by Mia Wolf
“Now he says it,” Max said, with an exaggerated heel of his hand to his forehead. “He’s right. Best dump it somewhere.”
I looked around and put the bag of samples against the wall just on the inside of the door as stealthily as I could.
Max simpered. “They’re probably going to think that’s a bomb when they find it.”
“Do you think we’ll get in trouble for that?” I asked. Faking a bomb was a serious offense. At least, I imagined it would be.
“Nah, I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Jordan said.
It was already four o'clock by the time we left, and I was exhausted. Between the late-night antics of the night before and the hangover, I was ready to lie down for a while.
“What now?” Jordan asked.
“I suppose it’s a couple of hours before dinner,” Max said. “We could go get some drinks?”
“No,” I said sternly. “No more drinking for me for a while.”
They chuckled at my protest. Max reached over and rubbed my head. “Too much fun last night?”
I knocked his hand off my head. “Don’t. I’m struggling enough without you messing up my hair,” I snapped.
“Touchy!” he said, taking his hand back. He tested a smile, which disappeared when he saw I wasn’t joking.
“Are you alright?” Jordan asked. “You’ve seemed a little on edge today.”
I sighed, trying to let the tension out of my shoulders. I liked these guys. They were my pals, kind of. We’d grown up together. It was likely just the hangover talking rather than an actual dislike toward them.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I’m just really tired. Today was kind of overwhelming with all the people and the noise in that building. It’s just a lot to take in.”
“I hear you,” Jordan said sympathetically. “Why don’t we go back to the hotel room. You can get a nap or do whatever to decompress. We have reservations at El Mundo, which has some of the best burritos I’ve ever had.”
“You don’t actually need a reservation since the best thing to do is get a burrito to go and walk along Golden Gate Park,” Max explained. “But we really wanted to make sure we got in. There’s an ice cream place a few doors down from it that we were planning to stop at so we could walk through the park and have dessert.”
More money to spend and another opportunity for them to wine and dine me and make me feel like this again tomorrow. No, thank you.
“I’m going to miss this one out,” I said. “I’ve got a lot of work to do with going through all this information and pricing it. I want to pick the solar panels out and get our order put in first thing in the morning. But—” I held up my stack of papers. “—I have quite a bit to get through here.”
“Oh,” Max said, sounding disappointed. “Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, we can all do it together. Three heads are better than one. Plus, we know all about this stuff, so we can answer any questions you might have about it.”
“No, I’m good,” I said, shaking my head. “After today, I just need to chill out. You guys go on ahead. I’ll get room service. I might even try out the television and see if there’s anything worth rotting my brain over.”
“Are you sure?” Jordan asked.
“I’m sure,” I said, forcing a smile. Somehow, they didn’t seem convinced.
Chapter 8 – Jordan
It was that smile that haunted me for the rest of the afternoon. I knew it wasn’t a real one, and it was a look I’d never seen her give anyone before. Emily was one of the most genuine people I knew; someone who wore her emotions on her sleeve. If she wasn’t happy, she made sure you knew about it. And when she smiled—there was no faking a smile with her. When she did reveal that wonderful grin of hers, her face went that wonderful red whenever she did.
The smile she left us with, the one that was silently telling us just to leave her alone, left her complexion colorless and her eyes almost pleading for the topic to be dropped. There was something wrong, and it was weighing on my mind at the restaurant later with Max.
“What’s bugging you?” Max asked.
I pushed around a bite of the burrito on my plate, skirting it along the dollop of guacamole.
“I’m kind of worried about Emily. It’s not just me, right? She seemed off today.”
“I’ve been thinking that all day,” Max said. “It was really weird, though, this morning. When I woke up, I couldn’t stop looking at her while she slept. I think she’s the first girl I’ve slept with that I haven’t wanted to get rid of almost straight away.”
“That’s not true. You’ve dated girls before,” I said.
“Well, yeah, but even with those girls, after that first time, I still wanted my space right away. I’d invite them back later, but the morning after, I wanted to be on my own.” He picked up his beer, took a sip, and wiped the bottom of his lip with his thumb. “With Emily, though, I wanted her to stay. I couldn’t wait to go get coffee with her.”
“You know, I was thinking the same thing,” I said. I took the bite I’d been toying with on my plate, loaded with spicy salsa and shredded beef. Emily would really have liked this place. I thought about getting a burrito to take back for her.
It was true what Max was saying. When we suggested we make the walk, it was a genuine suggestion rather than a means to get rid of her. I wanted her to experience the morning in San Francisco and how the veil just peeled away as the sun climbed higher into the sky. It started off fresh and then bathed you in golden light.
I didn’t know why it was that I wanted her to like San Francisco so much. I thought perhaps I wanted her to see us in our entirety. This was an opportunity for us to show her our full selves. She knew who we were in Moonstone. And the people we knew in SF knew who we were here. But no one other than Max and I knew who we were in both settings.
