The Lunch Date

I took a sick day yesterday ‘cause I was hung over as hell.  Pete took me out all weekend and…and I kind of went crazy.  I don’t know what it was, but I just…I kept drinking and drinking and drinking.

I guess I was trying to get her out of my mind. But the more I drank, the more I thought about her and the more unique positions I came up with; on the floor, in the car, on the table at the bar, on the bed. Sideways with me behind her, lifting her leg over my hip so just the tip of me would slide in and tease her as I touched her breasts and in between her legs, making her thrash about the bed and taking her hand in mine and bringing it down so that she could feel both of us together down there.

And then, the more I thought about it, about really being with her, I guess the more…the more I seemed to almost, I don’t know, care about her.

And then I woke up Saturday morning on my couch with a girl on top of me.

I didn’t know who she was and it scared me out of my mind.  It’s only happened to me one other time in my life.  I was like 19 or 20, went to this party and woke up the next morning still at the house with this girl in her underwear on top of me.  It was the first and last time I ever had sex with someone I didn’t really know.  Thankfully, this time we were both fully clothed, but I still kind of freaked out on her.

I woke up and pushed her off of me and she followed me into the kitchen.  When I asked her what happened she had rolled her eyes and said, “Not a damn thing.” Then she called me the biggest loser she knew and angrily got her stuff, yelling through my condo for her friend “Candace”.

I just stood there.  I didn’t know how I had gotten home.  I didn’t know who Candace was, who she was, and I kind of freaked myself out.  I promised myself I wouldn’t ever get that drunk.  I told myself I was too old for that kind of thing when I turned 23. 

The last thing I remembered Friday night was doing shots with Dwayne and Kevin and Pete and a few of Pete’s friends at Player’s. 

The door was slammed to my condo and Pete came out of my guest bedroom, looking tired and disheveled. I was so thankful he hadn’t fucked someone in my bed.  He just scratched his head and smiled at me.  He didn’t have a shirt on and looked like the cockiest asshole in the world.

That’s what he is, but he’s still my friend.

“Who the fuck were they?” I was pissed, angry.  And I had a hell of a hangover.

“Candace and Tiff.”

“Fuck…” I ran my hands over my face and sat back down on my couch.  Why couldn’t it have been Jess?  Why couldn’t I have woken up with her on top of me, just sleeping there sweetly, nuzzled against my chest?  God I wonder if she likes that sort of thing after sex?

It always depends with me.  I mean I’ve hooked up with a few girls before that were just acquaintances. Afterwards I kind of just laid there with them, but I didn’t make an effort to be sweet or anything.

The few girlfriends I’ve had I liked to kind of have them near me afterward, breathing heavy, sweaty, and their nails slowly running against my chest, us laughing quietly or falling asleep together.

I want that with her.    I want to wake up with her hung over on top of me, barely clothed and grumpy.  Or beside me, curled up, completely naked and satisfied. 

I want to wake up to her lazy smile and pin her against the bed underneath me and just look at her body and kiss her all over, spreading her legs and having sex with her slow and lazy, not even really caring about getting off, just doing it ‘cause it feels so fucking good.

Pete had come over and sat on the arm of my recliner and just said, “I’m so disappointed in you.”

“What?”

He had thrown his hands up and shook his head at me, “I gave you the easiest slut of them all and you couldn’t even do anything with her.  Not even get a hand job out of it!  She kissed you and you pushed her away.  All you fucking did last night was talk about that Jessica girl and I’m fucking tired of it!  We come home and you lay on the couch and she gets on you and I’m thinking, thatta boy, but you just pass out.  God what’s with you!”

I felt sick, like I might throw up.  I didn’t realize how bad I got the night before, how drunk, how lonely, and how obsessed with this girl I got. “Shit.”

“Look you either ask the girl out or drop it.  I’m tried of you being this way.  You’ve never been this fucked up about a girl before.  And I know you don’t like hooking up and you’d rather have a relationship.  If that’s it then just go for her; stop obsessing over her and being a pussy!  Don’t pull out all this I don’t want a relationship bull shit you do and then not even be able to fuck a hot, random girl.  It doesn’t make sense.”  He was right and I knew it. 

