With nothing else to do, Pete and I take the dregs of our beer to the next metal bench over, and join Dylan as he continues holding court. When he gets on these rolls, his gift for commanding center stage is truly a sight to behold — which makes it all the more regrettable that he often sits there and doesn’t say anything whatsoever to strangers when we’re out at some bar. If every night were like this, we might really be onto something, here. Whether he’s relating some epic tale or cracking a simple joke, these girls seem on the brink of wetting themselves, they are laughing so hard.
What’s even more hilarious about this to me is that, from where I’m sitting, sometimes he’s not trying to be funny, but his comments have these ladies pissing themselves anyway, and even those relatively quiet two dudes they are with. Sitting on the rail behind the table, smoking a cigarette, he glances over at Pete and me with a smirk and a sheepish shrug, for even he can’t explain this wondrous phenomenon.
Right about now, a very loud yet seemingly obvious sounding vehicle rolls up the street behind us. Prior to craning his neck for a look, Dylan wonders, “is that a motorcycle?” and the entire table explodes into one gigantic, big band of a laughing fit.
Is it the sunglasses? Maybe that is the gilded prop du jour. He and Pete and I after all have not removed them for a second, even though it’s now beyond black outside. But I like to think I’m not just riding on coattails here, I have after all exerted some effort toward contributing to the cause with Anjelica. My style is just a little bit different, is all, even if safely within the realm of jackass mode to some extent. Though I’m often referred to as hanging back and acting mysterious or being dry or some other similar euphemism. At one point, though, Ah Hell Na asks, with the other two chicks smiling and nodding in concurrence beside her, if I can pretty please take the sunglasses off for a moment, because she wants to see my eyes.
This too must pass the litmus tests, for they share a glance, nods shifting into that which accompanies the whole not bad! favorable expression, one that almost resembles a half-frown. And after a while, maybe, you develop some sense for the proper moment to make one’s exit. Part of this consideration is that Dylan and I both are due in to work at 8am, and have downed a small ocean tanker’s worth of beer. Part of it’s wanting to leave on a high note. But also a huge chunk of this, and possibly the most significant, is some inkling that our success tonight was due to playing two separate camps of girls off one another. We have therefore now killed enough time with this crew, to where it’s strategically sound to go pick up that thread with the other.
The three of us head inside to take a leak before departing, and when we return, Zoe and Anjelica both have scraps of paper with their phone numbers upon them, handing these unbidden to Dylan and me, respectively. Pete could have attempted working the blonde, perhaps, yet although to my eyes she’s possibly the objectively hottest of the three, he once again plays the standards card and claims he wasn’t interested. Either way, exclusion doesn’t appear to bother him, for he’s most interested in swinging by and hitting on Melora now anyway.
“See you ladies later!” I cheerfully call out to them, as we’re walking away.
“Zoe…Ashley…Ah Hell Na…Nice meeting you!” Dylan says with a wave.
For once in our lives, we have picked up a pack of young, unknown ladies all at once, who are attractive, intelligent, and digging us. And yet we both blow it with our hot leads, basically before the ink is even try on these donated digits. Dylan’s next turn might be undeniably hilarious, but it’s also inexplicable, carrying this comedy shtick maybe one inch too far. Turning to the first table of random jocks we encounter, he says, “here, you want this?” and hands them Zoe’s phone number. Our ladies, who are still calling out goodbyes to us in return, initially find this hysterical, too, except the cackles soon break off at the sharp edge of a nervous laugh, when they realize he’s not joking…and has no intention of retrieving her number!
Maybe he’s recognizing that this would go nowhere anyway, and doesn’t want to waste his time. Maybe it’s just some crisis of confidence. Or, maybe he figures that I’m good for following through with Anjelica, and as such he doesn’t need to sweat it. Well, at least in this instance, he couldn’t be more wrong. There’s a good reason why, generally speaking, I would prefer chicks just recite their number to me, instead of writing it down: I’m much more likely to remember it than I am to keep tabs on a tiny paper scrap. And indeed, before we’ve even made it back to the apartment tonight, I have somehow managed to lose Anjelica’s number.
