I leave him with, “Lesson six: handshakes are how you get what you want and make sure you hang onto it.”
“Oh, fuck off,” he says. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I turn around and there she is, leaning against the pole of the stoplight on the corner.
This shit’s got to stop and it’s got to stop now, before it has a chance to escalate.
“Wrigley,” I say as I approach her. “What are the chances that you’d just be standing here at the exact moment I’m walking by?”
“They’re pretty good, I would imagine,” she says, blowing out a puff of smoke. “Have you gotten your head out of your ass yet?”
“Nah,” I tell her. “It’s warm and cozy in there if you don’t mind the smell.”
“Clever,” she says humorlessly. “You know, it is common courtesy not to dump the woman you just started a relationship with, even if she tells you to explore things with someone else.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not a thing,” I tell her.
“Oh yeah?” she asks, blowing her next drag in my face. “What makes you think that?”
“Way too convoluted, and you know, dripping with crazy.”
“Don’t you think it’s a little fucked up how often men call the women in their life crazy?” she asks. “If every woman who was called crazy was actually crazy, I’m pretty sure we’d have a lot more axe murders.”
“What do you want?” I ask.
“Only what’s due me,” she says.
“And what is due you?”
“Do me,” she says. “I get tense as shit if I don’t have a good lay, and you, my dear, couldn’t have ducked out at a worse time.”
“Just find someone else,” I tell her. “That’s never been a problem for you before.”
“Oh, don’t tell me you’re casting some kind of weak ass moral judgment on me for enjoying sex,” she scoffs.
“Not at all,” I tell her. “I’d have no room to talk. It’s a serious suggestion.”
“I don’t want to fuck anyone else right now,” she says. “That may change, but as for right now, I want to fuck you.”
The small group of people waiting for the light to change takes a step or two away from us.
“I’m very flattered,” I tell her, “really, I am. But I’m seeing someone else now. You’ve got to move on.”
“That option’s really not on the table at the moment,” she says. “By all means, screw your roommate to your heart’s content, but don’t pretend like you’re the saint in this conversation.”
“I don’t think either one of us is ‘the saint,’” I answer. “You don’t really think you’re going to get me to cheat on Leila with you by stalking me, do you?”
“I’m not stupid, Dane,” she says. “I’m just planting seeds.”
“What does that even mean?”
She flicks her cigarette into the group waiting for the light. “You’ll figure it out,” she says. Without a nod of acknowledgement for her crassness, she starts walking away, turning back just long enough to call out, “Sooner or later, they always figure it out!”
Chapter Nineteen
Exaltation with Just a Pinch of Denial
Leila