I had told everyone that I didn’t want a relationship, and I didn’t.  I haven’t.  And then when I met Jess I kept that attitude even though it was a lie.  God dammit, I really do want her.

And here Pete was talking about forgetting her, dropping her.  But I don’t want to drop her, god I can’t just “drop” her.  She’s what gets me going through the day, her and the thoughts about her doing all sorts of dirty little things with me.  

Pete stood up and pointed at me, “That’s why it’s me and you this weekend, man.  I’m going to either make you so miserable you’ll have to ask her out, or you’re gonna forget her entirely.”

Two nights of drinking and random girls hanging all over me later, I found myself Monday morning, depressed, hung over, and fed up.  I called in sick and spent the day hanging around the house in my underwear trying to get the guts to ask Jess out, thinking about how I would ask her and shit.  I finally just tried to figure out a way to get her off my mind.

It was a lost cause.

There was even this one girl, Anne was her name I think, and she and I had a long, long conversation at the bar Saturday night.  At first I thought she just wanted to fuck me or something ‘cause Pete was giving me the thumbs up.  But it turns out her boyfriend is over in Iraq and she didn’t really want to come out, but her girlfriends made her.  I talked to her all about Jessica. I told her how I saw her every day and how I had never been so sexually attracted to someone in my life, and she talked to me about how much she missed her boyfriend.  She even started to cry and I felt really bad for her.

She told me I should just forget everyone and everything else and just do what I wanted and to be up front with Jessica about my feelings.  She said girls hated mixed signals as much as guys did.

She was right.

But now it’s Tuesday morning. I’m shuffling up the stairs to go get my Reese’s and I don’t know what the fuck to do.  I haven’t been this nervous since I was in ninth grade and asked the girl that sat beside me in homeroom to go out to a movie with me that Friday night.  I didn’t even really like her, but all my other friends were asking girls out. 

She ended up turning me down.  Senior year she had the biggest crush on me, but she was kind of a weird girl and I was dating someone else anyway.

When I walk in the store Beverly is opening some cardboard boxes and pricing some items. Jess is ringing up a little girl who’s buying several stuffed animals while her mom watches from a few feet away. 

“Heylo ladies…” I smile.  Jess looks fine as hell, a little pink polo shirt under her apron, a bright smile. She sticks her tongue out at me and then looks back at the little girl, helping her count out her change.

“Oh no…” Bev says and I snap my attention from Jess’s full, pouty lips to her.  She’s pointing her finger at me angrily.  I don’t know if she’s kidding or not.  “You leave now.  You are not welcome here.”

“What?”  I laugh a little, but then I realize that she’s not joking.  She looks mad as hell.

Her hands are on her hips. “I heard about your Friday night adventures!”

“Beverly.”  I roll my eyes and move a little bit so that the girl Jess was ringing can get by me.  Oh great, I bet Dwayne told her all about how drunk we got.

“What’s going on?” I see Jess standing there with a little, confused smile looking in between me and Beverly.  I open my mouth to speak, to explain.

But Beverly speaks first, “Justin went wild Friday night.”

Jess smiles at my slyly, “Did you now?”  I wish I had, I wish I had gone wild on her.  That would have been so much fucking fun, if she were there and we were drunk.  ‘Cause then I could tell her without being nervous how much I wanted her.  And maybe, maybe she’d want me to.

And we could have sloppy, drunk sex on my couch instead of some random ho sleeping on me.

I bet Jess would be wild, too when she’s drunk.  Staring at me with those eyes like if she doesn’t have my dick she might just explode.  God I fucking love that look, and I haven’t seen it in a long time from a woman.  I wanna see her bite her lips.  I could sit up on the couch and pull her over on top of me and fuck her right there, holding onto her as she rode me. Breathing hard and cussing under her breath, head tilted back, moving her hips steadily, turning to look back at me and saying, “Ohhhhh…” in that really whiney voice.

