WICKED BOY (40) (Patreon)

"Just how do you know our incredibly rude wait staff?"  Tamela leans against the back of the booth, clasping her hands in front of her.  Her eyes narrow and follow Daphne's retreating form with mild bitterness.  "And what's with that stupid bubblegum?  She's always smacking it like it's the tastiest treat on God's green earth."

"You've seen her twice."  I swallow down the curdle of anxiety that's blooming in my throat.  "That means you've seen her smacking it twice."

Ez is good.  I remind myself.  He's been nothing but good.  I think of how much I've told him, and in return, how little he's told me.  Especially about his relationships — to anyone, really.

Including Daphne.

Shockingly, I don't indulge my suspicions or grow them into something unhealthy.  I try another approach, one that says:

How could I have gotten to know him better — when he was so preoccupied with trying to know me?

"Twice is enough.  She's vile."

"Hmm.  I like her."  I shrug, almost as if I can somehow push away the nagging curiosity weighing on my shoulders.  For some reason, I trust Ez.  I’m making excuses for the imbalance. That realization is virtually more unsettling than my natural suspicion.  I tug a tray full of sugar packets into my space to distract my fidgeting hands, "... I thought this conversation would go a lot differently.  You are tired, aren't you?"

"What?"  Tamela prickles.  She's still off-beat from her loss at dominance tug of war.  She's also still glaring in Daphne's direction.  I try not to laugh, but holding it in is almost impossible.  "What's so odd about questioning you for making terrible acquaintanceships?"

"...You don't want to know why she asked me to stay away from Ez?"  My lip lifts in a wry, skeptical smile.  My gaze lifts to her bewildered one, "Or want to know anything more about the fact that she's his sister?"

"Me?"  Tamela's cheeks fill with air before they deflate.  She rolls her eyes.  "Absolutely not.  I just want to know why that sister is so incredibly hostile."

"That's surprising,"  I sort the packets by color.  Then by size.  My head is filled with Ez. I want to know him. I‘m daydreaming about moving to Huxley — of seeing him more.  Of perhaps, proving Daphne wrong to quiet my wary thoughts.  It feels like a childish crush.  "Just thought you'd love the opportunity for a  legitimate reason to be wary of the escort."

Tamela huffs at my tone.  She reaches into the packets to help sort them.  I glance upwards, and our eyes meet.  She offers a small smile.  I smile back.  It feels a lot like it did, years ago, at the dinner that our parents hoped would unite us.

"No, not anymore. If that temperamental waitress and your little escort friend are fighting,"  Tamela grumbles, her false sneer wider in Daphne's absence.  She bumps my fingers with hers, "I'm on his side.  Okay?"

I nod.  I wonder what exactly that's supposed to mean to me, especially when that simple, playful statement comforts a lingering anxiety.

"But you like the pancakes here."  I nod when she nods back.

"I love the pancakes."   Tamela hums.  She reaches for the syrup and tilts it, watching it slowly gather on the side of the glass.  "And I love this syrup."

"It's just syrup."

"Anyway.  Uh.  About the Ez thing."  Tamela looks towards the window, uneasy.  "... You're cold as ice, sometimes.  So.  I decided.  What's there for me to worry about now?  It would be stupid to worry."

"...Ice?"  My brows gather.  "That all wasn't out of the blue."

"Hm.  I mean.  You're practically an ice cube when you want to be."  Tamela seems to recognize how little that clears up anything, even in her exhausted state.  "I mean.  I guess — if Ez was to pull anything funny.... You'd do to him like you tried to do to me."

"What's that?"

My friend shivers like she's freezing.  Then winks.

"You'd give him frostbite."

—

"Enjoy your seven-hour nap?"

"...The room is tacky."  Tamela has propped herself on the edge of our Huxley motel bed.  She pinches the blanket between her fingers and rubs it between them like she's sampling the feel of it, "the sheets are stiff with starch.  And I could smell cigarette smoke in my dreams."

There are the indents of pillow-case rumples on her cheek and forehead.  She looks blissfully rested and quite pissed about it.

"Are you writing a review or a short story?"  I laugh, tugging a towel through my hair.  Tamela is blurry at the edges without my glasses.  Unfocused, in the warmth of neon light through the shades, with the bustle of conversation just outside our door, I feel free — and somehow nostalgic.  "You're so whiny when you wake up."

"I'm just saying," Tamela crosses her legs.  Her outfit is even more wrinkled than it was before.  She pouts, likely because her interest keeps straying towards the game show on the small television in front of her.  "That it feels like I've been immersed in a 70's crime film aesthetic.  That's all."

I don't see it.  I enjoy the warmth and comfort of a room that's older than me — I smell Huxley's night air through the cracked window.  I like hearing the tail end of a stranger laughing.

I think, secretly, Tamela might feel it too.

"Oh, okay.  Sure.  You slept like a baby."  I reach for my glasses that rest atop an old wardrobe, rubbing them on the end of my shirt.  "I think I heard snoring."

"As if."

"Okay.  Maybe you were barking.  Perhaps you were chasing a ball in your sleep; I don't know."

"Fuck off.   Regardless.  I woke up."  Tamela simpers, unbothered by my jabs. "I woke up totally disorientated, in the dark, to a burnt color scheme."

"Oh,"  I frown, albeit sarcastically, "how terrible."

"The whole time you were showering, I was picturing being bludgeoned to death by a traveling vagrant."

"No.  Not that.  Poor you."  I motion towards the bathroom door with a tilt of my head, "Are you going to shower?"

