frankly, that pissed me off on Lola’s behalf.
“Well, years and years of watching her go through girlfriend after girlfriend, and she finally tried out some heterosexual porn one night when she was looking to get off.”
One of the guys’ hands went to his crotch in an effort to conceal his reaction, and I smiled bigger.
“Usually, she just got together with Jen, and they helped each other out. Right, honey?”
Lola nodded but never opened her mouth. Her eyes were wide with the effort to keep all of her hysteria inside. Jen, not knowing the joy of my friendship, didn’t engage in the same compliance.
“Uh, I don’t—” Jen started, but I cut her off.
“So she’s masturbating to guy-on-girl action, stroke for stroke, and bam! It’s like it all clicks. She’s not into chicks, after all. It’s the dicks.”
Guy One’s and Guy Two’s eyes had glazed over by this point, but Guy Three, the one closest to my Lola, still had some synapses firing outside of the head of his dick. “But she told me she was a lesbian tonight.”