I wouldn’t even care if Pete was there and saw it all.  I’d just look at him like, “THIS is what I’ve been wanting.”  He wouldn’t be able to say shit then. 

“No, it’s not cute!” Beverly is pissed and I’m not quite sure why.  It’s ruining my mood and here I am getting close to getting enough courage to ask Jess out.  “He got my boyfriend drunk as hell so that he was useless Saturday morning when I needed him to take care of Bailey.”

I put my hands up.  That’s ridiculous; we didn’t force him to drink.  He was the one that said we should all take shots of whiskey.  “Hey don’t blame that on me.”

Her arms are now crossed over her chest and she stares at me, moves her eyes to the left of her, as if to acknowledge Jess, and then gives me a look I’m unsure the meaning of.  “And I’m mad ‘cause you hooked up with some skanky girl.”

I blink. “What?”

While Beverly explains it all, all the twisted version of my weekend, I look at Jess.  She’s not looking at me anymore but staring down at the floor.  I can’t read her face or her posture.  “Dwayne said you were kissing up on this girl that looked like she was a stripper.  Now you know better than that Justin!”

“Beverly…” I lower my voice and shake my head. Here…here I had almost gotten the courage to come up here and maybe see if Jess wanted to come to this party with me this weekend.  But now…now Beverly is fucking up any chance that I had.  “Not now.”

“Was that where you were yesterday?  With that girl?”

God, she’s being a bitch!  Jess is now looking away from the register. She’s biting her lips.  She looks upset, or tired or…something. “No I was sick.”

“Yeah right.  You guys are 25 years old Justin, and Dwayne and Kevin have girlfriends so you shouldn’t be out partying that hard.”

I scoff.  This is ridiculous.  I don’t know why Beverly is so fucking pissed at me.  I didn’t do anything to her or Dwayne.  It’s not her role to mother me or be a sister or some annoying shit like that. And if she wants to believe something else that’s fucking fine.  But making me look bad in front of Jessica is stupid.  I shake my head, “Fine, I’m leaving.”

“No, no…” I stop and turn around and raise my eyebrow at her.  She’s come from around the register and is touching my arm, looking up at me.  No longer does she look angry, but more upset, more concerned.  God what the fuck is going on with this bitch, I can’t handle it!  “Look.  I gotta go price some stuff, just…”  She stares at me hard, like my mom does when she thinks I’ve made a horrible decision, like when I told her I was going to be a manger at Foot Locker instead of taking full time courses.  “What were you thinking?”

“Nothing happened.”

Bev tightens her mouth and slightly nods over to Jess.  She’s now got her arms stretched out, hands gripping the edge of the counter in a stretch, her head hanging down. 

I don’t know what the hell is going through Beverly’s mind, calling me out in front of Jess and yet at the same time nodding at her and acting like I did something to hurt her.  It’s her insinuating shit that hurt her.  I didn’t hurt her at all, did I?

She’s not looking at me, but she’s just stretching her arms out.

But she hasn’t looked at me since Beverly said something.

I didn’t kiss that girl.  She kissed me and I pushed her away and told her I wasn’t interested.  At least, that’s what Pete says I did.  I don’t remember it well.  He tried more girls the next night and I just was polite to them, but didn’t flirt at all.  I didn’t want to flirt anymore.

I just wanted Jess. 

Pete told me if I didn’t ask Jessica out by the end of this week he would no longer be my friend.

I know he’s joking, but I’m taking him up on that bet.  I plan to ask her out this week. I can’t stand the suspense and the anxiety anymore.  I just, I gotta get the right moment and I can tell right now is not it.  Maybe it was, but Bev ruined it.

Beverly turns away and I watch her excuse herself by Jessica. She grabs the box she was looking through, the pricing gun perched on top, and carries it towards the back of the store. 

And just like that we’re alone and I’m so fucking thankful.

Jess looks at me and I smile.  We’re finally alone.

