Page 24 of Flagrant Foul
I can’t immediately recall the last time I voluntarily had a mint, but the cool blast it delivers does seem to help. It’s one of those mints with a hard exterior and a soft, gooey inside that’s surprisingly refreshing. It almost snaps me out of it.
“There’s no way I can survive this, and I’m not even being dramatic. I’m serious. I might die.” I swipe the back of my hand across my forehead. “I might actuallydie. I’ve probably started dying already. I feel very weak in my legs.”
The elevator doors open, and Mae wobbles her head in sympathy as she unlocks her door. We shuck off our shoes and slide our feet into the matching slippers she bought for us over the weekend. Both pairs are black. Hers have large marabou pom poms on them. Mine have whiskers and the face of a notably grumpy cat embroidered on them. When she gave them to me, she said not to read anything into that. She also said there comes a time in all serious friendships when you have to put vanity aside and make yourself comfortable in each other’s presence. It was the third time I’d been to her apartment.
“Can you think of anything worse?” I trill as we plop onto her couch, resting our feet on the coffee table and wiggling our toes at each other. Mae’s right. There’s something to be said for letting go of vanity and just being yourself with someone else. “Really. Can you think of something worse than living under the same roof with a man you’ve had a monumental crush on all your life?”
“I can, dear,” she says rather unhelpfully. “My friend Shirley laughed so hard she peed herself at her granddaughter’s graduation ceremony. Poor thing. She was wearing a lavender twinset, so there was no hiding it. To make matters worse, her granddaughter was thevaledictorian, so Shirley had to pose for professional photos with a big wet spot on her dress. It was very traumatic. She’s still afraid to laugh in public, and this happened years ago.”
“Okay,” I concede, “that is awful, but other than that, you have to admit, there’s literally nothing worse than being forced to live with a man you’re insanely attracted to, when there’s absolutely no way you can have him. It’s torture.”
“Remind me again why you can’t have him? Is he not into dick?”
I choke and splutter despite the fact that by now, I really should be used to this kind of thing coming from her. “Christ, Mae. Where do you get this shit from? Are you sure you should be saying things like this at your age?”
“Oh yes, dear. I do my best to stay current. I’mincrediblywell read. I consider it a form of research. I find it really helps me stay in touch with the youth of today. Finger on the pulse and all that.”
“Uh, what kinds of books do you read?”
“Strictly smut, dear. I used to read more widely, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve found I really don’t have time for that spiceless crap. If a book ain’t spicy, I ain’t reading it. I’m on the BookTok and everything. That’s how I knowabout things like ‘very cutesy’ and ‘very demure,’ ‘holy fucking airball,’ and all that.”
“What does holy fucking airball mean?”
Her cheeks flush slightly. “I don’t know. I haven’t worked that one out yet, but I’ve been seeing it everywhere, so I’ll let you know when I do. I write them down in a little notebook so I don’t forget and use them in conversation every chance I get. Except for skibidi.” She makes a face. “I’m not doing skibidi. I don’t care what anyone says. That’s taking it too far.”
I agree wholeheartedly on the skibidi issue. I don’t think it’s a word that rolls off anyone’s tongue very easily, or convincingly, and once I’ve digested the rest of what she’s said, I say, “It’s not that. Sev is into dick. He’s into everything, really.”
“Then why can’t you have him?” she asks indignantly. “Have you seen yourself? You’re gorgeous. What a lot of nonsense. Of course you can have him.”
“Thanks, Mae.” I chuckle. “But no, sadly, I definitely can’t have him. It’s not in my head either. It’s real. I’ve thrown myself at him to no avail. When I was eighteen, I was in a nightclub, and he turned up unexpectedly. There was a whole kerfuffle about me being underage and drinking, and he ended up going all caveman and dragging me out of the club by the hair.”
Bright-blue eyes widen. With interest, not shock or the slightest hint that she thinks men dragging each other around by the hair is unusual. “Did he really?”
