“You know,” he says, “I think I’m doing you a disservice here.”
“Are you, now?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says. “I came over here trying to be Mr. Polite while trying to spare you some of my more potent charms.”
I can’t not laugh.
“Oh, really?” I ask. “So, you’re telling me that if you were to really turn it on, I’d be sexual putty in your hands. Is that about right?”
“No about,” he says. “That’s exactly right.”
“Now this, I have to hear.”
“All right,” he says, “but it’s probably going to take another approach. If I just keep sitting here and turn it on, it’s going to make this whole conversation lopsided. Therefore—”
“Therefore, you want to start an entirely new conversation?” I ask.
“Yep,” he says, getting up from his bar stool. “We’ll give it, say, five minutes. Don’t go anywhere.”
Either he’s really this clumsy or this is just another part of his play. It doesn’t really matter to me; I’m finding this rather amusing.
Dane is barely out of my sight when I feel someone tapping me on the shoulder. I turn around, ready to ask how he made it so quickly to the other side of me, but it’s not him standing there.
“You’re Leila, right?”
“Yeah,” I say, using nearly all of my focus and willpower to prevent my eyes from rolling. “And you’re Wrigley.”
“Yeah,” she says. “I didn’t know if you’d remember me.”
“Well, seeing a person’s vag before seeing her face has a way of leaving an impression,” I answer.
She smiles.
“I just wanted to let you know that I know you and Dane are having a thing right now, but he really dropped the ball with me,” she says. “I’d really prefer to leave you out of it, but I’d keep my head down if I were you.”
“Excuse me?”
“Whatever happens, just stay out of my way: that’s all I wanted to tell you.”
“Listen, razor burn,” I start, “I don’t know who you think you are, but you don’t get to tell me anything about anything. I get that you and Dane used to be fuck buddies or whatever, but maybe it’s time to open your legs for someone else.”
I don’t usually talk that way, but I can’t help but feel a bit proud of myself.
Then it occurs to me that I’d probably lose and lose terribly in a fight with this chick.
Now, I’m not feeling so well.
It takes her that long before she reacts. “You’ve got quite the mouth on you for a virgin,” she says. “Anyway, I didn’t come over here to threaten you. I just wanted to let you know that whatever happens to Dane, you might want to keep your distance for a while.”
“In what way is that not a threat?” I ask. “Just what exactly are you planning to do to him?”
“Nothing he doesn’t deserve,” she says. “I told him to find out whether his feelings for you meant anything or if he was just hard for the roommate experience. I didn’t tell him to fall in whatever and stop attending his responsibilities.”
“His responsibilities?” I ask. “And just what in the hell might those be?”
I’m starting to wonder where Dane is.
He’d better have a really solid excuse for leaving me to deal with this skank bag.