She just keeps looking at me, this kind of tired look in her eyes. She sighs, “So someone had an eventful weekend.”

“Yeah, too eventful.”  I roll my eyes.  Maybe she’ll ignore what Bev said and ask me what happened herself.

She licks her lips and crosses her arms.  The look she’s giving me is no longer tired but challenging, angry.

Fuck.

“Enjoy it?”

I shake my head and she looks away. “Jessica…”

“What?” Her eyes smack back into mine and I feel breathless.  Shit, she’s…she’s mad at me. 

And while it should upset me, it doesn’t. It…it kind of excites me.  Makes me think that her anger means she really fucking likes me and is upset I possibly hooked up with someone else. 

God she’s hot when she’s pissed.  I can see her coming in, pissed at me for something, slamming the door and smacking my shoulder and yelling at me, screaming at me.

And then grabbing my shirt and kissing me so hard, biting my lips and growling at me to lay down.  And she’d fuck me all angry and hard on the floor, riding me fast, smacking her hips down against mine with each thrust, cussing me out while she did it. Biting at my lips and forcing me to cum inside her hard and vicious.

I can’t help but smile at the image in my head.  Nice.

“Are you mad at me, too?”  I pout at her.

She laughs and rolls her eyes, “Why would I be mad?”

Well, hold on.  Now I’m confused.  She is acting mad, but maybe she’s annoyed at something else.  Maybe this has nothing to do with me. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe she doesn’t give a shit about what I do.  I chew on my bottom lip and it’s quiet for a while.  She doesn’t look at me again and starts picking at her nails a little bit.

Maybe, maybe I’ve hurt her feelings.

“I didn’t hook up with that girl,” I say.  I feel like I have to defend myself to her and…and that means there has to be something there.  That means I definitely have feelings for her.

“What?  Why are you explaining yourself to me?” She says bitterly, “I’m not your mother, and I’m surely not your girlfriend.  Beverly might think she’s your mom or something but I don’t give a shit what you do.  Have a good time, that’s what I say.”

She shrugs and I know she’s full of shit. 

I can see right through her now, but I decide to drop it.  She’s just confused, just like me.  I guess.  I clear my throat and try to smile at her a little, “So, did your brother like the shoes?”

“Yeah.”

That’s all she says.

God dammit.  I don’t know what the fuck is going on.  I feel uneasy.  I don’t like this version of Jess.  I mean I did at first, the thought of her being angry with me and fucking me.  But that’d be if we were together and I knew how to make her happy.  But we aren’t together and, and her being mad at me could really ruin any chances of us possibly getting together.  Whether it’s me, or what Bev said, or something different, she’s upset and I can’t stand it not knowing why.  It’s gotta be me though, she was smiling at me when I first came in, before she heard about that girl.

And it just sucks.  ‘Cause…‘cause god, all I want is her.  All I want is Jess.  Can’t she see that?  I mean I know I’m not the most subtle guy in the world.

I lean over the counter and almost want to reach over and touch her.  “Jess…”

“What?”  She says it harsh and loud.

I try to get her to laugh a little and pass her a small smile, “You think I’m some male whore?”

“We already knew that Justin.” Well damn.  She rolls her eyes and sighs like I’m the most annoying person in the world.  I don’t like this attitude and…and it’s not fair that she’s giving it to me.  And what’s even more unfair is that that part of me still finds it sexy, even though I know I shouldn’t and I know I should be digging myself out of this hole I’m in.   “I mean come on, you flirt with everyone.  Make everyone think you like them and shit.  Whatever.  Everyone knows that.  It’s kind of expected that you go out on the weekend and fuck random sluts.”

Shit!  Just shit!  I don’t know whether to be upset, angry, or to get behind the register and push her body up against the counter and make her shut up.  And I mean make her shut up, pushing my crotch into her against her little apron, gripping her neck and face and kissing her, not letting her push me away or speak.

“Jessica,” I say, forcefully.

“Look, I got work to do.”

