“A bit freaked about settling down?” she asks. “Uh, fuck yeah. I was willing to give it a shot, though, ‘cause you seemed so into the idea and I figured that it might not be so bad. Sure, I’d go a little crazy being with someone who starts bitching when I pull out a simple riding crop—”
“It might not have been such a big deal if you let me know it was coming,” I interrupt, clearly focusing on the wrong part of the discussion.
“Whatever,” she says. “Take your little vacation and spend some time going balls-deep in Ms. Goody-No-Clit, but we’re not done here, and I’m sure as hell not going to let you forget that.”
It sounds like a threat.
“What is that supposed to mean?” I ask.
“I have ways of burning your shit to the ground that you can’t even imagine,” she says. “Just think about it and tell me if I’m really the type of woman you want as an enemy.”
“I don’t want you as an enemy,” I tell her. “Really, though, I don’t want you as a friend either. You’re out of your fucking mind.”
“You know what they say about crazy chicks, though,” she says, licking her lips.
This conversation’s gone from surreal to disturbing to surreally disturbing and I’ve had about all I can take.
“Give me a call sometime if you decide to get your head out of your ass,” I tell her.
“I am pretty bendy,” she says. “You’re going to miss that before the week is out. Trust me.”
“I think I’ll live,” I tell her as I move for the door.
“You don’t know what you’re doing!” she calls from behind me.
I’m just surprised she hasn’t tried to dive tackle me or something. Then again, violence is only really her thing if it’s in the bedroom.
What the fuck was I thinking coming here?
“Dane!” she yells behind me, and I turn around.
She’s sitting on the ledge of the building, her legs spread. She doesn’t have to move her skirt for it to be apparent that she’s not wearing any underwear.
“Your brain can tell you whatever it wants to, but you know your dick is going to miss me,” she says, playing with herself—I don’t know how else to describe it—aggressively.
The present moment is easily on my list of top five ridiculous things I’ve ever witnessed with my own two eyes. Even for that short a list, this is remarkably near the top.
“Get off the ledge,” I tell her as calmly as I can, witnessing someone actually going crazy before my very eyes. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“What? Do you think I’m going to jump?” she screams at me as I open the door to the roof.
I really want to kick the cinderblock she used to prop the door open but I resist the urge.
“I have too much to fucking live for!” she screams.
It’s not until I hear the clatter of Wrigley’s stilettos on the hard ground of the roof that my resistance fails and, as soon as I’m completely inside the door, I knock the cinderblock over.
A second later, she’s pounding on the door, and I’m actually starting to feel sorry for her. It had been a terrifying, if somewhat silly, spectacle, but I haven’t exactly been treating her very well.
On the other hand, I’m pretty sure that if I were to open the door now, she’d come through with balled fists, and I have no illusion about which one of us would win a physical confrontation.
When it comes to betting on a fight, always, always, always put your money on the one who’s not going to pull any punches.
I may be a dick, but I’d never raise my hand to a woman. I’m a dick, not a coward.
That said, I’m also certain that Wrigley doesn’t have a no-assault rule so, to ease my conscience and keep my eyeballs and spleen from ending up in Wrigley’s shadow box, I find the burly maintenance guy and tell him, “I think someone’s stuck on the roof. I’ve been hearing all this pounding and scratching up there. You should probably check it out.”
The man knows me. He’s caught Wrigley and I having sex enough times in enough places around the building to know exactly who I am, exactly who’s on the roof and exactly how I know.
“I might give it a minute to let her cool down,” he says.
Fortunately, he also seems to understand exactly why I’m not willing to go up there and let her in, myself.
This isn’t a shining moment for me.
All things considered, it really couldn’t have gone much worse.
I’ve added to the torment I’ve already levied on this woman and no, it doesn’t matter if she was crazy when I got here, that doesn’t mean it’s magically okay for me to toy with her.
I feel bad about it, but I can’t deny my feelings either.
This is the first time in my life that I can actually say that I’m in love with someone and have no ulterior motive in mind. It’s not Wrigley.
If I’d ever told Wrigley that I loved her, she probably would have put a foot in my crotch.
Still, as I hear the woman screaming expletives as I step out onto the street, I can’t help but feel that I might have gone about this in a much healthier way.
Not much I can do about it now.
* * *
When I get back to the apartment, Leila’s already home. That’s the good news. The bad news is that that asshole who was trying to suck the lips off her face is sitting on the couch.
“Hey you,” Leila says as I close the door behind me. “How’d it go?”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
I never bothered telling her what my plans for the day were.
“I don’t know,” she says. “Isn’t that what people say when their significant other comes home?”
The phrase makes me a little uncomfortable. I glance over at the couch to make sure that the gangly idiot feels just as uncomfortable about it as I do, but he’s just sitting there without a care in the world, scrolling through pages of what looks like apartment listings on a laptop.
“What are you up to?” I ask.
“Oh nothin’,” Leila says cheerily and gives me a quick peck on the lips. “Mike and I are looking to see if there’s any place we missed. I hope you don’t mind if we do that here. Mike’s roommate is back in town, and he’s not the friendliest guy on the planet.”
“I don’t mind,” I tell her. “Sorry your roommate’s a dick,” I call to “Mike,” hoping to preempt any indication of just how little I like the ass hat.
He shrugs, but doesn’t look up from the computer screen. “Hey, Lei,” he says, “how about this one?”
Leila leaves my side and goes over to look at the page.
I’m not that jealous a guy. After all, jealousy is just the admission that someone would make your partner happier than you do and the selfishness not to allow it.
With that said, it really wasn’t that long ago that Mike and Leila were sucking the spit out of each other’s mouths on that exact couch.
I really don’t know what to do with myself right now.
I don’t like the feeling.
“You two had anything to eat?” I ask. “I could whip something up.”
“Yeah, Dane’s the chef at l’Iris,” Leila tells the fuckwad.
“I’m not hungry,” he says. “Ooh, look at this one.”
So, what is a man in my position to do?
What I want to do is kick Mike out the window and take Leila to the nearest soft surface and make love to her until neither of us can keep our eyes open anymore, but the relationship is less than a day old.
If I start by kicking her friend out, she’s either going to think I’m a dick and it’ll ruin the relationship, or she’s going to be strangely aroused by that which means she’s into weirder stuff than Wrigley is, and I really don’t know if I could handle that either right now.
I don’t have too much time to think it over, though, as Leila and Mike finish what they’re doing and, with a quick hug, Mike’s on his way.
“Sorry about that,” Leila says as soon as the door is closed, “but he’s been really great, helping me find places and all.”
“It’s fine,” I tell her.
Telling her that I don’t want her to go is another one of those things that probably isn’t the best idea in the first twenty-four of a relationship. It’s right up there, I would imagine, with telling her friend to move to a different state.