Page 9 of See Her

“What, are you guys fighting?”

His eyes widen mid-pull and he exclaims when he lowers his beer. “Always!She’s driving me nuts!She’s just picking fights left and right, so the thought of going home is exhausting.”

“I’m surprised she’s not blowing up your phone right now then, since you should’ve been home, what, five minutes ago?”

“I left my phone in the car, for that very reason.”

“What does she like to fight about?” I ask.

“What I’m doing, who I’m with, who’s calling my phone…. you name it, she wants to fight about it.It’s like she uses it as a way to just keep my attention on her. All. The. Time.” He hits the back of his hand to his other palm, punctuating each word to make his point.

“Jeez. You were so excited to move in with her.Of course, I still think it was a little fast,” I mutter out of the side of my mouth. Ian is a mechanic, and he met Tina when he worked on her Hyundai Elantra.He asked her out, and they spent every waking moment together for the next three months, and when his lease was up, they decided that since they were together all the time anyway, he might as well move in with her.That was four months ago, and he’s been in hell ever since – according to him anyway.

“Yeah, that first week was fun.But when you’re living in the same apartment, how much more time can you possibly spend together?It’s like she expected things to stay the same when I moved in, and that we’d just be up each other’s asses all the time.”

“Wow. That’s a great visual for me. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.Anyway, she can’t bust my ass if I’m with you.”

“Fine, you can stick aroundifyou order a pizza while I finish up some work.” I point at him as I take a seat back in front of my computer.

“Consider it done,” he assures me as he heads outside to retrieve his phone from his car.

“And no olives!” I call after him.

Less than an hour later, I’m sitting on the couch, picking hideous black olives off my slice of pizza, while Ian scarfs his right next to me as we watch some Marvel or DC movie on Netflix– his choice.I’m not really into those movies.Nothing against them, they just make so many I can’t keep them straight.Spiderman has something like four movies all about him, and I don’t understand what the difference is supposed to be.

“Why must you always order olives?” I gripe, trying not to inhale as I pull them off.

“Why do you hate what should be a staple on every pizza?” he shoots back.

“They…. ughhh… smell evil,” –heave– “and taste even worse.” –gag–“The odor alone makes me want to barf in my mouth.”

“I’m eating here!”

“I’d like to be too, but I can’t until I get all of these evil little demons off.Ugh, some are chopped up all tiny and hiding in the cheese!”

“You’ll get over it,” he says, returning his attention to the TV.

I flick another olive off of my slice and let Ian immerse himself with the movie while I zone out, and of course, my thoughts float back to Jack.

I wonder if he likes olives…

I think about Sunday, and I’m secretly worrying if Jack will even show up. Three days is plenty of time for him to change his mind, or even forget he met me.

That whole encounter seemed a little too… great, which is probably why I don’t want to tell anyone about meeting him yet.If he doesn’t show up, I’m going to feel so embarrassed at having to tell Annie or Ian that this thing, whatever it is, with Jack went in the toilet before it even started.This way, if I am let down, I’m spared the humiliation portion of the program, can throw myself a mini pity party for the remainder of the day, and come out of it slightly less scarred.I’m still going.I’m not going to be the person I’m worried about him being.Plus, I still have hope that he’ll really be there.

4

JACK

Igive a quick knock before letting myself into Matt’s house, to find him sitting at his dining room table.He has his guitar out, and reaches out to slap hands with me. “How’s it going, man?” he asks, as I put my guitar down and fish through my bag for my notebook.

“It’s good,” I say, not offering him much.He’d give me so much shit if he knew my mind was on a girl I’ve known for such a short period of time. Matt and I are going over our set list because we have a show tonight… and I didn’t tell the beautiful new girl in my life about it, which is eating at me. I thought about it, but immediately dismissed the idea.Part of me wants to share it with her ASAP – tonight. But the other part of me doesn’t feel right about it for some reason.It feels a little off to just be shoving my music, a.k.a. my life, in her face so soon after meeting her. I tried to picture myself telling her to come out to The Cedar tonight, see me tearing it up on stage, and then expecting her to what? Swoon? Tell me that me and my band are awesome just to be polite because we still barely know each other? I feel like it would be sayingSo it’s been great to meet you, now come to my show tonight and be a fangirl.And who knows, itcould even make her think that’s the only reason I want to spend time with her – to attract more fans. Plus, I’m kind of a different person when we’re performing.Not bad, but I’m in my element. I let loose and I try to project the vibe of the music we’re playing, which is usually pretty angsty.It’s rock music after all.

I tell myself that she’ll see the band,we just need a little more time together before I show her who we are and what we do.Obviously I don’t know all the people that come to our shows, but it’s different with her.I want her to know me, and music wasn’t even on my mind when I decided I wanted to know her.

“How was your time with your niece?” I ask Matt, keeping conversation light, hoping he doesn’t see anything is weighing on my mind.

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