By why did I want Emily to know both sides of us? That was the perplexing part.
“I think I want to get to know Emily better,” Max mused as if he didn’t mean to think out loud.
“There’s something about her, isn’t there?” I added. “I don’t know what it is, but I think I want to get to know her better too. I couldn’t believe who I was looking at coming down those stairs last night. I didn’t think that she could make such a transformation.”
“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.”
“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her.” That was the truth. I hadn’t realized it was the truth until the words came out of my mouth. “I think I want her, Max.”
“I’m on the same page, buddy.”
We lapsed into thought. I didn’t think either of us was prepared for those words to be said. It was one thing to hook up with a girl the night before, and hook up with a friend. But it was a whole different thing to see someone we’d grown up with in such a drastically different light that we both wanted more from her. Not more sex (though I would certainly be using memories from the night before for my own use), but simply more of her.
It seemed almost wrong, though. We wanted her because we saw her in a different light. The different light was that she was dolled up. That didn’t make Emily different. We knew Emily. We knew her personality. Whoever we ended up with, we would need to love the personality as well as the body of the person. Last night, we enjoyed Emily done up in a fancy dress. When we went back to Moonstone, she’d go back to dressing like a tomboy, and we probably wouldn’t notice her. We weren’t after her personality; we were after the something different she brought out last night.
But even that didn’t seem right in my head.
“She didn’t seem too into us today, did she?” It was more of a comment than a question from Max.
“I think we might have crossed a line last night,” I said. “I don’t think she’s too stoked that we slept together.”
“But it was so good,” Max said. “I don’t see what could be getting her down.”
“I don’t know. Women work differently.” I shrugged. “I don’t think she th
ought it was bad. I just don’t think she was ready for something like that to happen.”
We finished our meals in silence, not sure what more could be said. I hardly tasted my burrito, and the thought to bring one for Emily had disappeared almost completely. When our plates cleared, our server brought the check over on a silver tray, which I put the card down on.
“I don’t want to be in this funk,” Max said. “Let’s do something about it. You want to go to another club?”
Nothing sounded worse than doing that. I was feeling too down and confused. But then again, maybe getting up and moving might help me feel better. Dancing had always been a way to make me feel better, no matter what was going on. At one point, we had thought that we were going to get chucked out of school because we hadn’t filled out our scholarship form for the following year in time. I was devastated and convinced that our final year was just going to be a bust. But Max, in his infinite wisdom, convinced me that dancing was what we needed to do. And he was right. By the end of the night, I was ready to do what I needed to do to fight to finish the year.
This, though, felt different. Life would have gone on if we hadn’t finished college. I didn’t know that it would with this Emily situation. The idea of her being upset made me feel hollow.
Maybe Max was right. Maybe going to the club was a good idea. Perhaps I was too focused on Emily and forgetting that we were finally back in San Francisco, at a time when we could actually enjoy ourselves rather than be on the look-out for our mate. We should be trying to live it up.
“Yeah, alright,” I said. “Let’s go.”
“I was kind of joking,” Max said.
“I think it’s a good idea,” I said, though I didn’t believe my own words. “We’re both stuck on Emily, right? Well, what better way to get unstuck?”
“I suppose you’re right.”
The server returned a few minutes later with the receipt for me to sign.
“Okay, we’ll go back, get ready, then go back out,” I said, taking charge of the game plan.
“Should we let Ems know?”
I signed the receipt.
“No, I don’t think we should. Either she’ll make a fuss about the money being spent, or we’ll just feel worse for having to talk to her. Let’s try to have fun tonight and get our heads straight. Good?”
“Good.”
***
Club Très Très was just as we remembered it. Even though it was a Wednesday, there was a line to get in, filled with women dressed up and ready to meet their match that night. It was just what we needed. I started to feel a little better just being in line.
It took twenty minutes to get in, but once we did, we saw the new addition to the bar specials: Progressive Wells on a Wednesday, starting at $1.50 a drink.
“Well, if this isn’t a good sign, I don’t know what is,” Max said. I passed him the card, and he stood in line to get the drinks.
I watched the bouncing dance floor, pulsing with less than sober people moving to the dance remix of Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face.” I felt more in my element, that this was what I had been missing for a while. Just Max and me out for the night.
I waved to Max that I’d be on the dance floor, though when I got to the edge of the crowd, I felt apathetic. I didn’t have the energy. I wasn’t feeling the music. I wasn’t feeling the crowd. I just wasn’t feeling any of this. I just wanted to feel it. I wanted that experience of being psyched for the night, being able to enjoy any space so long as there was some good music to move my body to.
None of this, however, seemed right. Maybe it was me who wasn’t right.
I found a table along the side and caught Max’s eye. He handed me my Jack Daniel’s and coke, which I could easily smell was a double.
“Not digging it?” he asked.
“Not really.”
“I’m not either. I thought maybe I’d get us some shots or something, but it didn’t feel right.”
