by A. L. Woods
“You’re the one who rented this game.” I reminded him, wiping the controller with the ends of my shirt, my lip lifting with revulsion. Amusement twisted his features, his anger gone as mischief glinted in his eyes. He settled his gaze on my shoddy attempt at cleaning the controller.
“I lubed it up for you,” Dougie purred, shooting me a rogue smirk that elicited a groan of despair from Trina.
“Aw, baby,” I jested, delighting in her embarrassment, tossing him a suggestive look, my teeth sinking into my lower lip, “you didn’t have to do that.”
“You’re both actually disgusting,” Trina whined from her spot on the opposite end of the sectional, her face set with discomfort.
Dougie howled with delight at his revenge, tossing a pillow in my sister’s direction.
“No one invited you,” he teased.
“Well, what else am I going to do with my night either than hang out with you two bozos?”
“Go out with your friends?” I suggested, hitting the Start button on the controller with one hand, downing my beer with the other.
“And miss out on this shitshow?” She laughed, with a swift shake of her head, “I don’t think so.”
“How do you deal with this one?” Dougie asked, his expression growing incredulous.
“Not like I got much of a choice,” I muttered.
Six months ago, my unmarried kid sister found herself pregnant with a baby she didn’t want. She might have considered keeping it, had the charming son of a bitch who knocked her up not gone ghost as soon as word was out about her predicament. So, she made a choice to terminate the pregnancy, and my other sisters and I supported her decision.
Except when your mother was still living under this naive pretense that she was going to be canonized, well, this was a mar on her life’s greatest work that just simply wouldn’t do, and Trina got the boot.
Let me preface by saying that my Ma isn’t a bad woman—and I know the sentiment is wasted when you have to start with that, but she really isn’t—she’s just religious, as pious as a fucking nun, and that really skews her ability to see a situation clearly over the holy water and the stench of incense. It was one thing for Trina to wind up pregnant; it was an entirely different issue to terminate her pregnancy. It was too much for Ma, her moral complex, and her baby Jesus.
That’s how Trina wound up living here, with me.
She pulled the box of pizza from the coffee table, settling it on her lap. When she lifted the lid, a strangled sigh left her throat.
“Why do you guys always put onions on your pizza? It gives you the worst breath.” She flicked a rogue piece of onion to the corner of the pizza box, ripping its brethren off with the finesse of an eight-year-old.
“Awesome. Free birth control.” I chuckled just as I made the touchdown Dougie had failed to achieve. The digital crowd erupted into cheers.
I shot a grin in Dougie’s direction. He congratulated me with an unceremonious middle finger before returning his undivided attention to my sister. “I can confirm that onions only carry an eleven percent effectiveness rate when used with a consensual partner.”
A laugh erupted out of me, a shit-eating grin taking up half of my best friend’s face at his well-timed joke.
“’Gratulations, by the way,” she said through a mouthful of pizza, nodding at him. “’Bout ’da baby.”
The smile slid from his face, a small blaze igniting in his eyes as he glared at me. “I said don’t say anything, asshole.”
“I didn’t, you clown,” I replied. “She hears everything.”
“It’s true, I do,” Trina agreed as she wiped her hands free of the grease that ran down her palm, balling the tissue in her hand. Her gaze sprang back over to me. “Which is why I want to hear about your incredible plan to pursue Raquel.”
I let out a tight breath I hadn’t been totally aware I was holding, falling against the headrest of the sectional. “I don’t have one,” I admitted.
Sometime between Dougie’s arrival and Trina’s appearance, I had decided it was a long shot to even bother pursuing Raquel, and there was probably a good likelihood that I was wasting my time. I had fuck buddies who required little maintenance; I saw no point in trying to acquire a new one who had about as much interest in fucking me as she did in contracting a venereal disease. It seemed hopeless, and it didn’t matter to me that I felt a manic energy that I suspected would consume both of us if given the chance, or that my heart beat a little faster when the pitch of her unimpressed voice hit my ears, or that my balls literally kicked at the idea of touching her and having that touch reciprocated.
