We were playing a game of pool at the house, and he was kicking my ass because my head wasn't in the game.
“One of your potheads?” I asked.
He grinned, his lips pale and pink against his yellowing teeth. Spanky didn't always look like a dirtbag with a mullet. When we were younger, he used to get his tips highlighted, so he looked blond, and he used to wear clothes that didn't look like they'd been stolen from a clothesline as he was running away from someone. Today, he had on a pair of jeans that were more holes than jean, and an extra-large shirt with a roaring tiger on it. His toenails looked like they hadn't been cut… ever.
He said, “Nothing wrong with a pothead girlfriend. The sex is great, and it goes on for hours, bro. You get tired, and bored, but it just keeps going. So you do one of these.”
He grabbed my phone and plopped it on the floor, then dropped down into one-handed push-up position.
“Yeah, baby, you like that, huh?” He moved forward and back on his toes, swinging his h*ps into the imaginary girl beneath him while also staring at my phone. He grunted, “Just checkin' my email. Just bangin' my pothead girlfriend who can't get enough, and checkin' my email.” He flicked my phone over to his other hand and switched arms. “Aw, baby, I can't even feel my dick. Everything's numb from the waist down. You sure it's still in there?”
I grabbed my phone back.
“There's more to life than sex and drugs.”
Spanky jumped up to his feet, red-faced and grinning. “There's rock-n-roll.” He punched me in the shoulder, hard.
“You choad.”
He grinned. “Choadsmoker.” His hand darted out and he got me in the solar plexus.
The instincts kicked in and my hands flew up. “You cock. Try it again when I'm looking, and I'll lay you out.”
He stepped back to remove the temptation. “You are wound up. Let's smoke an old fashioned and I'll call some girls over. This girl I know will suck your dick like it's cherry cola.”
“Huh.” Was he talking about the blonde with the dirty mouth or the brunette who always had to pee? One time, the brunette had brought over her own toilet paper, because she knew we were always out.
Those two girls were best friends, and they both knew Janine, my ex, through school or something. After Janine and I broke up, the two of them came over together with a pie to cheer me up. An actual pie that one of them had baked.
“Party tonight,” Spanky said, running his hand back through his hair. The smell of body odor coming from his armpit made me take a step back.
“I don't know.” I glanced down at my phone for the millionth time that day, hoping to see something from Aubrey. I hadn't seen her since Tuesday, when she'd shaken me to my core in her bedroom and then practically thrown me out of her place. Now it was Saturday, and I'd had nothing but text messages from her.
Not enough.
She was at work that Saturday. I wanted to go see her, but I also got the feeling she didn't want me to swing by the bar.
The only up-side to not knowing where I stood with Aubrey was that I felt more productive than ever with my art. The big piece, the commission for a new restaurant, was coming together better than I'd dreamed. Sometimes I'd walk into my room and it would take my breath away.
Not that I was getting conceited. It was the other way around. I wondered if someone more talented than me was sneaking in and fixing it behind my back. No way had I painted something so pure and confident as that piece.
If I couldn't see Aubrey, I wanted to spend my evening working on my art, not entertaining Spanky's new friends. Some of the girls who'd been coming over looked young, like sixteen. They made me feel like a creeper, and the pathetic ones just made me sad. The hot ones disturbed me for a different reason. They were so much more available than Aubrey. I worried that one day I'd slip up and grab for some low-hanging fruit rather than chase around a girl who seemed ambivalent toward me.
Spanky was sending out messages and chattering about the party. I put some chalk on the cue and tried to focus on the game.
An hour later, I was craving cherry cola so bad it was all I could think of.
Cherry cola I could do, so I walked to the London Drugs just up the hill.
When the first customer approached me and asked me where the store had batteries, I didn't think anything of it. When the third person came up and asked if “we” still did photo processing, I finally clued in. I was wearing the last clean shirt from my closet, a blue one with short sleeves, and people assumed I was in a store employee uniform. This had happened at least once before, and Spanky made a comment about it any time I wore the shirt, which was exactly why I didn't wear the shirt unless I had no other options.
After I helped direct the gentleman to an actual employee, I dug out my phone and sent a series of text messages to Aubrey, telling her all about my hilarious blue-shirt adventure.
She didn't reply until I was back home with the cherry cola and some bags of snacks for the party.
Aubrey: I don't get it.
Me: I was wearing a blue shirt, and people thought I worked there. I would send you a photo, if you had a decent phone like regular people and could get photos.
Aubrey: :-(
Something about that frowny face set me off. What did it mean? Was she hinting that I should buy her a phone for her birthday? I didn't even know when her birthday was. Or how old she would be. I hardly knew anything about her, except that she drove me crazy.
I'd never been with a girl who seemed so unsure about having a relationship with me, yet so utterly confident about sex. Her na**d body was as gorgeous and awesome as her face when she smiled. The way she'd sucked my c**k had almost made my balls explode. I wanted her so bad, which is why I was so damn frustrated that I couldn't get near her.
As I stood there in the kitchen staring at her frowny face on my phone, my dick got heavy like a pewter candlestick holder suitable for bludgeoning intruders.
Maybe I wasn't lovesick, or even infatuated. I hadn't jerked off that day, or the day before, and it was time.
Back home, I ran up to my room and shut the deadbolt. I also had a key for the door's lock, and I'd use that later tonight to keep the partygoers from using my room, but for now speed was crucial.
Still standing, I unfastened my jeans and pushed them down. Catching sight of my boxer shorts confused me for a minute, like I was watching something on TV that wasn't me. I had on these ridiculous white boxers with black polka dots—definitely bottom-of-the-drawer, well-past-laundry-day stuff. I pushed them down and grabbed myself. Smooth, steady strokes, and I pictured Aubrey's mouth. Frowning. Smiling. In a straight line. Then opening and taking me in.