Page 82 of Scrimmage

“I don’t hate it. I never said that.”

“Whatever. Can we just fuck so I can go home?”

He pulls in front of his condo and turns the car off, but he doesn’t move. “I’m sorry.”

I look over at him. I don’t like the feeling I get. It’s a fucking trap. Apologies always are.

He glances at me in his peripheral vision. “I mean it. I’m sorry for earlier." He lays his head back on the headrest. “I shouldn’t have reacted like that.”

“Okay.” Me and Penny don’t even apologize to each other. This day just keeps getting weirder and fucking weirder.

“Okay.” He grabs the bag of food, while I sit there stunned, and opens my door. I don’t know what to do other than to follow him inside.

The place is still pristine.

“Are you a clean freak or something?” I watch him organize the cartons on the counter. It’s so particular. This is the kind of shit serial killers do.

He stops and takes a deep breath. “I don’t say anything about your obsessive need to be a fucking bitch, so just let me do it, okay?”

I scratch my head and lean against the cabinets, watching this strange thing happening in front of my eyes. “Are you OCD?”

“No,” he growls.

I don my best Australian accent. “And here, in his natural habitat, is the fascinating Chance. They’re pretty common at Cassium, but this one is a right—”

“Are you fucking narrating?”

“Yeah, I’m bored. Where the dick at?”

Koda’s brain must be full of oxygen because it’s about the millionth deep breath he has taken in my presence today. The sun is starting to set outside, filling the space with warm light.

“Are you a sex addict?”

The question isn’t really surprising, but I glare at him because it’s the bitchy thing to do.

“What?” he laughs. “You’re going to ask about my compulsive disorder, and I can’t ask about your sex addiction?”

“So you do have OCD?”

“No." He shakes his head. “OCPD. Obsessive CompulsivePersonalityDisorder.”

“Now it all makes sense. You could have told me. I’ve been waiting for you to cut my hands off and display them around your house.”

“Why would I want to display your hands?” he asks in horror.

“Aren’t serial killers OCD or something?”

“You think that an OCD serial killer wants to display hands?”

“I dunno." I shrug. “I’m not the serial killer here.”

“It’s just a personality disorder." He returns to his weird routine. “I just like things done the right way.”

“There is no right way to do things.”

“Not for someone like you,” he scoffs.

“What the fuck does that mean?” I snatch a piece of shrimp out of one of the boxes, and now I think he might cut my hand off.

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