It was infatuation at best…the kind you needed to get out of your system by replacing the source of your discomfort with something else.
It wasn’t exactly sexy living with your kid sister, and to Trina’s point, she heard everything, so she didn’t require the soundtrack of my steady rotation of women. What I was feeling right now toward Raquel was six months of pent-up energy that would be consoled when my current consistent partner was no longer my five right digits stroking my own dick.
If I knew my mother like I thought I did, she would invite Trina back home sometime after Christmas, when Livy would start classes at New England College and leave the house vacant. Then I would be free to take care of business properly.
“Ten years of being an on-and-off bachelor and you don’t have a plan?” My sister tsk-tsked, her lips pinching together, nose crinkling.
“I’ve never needed a plan,” I stressed, threading my fingers through my hair, still damp from my shower. “And I’m not having this conversation with you.”
Trina waved her hand in front of her face, as if the small detail of her being my younger sibling carried about as much weight as a fly annoying her. “I am the closest thing you have to a woman’s perspective, unless you want to ask Penelope.”
“I think that would be a better idea,” I grumbled.
“Should I call her?” Dougie chimed in, retrieving his discarded phone from the couch cushion.
“Yes,” Trina said, giving him a perfunctory nod. “Maybe we should leave this diagnosis to the professionals.”
“The only diagnosis required here is how you’re going to cure yourself of your inability to not eavesdrop.”
“I’m sorry, but the condition is terminal.” She gave me a solemn look, her brows bending inward as if she had just delivered me bad news. Taking Dougie’s lead, I threw a pillow in her direction that she evaded with a quick dodge of her head, humming at me with triumph, a wicked cackle leaving her that put me on edge.
Dougie chose that moment to clear his throat, drawing our attention to him. “So…” His voice was barely audible over the din of the TV He took a long inhale through his nose that sounded like a struggle through his deviated septum.
Trina and I glanced at him, the laughter fading between us. Something serious tightened the fine lines of his features. I watched as he dug in his pockets, pulling out the contents. Loose coins rolled across the room, his car keys landed on the coffee table, followed by his wallet and a gas receipt from God knows when. Finally, a tiny, yellow Post-It note that had been folded twice fell to the floor. Exhaling another held breath, he bent at the waist, picking it up off the floor, his fingers pinched around it as if the thing would detonate any minute. “Penelope asked me to give you this.”
For about twelve seconds, I felt like I was in high school again, receiving notes from a middleman. He held out his hand to me, a look of worry flashing across his face ever so briefly before he steadied himself. “She told me to tell you please don’t make her regret this.”
When I didn’t make any immediate move to retrieve the Post-It, my heartbeat filling my ears, feeling my pulse in the soles of my feet—Trina lunged for it, snatching it in her hands before her feet beat across the other side of the room.
She unfolded the palm-sized piece of paper. “Is this her number?” she wheezed, her excitement palpable.
That launche
d me upward faster than a deploying rocket. Rounding the coffee table, I was at my sister’s side in six seconds flat. “Have you not done enough snooping for one day?” I growled, towering over her, pulling the Post-It note free. “Give me that.”
“Are you going to call her?” she pressed, standing on the tips of her toes to try to steal another glance at the writing on the Post-It, as if there was some subliminal message hidden within the ten digits.
“Go to bed,” I barked, giving her a gentle shove out of the living room. She resisted, feigning insult—until I got her into a headlock, her head pressed beneath my pecs, the shadow of my fist curled above her head descending toward her. That was all she needed as incentive. Her hands pushed upward on my bicep to unhook herself. Her pink hair stood in several different directions. She blew a lock out of her face, holding her hands up in surrender, taking several steps backward.
“You guys are so boring,” she warbled, fleeing the room, her footsteps fading as she disappeared down the hallway toward her room. When her bedroom door clicked shut, and the crooning of Patrick Stump resumed from her speaker, I spun on my heel to face Dougie, who now stood, collecting our empties and used plates.