“No…” I smack my hand against the counter and lean across it, staring right at her and saying carefully and clearly, “I didn’t fuck anyone this weekend Jessica.  I got really drunk and really stupid.  Why does it matter to you so much?”

“It doesn’t.” She does that fake, uncaring, bitter laugh again.  “That’s why I’m curious as to why you’re making it into this big deal.”

“‘Cause you have an attitude with me!”

She looks away from me and says softly, “Well maybe I’m just tired of your flirting.”

“Fine,” I say and push myself from the counter.  I’m done with this.  Fucking through. What a little bitch.

She yells back at me, “Fine!”

What a sexy little bitch.  God, it’s fucking unfair. I feel like throwing something.  I feel like this thing is bubbling up inside of me and either, either I’m gonna knock down this stand with candles on it or I’m gonna march over there and kiss her as hard as I can. I don’t care if there are other people in the store or anything.  I feel itchy and sick and jittery, like a bomb ready to go off.

I can’t… I fucking can’t stand this anymore!

I’m halfway to the door when I turn around and march right back and lean against the counter again.  Fuck this.  I’m doing it.  I’m just going for it. 

“What are you doing Friday night?”

“I’ve got a date.”  She narrows her eyes slightly.

We stare at each other.

I narrow my eyes back at her.

She’s lying.

“Really?”

It pisses me off that she’s lying to me and…and kind of hurts my feelings.  I mean maybe she does have a date, but if she doesn’t then that means she’s just saying that to get out of spending time with me.  It means she thinks I’m disgusting. 

It makes me fucking furious.  God damn you Beverly!

“Yes, now I really have to get this product out and help Bev.  So unless there’s anything else I can help you with I really need to go.”

My angry mood collapses and I sigh.  I feel pitiful, pathetic.  I haven’t felt this way in a long, long time.

“Look I’m sorry,” I say.  God I’m almost whining.

“No reason to be sorry Justin.”  She shrugs and it makes me want to puke.  She’s so uncaring, so distant, like she’s done with me, like she doesn’t give a rat’s ass, like I’m some annoying customer she’s trying to get rid of.

She’s trying to get rid of me.  She waves her hand a little and walks away. “I’ll see ya.”

She’s gone before I can do anything about it. 

Holy shit.  That did not just happen. 

I look up and the store is empty and I guess she’s in the stock room with Bev, probably talking about how much of an asshole I am and how she’s never gonna ring me up for Reese’s anymore.  I didn’t get them today.  Hell, I didn’t…I didn’t do anything!

God she’s the reason I didn’t do anything.  She’s the reason I pushed those girls away and freaked out and came up here this morning on a mission to ask her out.

She’s the reason for everything! For all of this!

Maybe…maybe this is just God’s way of saying I should forget it.  That I should just stop obsessing over it.  ‘Cause, ‘cause I know now that it’s more than me just wanting to bang the shit out of her.  I do want to bang her…every night, but I also wanna wake up to her in the morning and kiss her and make her coffee and tell her I hope she has a good day at work. I want to come in here at 10:45 and get my Reese’s and flirt with her, tease her and not have any questions about what she means or if she’s being sincere or not.  And I want to go on lunch dates with her and cut them short so we can go back to my car and make out in the parking lot and then at 5:30 maybe, maybe we could ride home together and watch a movie, or eat dinner curled up on the couch and I could kiss her whenever I wanted to.  I could try to turn her on whenever I wanted.  And, and I could touch her whenever I wanted.

Wherever I wanted.

That…that kind of thing. 

I want more than just her body now, I want it all.

And now I get nothing, nothing but a bitchy attitude.  And it makes me upset and angry and pathetic and horny. I want to fuck that attitude out of her.  I want to make her see that I do want to be with her with each strong, smacking thrust. I wanna make her smile and make her feel so good.  I want to show her that she’s all I want.

I want to make her scream.

I want to make her cry it feels so good.

And now I’ll never get that chance.

I think I’m going to have to call Dwayne and tell him to get his girlfriend in check.  ‘Cause she was way out of line and she just ruined something that could have been one of the best things in my life.