Page 2 of Losing a Piece of Me

“Yeah, I have it. And don’t worry about making it up to me. I like it when you owe me.” His tone is teasing, but I don’t doubt that he does. “What are you going out of town for anyway?”

“My mother,” I practically spit out.

“Ahhh, I see. Need me to show up and bail you out?”

I laugh. “I wish you could. I have a feeling she isn’t letting me go before Sunday afternoon.” I throw myself down across my bed and stare up at the white ceiling tiles. “I appreciate this, you know.”

“It’s not a problem. But Sunday night, you’re mine.” His voice grows thick and is laced with all sorts of dirty things.

“Deal,” I say, turning over onto my stomach. Smoky is across the room jumping up and down, trying to get the curtain.

“Quit that,” I tell him, tossing a small decorative pillow towards him. Unfortunately, he knows that I would never actually hit him, so he is unfazed by the pillow.

I roll my eyes but leave him alone. Who am I to stop his fun?

“I need to go, Alex. I have to get back to work. Call me this weekend if you need me.”

“I will. Thank you, again.”

“You will be doing plenty of that on Sunday,” he teases before hanging up.

I fear that he is getting too serious.

We are just friends.

Friends that hook up because we’re both too fucked up for anyone else.

I’m afraid we may have taken our friendship too far.

I am not in a position to be in a relationship, which is part of the reason we started this thing we are doing. It’s been a long time since my last relationship.

A loud noise interrupts my thoughts. I jump and turn toward the sound to find that Smoky has finally gotten the curtain and managed to pull the whole rod down from the wall.

“Smoky, you’re lucky you’re so cute,” I smile and shake my head at him.

* * *

I finish packing and am on the road by two in the afternoon, with a tankful of gas and a passenger seat stocked with Red Bull and Pringles.

My heart pounds against my chest as I pull onto the freeway.

“I can do this. If I’m careful, I can probably get through the whole weekend without seeing him,” I tell myself, trying to wrestle my racing heart back under control. My eyes flash to the passenger seat. “Maybe Red Bull wasn’t a good idea.”

In an attempt to drown out any thoughts, I dig my copy of Blink-182’s self-titled album out of the glove box and slide it into my CD player. Their music always soothes me, especially when the volume is cranked all the way up.

“On and on, reckless abandon

Something's wrong

This is gonna shock them

Nothing to hold on to

We'll use this song

To lead you on

And break the truth

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