“Why?” I breathed, holding up the piece of paper. Penelope had pretty handwriting, but it was clear she had contemplated the gravity of her decision with every stroke of her pen—each line practically broke through the thin paper.
Dougie rubbed the bridge of his nose, tossing me an equivocal look. “Guess Penelope doesn’t dislike you as much as you dislike her.”
I didn’t miss the jab. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Penelope, she was just…okay, I hadn’t exactly been nice to Marcia Brady’s incarnate, who was I kidding? I had chastised her for months, and she just smiled and bore it. She never had rich girl airs about her, she never intentionally got on my bad side (even when she uttered words like “Caesarstone”), and she was the estrogen Trina had needed to level with her.
Sighing, I stuffed my hands into the pockets of my sweatpants, passing Dougie a feigned downtrodden look. “I don’t not like her,” I said, looking at him seriously.
He chortled, rounding the sectional with the plates in one hand and the empties tucked against his chest with his other arm.
“Yeah, all right.”
I followed him into my kitchen, watching as he moved around my space like he had done a hundred other times before. After tossing the empties into a recycling bin and the dishes in the dishwasher, he breezed by me, heading toward the front door.
I followed after him. “I mean it,” I pressed, watching as he stuffed his feet into his Nikes, then pulled his denim jacket off the hook of the coat tree, slinking it over his hoodie. “She’s not bad.”
“You’re only saying that because she gave you an olive branch in the form of Raquel’s phone number.”
So? Semantics.
My mouth popped open, preparing to speak, but he cut me off, boredom filtering in his eyes. “O’Malley’s tomorrow,” he announced, changing the subject, no longer interested in hearing what other pretend make-good I would offer him or Penelope.
“In Boston?” I grimaced, knowing exactly what shithole he was referring to. That bar was a dingy local watering hole that drew in the Irish expats in droves.
“We’re going to tell Raquel about the pregnancy. Better to do it on her and Penelope’s turf. Do me a favor and play stupid,” he said, adjusting his jacket in the floor-length mirror by my front door. “Hell, maybe you could do me a solid and prime her tonight. It’ll make it easier if she doesn’t hate you and me at the same time.” The frigid night air swept through the house when he opened the door, the sentinel tree in the door yard rustling, a deep melancholic groan coursing from its branches. I told myself it was singing a prayer for mercy to whatever god was listening on my behalf.
“One more thing,” Dougie added, looking at me over his shoulder, the caterpillars he called eyebrows furrowing together. “Do not fuck this up. I don’t want to deal with the aftershock of the Harpy’s rage, and Penelope is hormonal enough without needing to emotionally detach from her best friend, too.”
Roger that.
I saluted him as his feet hit the porch stairs, watching as he stomped toward his black F-150 with tinted windows that was parked behind my Jeep.
Closing the door behind him, I turned off the porch lights when I saw his headlights bounce off the foyer walls from the sidelight windows. The Post-It note felt heavy in my fingers as I moved down the hallway of the single-story Cape Cod, yet in spite of its weight—which felt on par with a small brick— my insides were light as air, swirling with childlike glee at the unexpected opportunity.
Fall Out Boy caroled out another song at an offensive level as I passed my sister’s bedroom, the wood floors creaking beneath my feet. As the cymbal of drum solos increased in tempo, I took my opportunity and made a run for the door. I had to take advantage of her distraction before she realized that Dougie was gone and her ears perked up like she was fucking Nancy Drew. It was a little asinine to feel compelled to sneak around my own house like a teenager trying to tiptoe back inside before his parents noticed he’d been gone—but I couldn’t take any chances with Big Mouth in the room next door.
She wasn’t above using news about me as a means of getting back in our Ma’s good graces, and I didn’t need Ma planning out our entire wedding before Raquel even agreed to a date.
All in good time, Maria Conceição.