But we’re still holding onto some other cards, potentially, although Dylan is somehow much more smashed than Pete or me and lightly resists this proposal. Yet Cassie and Melora only live about four blocks away from here, in the path of my car that we are walking toward anyway, and vaguely expecting us to drop by. With Dylan as the rare nay vote, Pete and I are both on the same page for once, and agree it would be really stupid not to follow through on this. But at least my roommate is game enough just to go with the flow. Yet when we knock on the front door of their streetside apartment, the girls welcome us with open armed cheers, while Dylan is already bowing out, announcing his plans for a quick catnap.
“Promise you won’t leave me here?” he says.
“Of course not. I gotta work tomorrow, too. I’ll wake you up before we leave,” I tell him.
He stretches out on his back on the living room floor, shades and all, and immediately falls asleep. As for the remaining four of us, we crack open beers and a deck of cards, for a game of euchre around their tiny kitchen table, which is technically located in their foyer type area. I don’t see any evidence whatsoever of this purported paper Cassie was supposed to be working on, and she hasn’t mentioned it, but I’m certainly not about to, either. Nobody can seemingly concentrate on this card game anyway, however, and we decide to give this up before completing a single match.
Pete and Melora somehow wind up relocating around the corner, to the actual kitchen, which is basically just a narrow slot on the other side of this breakfast bar, their mid-sections only visible to us from our vantage point of this table. And I must admit his showing impresses me tonight, if for nothing else chatting this girl’s ear off for once — he has a tendency to clam up if not completely blown away by some female, and if so, then my night probably comes to an earlier end as well.
While those two stand around in there, chatting about who knows what, Cassie and I exchange some sly grins, murmur the tiniest bit of small talk. Then she says something about needing to change into pajamas, and wanting to show me her bedroom, at which point we agree to sneak off precisely in that direction. Though passing in a flash by that small kitchen opening, Pete and Melora are so wrapped up in their own conversation that they apparently don’t even notice that we’re absent.
This is actually my maiden voyage to Cassie’s new apartment, period, and so as we turn into the nearest room on the left, she flips on a light and raises both arms, says, “well, this is the first time you’ve seen it! What do you think?”
Glancing around, I take in the pastel color overload, the girly trinkets and stuffed animals packed into every spare nook of the room. But nod favorably, nonetheless, and tell her, “not bad! Sure beats the old dorm room days, eh?”
She giggles and agrees this is so, right before flopping backwards into her admittedly plush, cushiony bed. A move I immediately replicate, albeit with half as much space at my disposal, falling onto the bed’s closest side. Then have my arm around her, as she buries her head on my chest and we momentarily converse.
“What do you think about what Jodie said?” she asks, meaning that night where Dylan’s ex had thrown her arms around both of us and declared that we should be together.
“Mmm…I don’t know…could be something to that, I guess,” is my ultra eloquent reply, before throwing back at her, “what do you think?”
She raises her head to smirk at me, seeing through this wishy-washy deflection. Or at least this is my impression, as I return the eye contact and my own sneaky little smile. Instead of addressing any of this, however, she asks, “are you drunk?”
“Please,” I scoff, “when have you ever seen me drunk?”
We lean into one another and begin making out, timidly at first, then with much greater appetite. It’s only at this moment that either of us consider the bedroom door is still wide open, leading me to pop back up and go close it. By the time I return, she has taken off her shirt and her pants, though otherwise having returned to a nearly identical position. Considering she’s on her back with legs halfway open anyway, I approach from the front, and drop my face down in between, begin kissing, then lapping at the fabric of her silk panties. As Cassie cups her breasts, eyes closed, she dreamily sighs, “it’s been quite a while…since I’ve done this…with anyone…”
“Yeah,” I giggle and tell her, “same here.”
“Yeah right,” she scoffs.
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Well-Behaved Monsters paperback
Thanks and have a great week!