“No,” I confess, even though it makes the story a lot less interesting. “He asked me to leave, and when I refused, he threw me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and carried me out. It wasn’t my most dignified moment, that’s for sure.”
She considers me for a moment. “I bet your mom likes him.”
“Ugh. She does. She’s crazy about him. Thinks he can do no wrong. Anyway, when we got onto the street, he put me down. I got my wires crossed and literally flung my entire body at him like a bowl of sloppy spaghetti. There was no humanly possible way he could have mistaken it for anything but what it was. I pinned him in place, and when I was sure he couldn’t escape, I kissed him. It wasn’t a half-assed kiss either. Definitely not a peck, or anything open to misinterpretation. I kissed him properly. I gave it my best shot, and all he did was say, ‘Nah. Thanks, kid, but I’m not into you.’”
“Hmph.” Two lines form between her brows. “How odd.”
“Yes, well, I was very, very drunk the first time,” I admit. “And at the time, I thought that was the problem.You’d think being shitfaced would’ve made the whole thing much better. I should have nothing but a vague, disjointed memory of it. There should be pieces missing and glitchy parts, but no. No such luck. I remember every damn detail as if it were yesterday.” I sigh heavily. “I was so happy to see him, Mae. I wasn’t expecting to, and my stupid, stupid heart thought it was fate. I mean, what are the odds of running into the love of your life, miles from home, in a city like New York, when neither of you even knew the other was there?”
“Low,” she says. “The odds are low.”
“Exactly. I thought the universe had finally taken pity on me and done me a solid. I was looking cute that night too. I had this little mesh top on. You’d love it. It was all sparkly. It cost me a fortune, and it was the first time I’d worn it.” My voice drifts, and I think of the stupid, sparkly top rolled into a ball in the back of my closet. “I never wore it again. I still have it though. I haven’t thrown it away. I keep it as a monument of sorts. A life lesson because I’m a visual learner. I pull it out of the back of my closet to look at it whenever I need a reminder of what happens when you lose your inhibitions and act on your truth.”
Despite spending a lot of my time trying not to think of that night, I still do. My mind drifts back to whathappened in the club and street outside of it randomly, and whenever it happens, something hot curdles in my gut.
“I don’t know.” I shrug. No matter how many times I’ve unpacked it, I still feel a level of confusion when I think about it. “It was a weird night. I was absolutely sure Sev was looking at me differently. I thought he saw me. The real me. I thought he’d finally noticed that I had grown up and was a man in my own right, not just Nathan’s kid brother… Anyway, long story short, I got blocked and unceremoniously plonked into the backseat of an Uber for my efforts. Sev was so horrified by what I’d done that he sat in the front with the driver rather than risk it in the back with me. To make matters worse, before we took off, he got into a tizzy about how old the friend I was out with was. When I finally confessed that Tommy was also underage, he made me text him and tell him to get his ass out of the club, under threat of going back in there and hauling him out if he didn’t come voluntarily. The ride home was a nightmare. Poor Tommy was so uncomfortable. He talked theentireway to try to defuse the mood. He’s a child of divorce, so the situation was very triggering for him. He was so flustered that he was asking questions and answering them himself. It took him ages to calm down after we got home.”
“How ghastly,” tuts Mae.
Her eyes are narrowed and her lips are pursed. I know her well enough now to know this is her serious listening face. I love it. Talking to her is what it would be like to talk to your mom if your mom were completely unaware of all your flaws. As someone who’s spent a lot of his life not feeling seen, this kind of undivided attention is like crack to me.
“And what happened the next time? You implied you tried more than once.”
“Yes, unfortunately, I did. I guess you could say I’m thorough like that. I waited until we were all home for spring break. It was months after the incident at the club, and…exactly the same result, but it was possibly worse the second time because I’d absolutely convinced myself that Sev wanted me too. I’d had a field day creating a narrative that worked for me. I had this whole story cooked up in my mind that centered on us being star-crossed lovers. I told myself the only reason he stopped me the first time was because I was drunk.