The treble of the song died down just as my bedroom door clicked closed with a whisper. Using what little moonlight poured in from the slit of my blackout curtains, I shuffled my way over to the nightstand and switched the bedside lamp on, illuminating the room. My king-sized bed ate up a majority of the space, leaving enough room for only two custom nightstands I had personally crafted to be narrow enough to fit, and a dresser three feet away from the bed that held a thirty-two-inch flat screen TV with a mirror partially visible behind it. My bed was draped in a plush dark feather duvet with stark white bed sheets underneath that made the room feel fresh. Throwing myself on the mattress, I looked up at the popcorn ceiling above me, trying to collect my thoughts.
I couldn’t afford to fuck this up—I’d heard the veiled threat in Dougie’s warning at Penelope’s behest. I’d have one shot.
Opening my flip phone, my finger hovered over the phone icon until a thought occurred to me. If I didn’t want Raquel to perceive me as a threat, I needed to create the space she wanted, and give her the option to reply at her own pace, at her own volition.
Pressing the small envelope icon that indicated text messages, I opened a new draft, punched in her number, and then watched as the pads of my thumbs concocted different introductions. I invested ten minutes considering the right way to do this, which was ten minutes too long, quite frankly—but I was admittedly nervous about shitting the bed on this one.
Hey, how’s it going? was too predictable.
Hi Raquel, it’s Sean felt too ordinary.
And then it hit me like a freight train. A one-word message that would tell her everything and nothing at all.
It was enough, so I hit Send.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The first thought I had when I woke up that evening was that I was going to kill whoever was calling me right now.
The vibration coupled by the shrill ringing of my cellphone rocking against a solid surface sent my hackles on edge. My teeth ground together, a sharp pain shooting through my jaw muscles that momentarily squeezed in protest before releasing, my stress making its way to my temple.
I felt around blindly for the damn thing, refusing to open my eyes in fear that the small lamp on my nightstand would rob me of my vision. For the briefest of moments, I came in contact with the edge of the phone, its vibration sending a current through my arm.
Sleep was something that always evaded me this time of year for fairly obvious reasons, so I didn’t complain that it came to me in shorts spurts of reprieve. I hadn’t deserved the rig
ht to complain. It was my penance for living while my sister didn’t.
But that didn’t mean I took kindly to being interrupted by exterior forces.
Reaching my outstretched hand toward the sound, the muscle in my shoulder strained. With my eyes still squeezed shut, I made one final attempt at retrieving the phone without having to look for it, knowing it would be hours before I found sleep again once I opened them. My fingers brushed the its seam.
Just a few inches more.
With one more fortified movement, I put my all into getting the phone…and then I knocked the fucking thing to the floor. The plastic piece of shit’s drop was dampened by the area rug that occupied half the room.
I wish it had broken, then at least the ringing would cease from existence and I could resume attempting to sleep again. Of course, as luck would have it, that wasn’t the case, and the thing sang another high-pitched, penetrating song that saw me conceding defeat.
With my eyes open now and my blood pressure steadily rising, I reached for the phone that continued to hum a jovial reminder that someone was still trying to get my attention with half of my body still on the bed.
Lifting it to my line of vision, my frustration simmered when I read the caller ID, Penelope’s name tempering the thorns of my anger.
“Hey,” I greeted, the sleep heavier in my voice than even I expected, my body plunging backward until my head settled against the pillow.
“Were you already asleep?” Penelope questioned. I didn’t miss the concern in her lilt, but I paid it no mind. If I gave her any indication that something was amiss in my li’l ol’ head, she would end up at my apartment door toting a bottle of expensive red wine with a name I couldn’t pronounce and sporting loungewear that consisted of harem pants and an over-washed Metallica hoodie, plus a raised eyebrow.
I didn’t need maternal Penelope tonight, I just needed to go back to bed and be alone.
“Just a little catnap,” I assured to pacify her while tucking the phone between the crook of my neck and my shoulder. I absently picked up my threadbare copy of Valley of the Dolls. It had been my sister’s favorite book, and I always read it this time of year in memory of her.