[ - ]
Table of Contents [Report This]
Printer Chapter or Story Microsoft Word Chapter or Story
- Text Size +
Before: Nick's New Leaf


Ashley

Nick dropped into the booth and smacked his head against the table top between us, banging it against the wood repeatedly like he was tapping out morse code or something. I stared at him for a long moment, took a pull off my Molson, and raised an eyebrow. "Troubles, bubbles?" I asked, tilting my head to look at him.

"All. The. Fuckable. Girls. Are. Drunk." Each word was punctuated by a bang of his head on the wood.

It was a week later and so far Nick's new leaf had left him with nobody to sleep with at the end of the night.

"Maybe your standards are too -- well, I was gonna say high, but really they're low if the girls you're interested in are all drunk." I put my beer down on the table.

"Why aren't you helping me?" he whined.

"Nick, I dunno if you've noticed, but this is all I ever do when you go scouting," I said, shrugging, "I point out a girl, we talk about the dirty things you wanna do with her, then you go do them and I sit here a few minutes to make sure you're really going through with it, then I go close the tab out at the bar and walk home."

He looked up at me, his cheek smooshed against the table top. "But your withholding your magic chick vibes or whatever or something," he whined.

"You could always give up your 'new leaf'," I said, making bunny ears in the air around the word.

Nick scowled.

"What made you make up this rule anyways, it never bothered you before."

He shrugged, "I just - I saw what that douche bag at the club tried to do to you and I don't wanna be that guy."

"That guy was like sixty," I said. "And smelled like he didn't get the memo about Tide or Crest products having been invented."

"See? I rarely do my laundry and I never brush my teeth."

"You pay people to do your laundry for you - and really? You never brush your teeth? I thought that was just a joke the guys had." I reached over and pushed his lips apart with my fingers like a dog show judge analyzing a dog. "Gross," I said, "Have you ever considered the fact that maybe the sober girls aren't drunk enough to overlook the plaque in your teeth?" I let go of his lips.

He licked his teeth. "It's not that bad."

"Oh it's that bad."

"My hotness to plaque ratio makes it not that bad. If a ugly person had plaque that'd swing the game, but on a hot guy like me it doesn't matter," he reasoned.

I shook my head and took a swig of my beer. "You know," I said, putting the bottle down on the counter with a thunk, "You're really full of yourself for a guy who hasn't had sex in a week."

Nick scowled.

I smirked.

"You're mean," he accused. He turned his head so his other cheek was against the table top and he was looking up at the TV in the corner of the room out of the corner of his eyes.

I leaned over and patted his shoulder, "You know you're nothing like that guy, right?" Nick looked up at me, the skin under his chin bunching up against his arm. "At least what I remember of him, which honestly isn't much. But I remember you coming through the door and I remember thinking that I was safe because you were there."

"Yeah?" he asked.

I nodded, "I always feel safe when you're there."

Nick smiled weakly. He sat up. He reached over and took my now empty Molson bottle and started picking the label off of it, leaving little label shreds all over the table. He looked up at me, his tongue still rubbing his teeth. "Have you ever... I dunno, thought about us?" he asked.

I tried to breathe normally. "About us?"

"Yeah, you know. Like you and me. Hooking up or something."

I sucked my lips into my mouth over my teeth and shrugged. "I dunno," I lied.

Nick kept peeling the Molson label off the bottle. "Howie and AJ, they think we're gonna end up together," he snorted when he laughed.

I felt like my throat was sealing up. "They do?" I squeaked.

Nick nodded. He'd gotten the entire label off the bottle. He looked up at me. "I think they're crazy." He stared into my eyes. "But I dunno. Maybe there's something there."

My mouth was bone dry. "Are you um, just saying this... because you think I'd be an easy lay and it's been a week since you've got some?"

Nick shrugged. He glanced at the door. "Hottie at ten," he said. He ran a hand through his hair and slid out of the booth. "Don't wait up for me, darling," he said, and he trotted away.




Nick

My hands were pools of sweat. What the fuck had I just done? I hadn't seen any hottie, I just needed a reason to get the hell out of that booth. I bolted into the men's bathroom on the far side of the bar and locked myself in a stall and sat down on the closed toilet lid. I took deep breaths that were riddled with dirty toilet stench and beer and throw up that wafted from the next stall where a guy was wretching.

I was so obviously desperate for sex that I was willing to hit on Dogface of all people. AJ and Howie were my excuse. They were putting shit in my head and I was regurgitating it like one of my stupid lines for the ladies I put the moves on.

She'd seemed repulsed.

And what really was fucked up was the more repulsed by the idea she'd seemed the more I kinda wanted her.

I wondered how long I had to hide out in the bathroom before she'd go home, thinking I'd scored with the hottie I'd run off to.

I pulled out my phone and started playing Angry Birds Star Wars edition on my phone. I wasted fifteen minutes this way before I decided to go check and see if Dogface had left. I snuck to the bathroom door and opened it and craned my neck to look at the booth. She was gone. I let out a breath of relief and stepped out of the restroom. I needed to find an easy, sober bitch that would sleep with me and get Dogface out of my head.

I went over to the bar and ordered a fresh drink and a shot. I did the shot and sipped the drink and looked around for a girl to hit on. There was a nice lookin' girl with black hair at the end of the bar reading, so I approached, carrying my drink.

"Hey," I said. I waved at her book, "Good book."

I have no idea what the title was.

"Yeah? You've read it?" she asked, she grinned, "Not many guys would read it."

I hoped it wasn't a va-jay-jay book. Or worse: Nicholas Sparks.

I shrugged, "I'm not like most guys."

She closed the cover and put it down on the bar. I almost choked. It was Chinese-fucking-Cinderella. I'd recognize that damn book anywhere. Dogface had read it probably a thousand times, including just over Christmas on the plane headed to my mother's house.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," I answered. I'd swallowed my drink wrong and it was now burning my esophogus. "I'm fine," I answered. "Swallowed wrong."

The girl looked concerned.

"I'll be okay." I added, "Really."

"So do you read a lot?" she asked.

"All the time," I lied. I think the last time I picked up a book I was being graded on it.

"What's your favorite?" she asked. I was about to make up a title when she squealed, "Wait no! Let me guess!"

That seemed easier than making up a book. "Okay, but you'll never get it," I said.

"The Catcher in the Rye?" she guessed.

"Oh shit how did you guess that? In one guess too!" I faked surprise. "Shit, you must really get me." I grinned and leaned closer. She grinned, too.

But then a funny thing happened.

I was looking at this grinning, hot girl who was totally sober and seriously into me, at least who she thought I was, and I noticed her nose wasn't right. It was too... I dunno, wide, and kind of... I dunno, long, maybe. It wasn't short and narrow, like.... Dogface's. And her almond shaped eyes were just an itty bitty too far apart and her mouth was narrow and fat with plump lips. Her lip stick was pale pink not that weird coral red color that Dogface wore all the time. The one that matched her hair.

I backed away, "I'm sorry." I said, and I downed the rest of my drink in one swallow, and went out the door.

I stood on the sidewalk and flapped my arms in my coat pockets for a moment, looking back and forth up the city street. Every person who passed me by, I noticed something about them that wasn't Dogface-ish. They didn't have the right tone of red in their hair, they wore stuff too frilly to be her, their walk was too swishy, their elbows not bony. No freckles. No tall forehead.

I don't know what I was thinking.

Maybe I wasn't.

I just know when Dogface opened the door twenty minutes later, she looked as surprised as I felt.