Tamela huffs instead of responding.  I sigh, even though most of her antics are an act.  If she wanted to leave — she'd go.  If she hated the sheets, she wouldn't have slept here, and if she despised Daphne, she wouldn't beg me to eat before our trip back to Pennbrook.

"If you trusted me to drive your car, you could have been home by now."  I throw the damp towel over the metal bed frame to dry.  "Seriously.  I've lived a whole life accident-free; it doesn't make sense to me why you won't ever let me drive."

"You take the bus.  You have no car of your own.  You aren't on my insurance policy.  And.  I don't trust anyone with my things."  My friend stands, snatching my towel.  She stops by the bathroom door just to turn back with another pout.  "...Wow.  What an amazingly tiny shower."

I roll my eyes.

"You trusted yourself despite the fact that you were running on 24 hours without sleep."  I lay back on the bed with a sigh.  "They say that's just as bad as driving under the influence."

"Bullshit.  I had adrenaline on my side.  And energy drinks."

"Well.  Then I should've just let you drive. Your vengeful ghost could've told the guests that at your funeral."

"You're dramatic."

"You're dramatic. I'm an actuary.  I know the statistics."  I shift in bed, tugging a pillow down to rest my head against.  "Shower.  We can eat and leave whenever you want."

Tamela glances back at the small bathroom, then back at me.  She scowls.

"Fine."

—

"Do you ever go home?"  Tamela's arms are crossed.  Her nose wrinkles when Daphne purposefully blows a giant bubble instead of responding.  I intervene with the help of my menu, cutting between Daphne and Tamela's angry stare-down with a wave of laminated paper.

"Can we get a couple of coffees?"  Daphne doesn't look at me, but she takes the menu a little more roughly than I'm sure she means to.  "Please."

"Please."  Tamela mouths, mocking and irritable.  "Can we also get,"  Daphne's gum pops.  Tamela flinches, scowling.  "Ugh.  Can we also get hash browns? And two stacks of waffles."

"We do have non-breakfast items."  Daphne shifts her weight onto one leg; her hip propped enough to warrant the hand that rests atop it.  "Ya' know?  Somethin' that'll actually fill ya' up?"

"Oh, I had no idea."  Tamela grimaces.  "After passing the breakfast section, I irrevocably forgot how to read.  What a pity.  Waffles, please."

"So ya' suddenly know how to use manners, huh?"

I glance behind the bickering two to the only occupied table behind Tamela.

There's a Goule, still in his jacket — accompanied by a woman in a cashmere sweater.  They both are nearly finished with their dinner, but the woman is chatting, animatedly, with a large white smile.  There's something oddly familiar about the two, even with the Goule's back to me.

My brows gather.

"I thought you didn't serve...."  I say it without thinking.  Daphne's regard shifts from Tamela and to the booth that's caught my interest.

Now, the Goule — I wouldn't know them.  But the woman. That woman — where have I seen her?

Daphne exhales.  It smells like spearmint.

"Like I said,"  the waitress harrumphs, tucking her notepad into her apron pocket, "rent-boys, rent rooms.  Especially on a slow day — and those two tip well."

I nod.

"That rent-boy ain't Ez, though, so don't get your hopes up, babe."

"Oh."  I feel slightly embarrassed for how out of character my nosiness is, anyway.  The look on Tamela's face says more than that.  "That's not... I wasn't hoping.  That woman just looked familiar, is all."

"Sure.  Maybe Richy-rich is a client of yours?"  Daphne hums, uninterested.  "So.  Hash browns, coffee, and two stacks of waffles?  Anythin' else I could clog your arteries with?"

I nod.  Then shake my head. My eyes are still glued to the Goule, the way his shoulders slope to the side, and the way that the hair at the nape of his neck slopes to the right.

The familiarity is more considerable when I look at him. I just can't seem to pinpoint it.   So naturally, my interest swells.

"Butter,"  Tamela demands.  I glance towards her, caught off guard by her tone.  It's practically mischievous — like the one she uses when she's particularly bratty in my company.

"Butter?"

"Yes.  Lots of it.  I like to smother my waffles in it."

They're having too much fun.

"How charming."  Daphne bites back, and I chuckle.  I don't mean to, but it's a little louder than it would normally be, given the nearly vacant diner.  Tamela startles at the pitch, dissolving out of her arrogant persona.

"What's so funny, Milan?"  She crosses her arms.  "I like butter.  Who doesn't like butter?"

I glance up, apologetically still smiling.  But my gaze shifts, seized again by the Goule just ahead, and this time his head turns — his brows crimped with confusion.  I recognize his jaw, the beauty mark near his chin, and even the scar that runs through his left sideburn.

'Does it matter to you? ...What I'm thinking? How things turned out for me?'

It strikes me all at once, just how unpleasant life can sometimes be.  Maybe, if I were seventeen, I would romanticize this moment.  I'd think, we really are soulmates —

How the hell else would we meet somewhere like Mclaughlin?

Like Huxley?

I would have said that fate is on our sides.  That this could be true love, even.

'No, you don't get to do that. You don't — don't blame me for whatever — you're in a suit at McLaughlin Event. Please tell me how your life is fucked!'

But.  I'm not naive, and replaying memories for years helped me to understand the unpleasant reality to every rose-colored dismissal.  

Destiny is just cruel.  

We aren't soulmates.  We're just polar ends to a magnet, Lucas Gotthardt and I. 

And maybe, whenever I feel the slightest bit stronger, whenever someone else weasels into my headspace and threatens to create something foolish out of my adoration for them —

Lucas’ emergence is just meant to put me back in my place.

--

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