My cock grows hard. I reach down and palm it, squeezing it hard to make it subside. I can’t be walking around Chandler’s neighborhood with a fucking woody. Worse, I can’t be having these kinds of dirty thoughts about my best friend’s girl. I rake a frustrated hand through my hair. I wish there was some pill I could take that would erase these feelings. Why, out of all the women in this world, did I have to fall for the one person I can’t have? I didn’t even realize it was happening. If I did, maybe I could’ve cut it off before the crush bloomed into something stronger, but it was like one day she was Chandler, who ate grass because she wondered what it tasted like, and the next day she had tits and ass and I was waking up with wet sheets.
Fuck, I’m a mess.
I’m eighteen and two semesters away from graduation, and I know three things: always buy when the market is down, control your dick so you don’t hurt others, and love is for losers.
I push away from the door and find my way to my car, which I kind of hate but can’t say it out loud or everyone will think I’m a pretentious fuckwad because you could buy a small village for how much it costs. My dad dropped it in the driveway on my sixteenth birthday. It’s one of his many pity gifts. Nah, pity isn’t the right word. He pities my mom. The gifts are a guilt thing. He knows fucking other women is wrong and that I despise him for it. He wants us to be buddies, and so every quarter or so I get something like a one of a kind watch or a hard to top hypebeast item or a two hundred thousand dollar sports car. He thinks enough of these are going to buy my respect or attention or affection. I don’t think if he even stopped sleeping around today, I’d forgive him. Not at this point. I’m an asshole, yeah, but I’m not my old man and never will be.
I pull out my phone and text Davis.
Chandler made a shit ton of cookies. You better go over and eat them or she’s gonna cry.
Chandler? Cry? We talking about the same girl who took a softball to the face and finished out the rest of the game?
The memory of that night tightens my balls. I thought she was dead. The sound of the ball hitting her helmet still echoes in my head. She crumpled like a puppet whose strings were cut. It was fucking terrifying. Davis brings it up like it was nothing, like it was as if she’d tripped on the concrete sidewalk. I don’t know how he does it.
Yeah, also the one who thinks every baby thing is cute including baby bats.
She’d sent a photo of an albino bat to our group chat and said she wanted one. I had one in my cart to be shipped from some site called exotic pets that sold everything from chinchillas to foxes before her just kidding follow-up text appeared on the screen.
Fine. I’m only eating them because I’m high tho. Not because I want to.
Don’t care what the reason is. Also you may want to text her. I guess she’s lonely. She said the phone worked both ways, whatever that means.
I think it means you’re supposed to text her.
Better if you just go over.
I shove the phone onto the center console and take off, the expensive engine roaring in the quiet neighborhood. I turn the music up high to drown out the thoughts of Davis pinning Chandler to the table and eating her out. The worst timeline.
Rocks spin up when I speed down the lane to the carport. I cut the engine, grab the Chandler-baked cookies, and go inside to find Mom. She’s sitting in her reading room, a pink and green English garden type thing with a profusion of stripes and flowers.
“Hey, Ma.”
She jumps and shoves something to the side. I narrow my eyes. What is she hiding from me? “What were you reading?”
She brushes a hand across her forehead. “Oh, nothing dear.” She gestures me forward. “What did you bring me?”
“Chandler made cookies.” I bring the container over and set it on the side table by the sofa. I lean forward and give her a kiss, meanwhile trying to angle my head to see what she’s stashed away. It looks like a letter or a card. “That better not be some plea from Frank.”
“Don’t call your father by his name, dear. It’s rude.”
“Oh Christ.” I can’t believe she still harps on the whole honor your father and mother thing.
“Don’t curse either.”
“Mom.” I drop into a cushioned seat opposite of her.
“I’m serious. You know I don’t like that.” She lifts the lid of the cookies and sniffs. “These smell amazing. Text Chandler and tell her thank you.”