A girl with short black hair bumped up against me. She didn’t just bump, she rubbed herself, allowing me to feel the push of her breasts against me as she passed by the table, making like she was squeezing by. Except there was plenty of room for her to pass without hindrance.
Her eyes met mine. She had smoky eyeshadow and full, dark brown-painted lips. The corner of her mouth turned up ever so slightly, and an eyebrow arched momentarily. It was an unspoken question to dance, at the very least.
She was attractive, and some part of me acknowledged that I should accept her invitation. But a much larger part of me pushed my shoulders into a shrug and shook my head, turning down the very nice offer.
This was a new experience for me. I never turned down attractive girls. I never said no to an obvious indicator like that one.
“What’s up with that?” I asked. I was starting to feel annoyed with myself. “This is our city. This is our place. This is our scene. Why can’t we enjoy this?”
Max was watching the girl join her friends, their eyes all turning toward us as I’m sure she was relaying what happened.
“I don’t know, man. Let’s drink these,” Max suggested. “We’ll see how we feel afterward.”
We watched the women dancing, grinding against their gal pals, trying to catch their interest’s eye as he danced by. Many of them tried to get our attention, as well. They weren’t bad-looking girls. Some of them were stunning, even.
I watched as Max tried to go join one group of girls. There were four of them, all trying to be the one closest to him. He could have taken any one of them or even all of them back to the hotel after the club if he wanted. That wasn’t unheard of for either of us to do. It wasn’t unheard of for Max and me to take back one girl to share between the two of us, even. For a moment, I had thought that was what his end-game was. But he returned after the first song and finished the last little bit of his drink. Mine was already gone, and the ice chips were eaten.
“No good?” I asked.
“Oh, they are very good,” he said, watching them. There was an element of melancholy about him. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m just not interested.”
“I hear ya,” I said. “I’m the same way. Look,” I gestured to some of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen. “Those girls over there have tried to wave me over like four times. They’re stunning.”
“Then go over there,” Max said.
“You go over there.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Why?”
He hesitated, rubbing his chin as he thought.
“Because of Emily, right?” I supplied.
“Yeah. Because of Emily.”
“I don’t know what the hell she’s done to us, but I think we need to talk to her. I think—” I caught myself before I said something I didn’t know was true. But all day, I’d been struggling with what I knew to be true versus what was hinting at being true in the back of my mind. “I think we should try asking her on a date or something.”
“Do you think she’ll go for that?” Max asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe. But I can’t get her out of my head, and I think that the only way for this to get sorted out is if we try. What do you think?”
“I don’t know. She seems like she doesn’t really want anything to do with us.”
“Seems like,” I iterated. “We won’t know if that’s the case unless we try.”
“That’s true. Yeah, okay. Let’s talk to her over breakfast then.”
“Breakfast sounds like a good time to talk to her about it,” I agreed.
Chapter 9 – Emily
I couldn’t think of an excuse not to meet them in the morning. I tried. I really did when I saw their text message inviting me to the dining area.
I had heard them come in the night before. They came back later than I’d thought they would. But I still held my breath when I heard them talking outside their door while they tried to get the keycard to work. I didn’t want to see them. I didn’t want to deal with them.
And
soon after they arrived, they had texted me to ask if we were going to have breakfast in the hotel, one of the proper ones rather than the continental that was free with the room. Reluctantly, I agreed. I couldn’t find a reason not to. While I didn’t want to go to breakfast with them and still felt as miserable about them that morning as I had the day before, I knew that at some point, I would actually have to be in the vicinity of them.
I was on my second glass of water, not daring to touch the coffee since I was struggling to sit still. My knee was bouncing, and I couldn’t seem to keep my fingers from fidgeting. I felt as nervous now as I did sitting in that plane on the runway. When Max had been so good and calm with me during takeoff. It had been sweet …
But that was just an act. He and Jordan weren’t like that. They’re just bros from the city. Bros who just party all the time. I felt so silly thinking they were anything different.
When I saw them round the corner in their casual polo shirts and jeans, I nearly choked on my water. How did they do that? How did they manage to look so painfully handsome all the time? A flash of the feeling of Jordan’s bearded face against the back of my neck jetted through my memory, and Max’s blue eyes looking up at mine while his tongue—
No, I needed to hold it together. I didn’t need to be thinking of the wonderful and dirty things we had done together. They weren’t going to happen again, so there was no good in remembering them. I wouldn’t let them. I couldn’t let them. They were only going to make me look like a fool, and I would be the one hurting at the end.
“You missed a good night, Ems,” Max said as he sat down at the round table draped with a white tablecloth. “Good burritos.”
“We went clubbing afterward,” Jordan said. “It was fun.”
They were both very upbeat, hyper, almost. I wondered briefly if they’d brought another girl back, but then remembered that I heard them come back, and I’m sure I would have heard a woman’s voice in the hall with them.