Lingus

by Mariana Zapata

  She shot me a big smile and wrapped me in a tight hug. "I've missed you," she admitted, and I had to nod in agreement. I didn't think I'd ever gone three consecutive days without seeing her sandy colored head in all the years since we'd met. Even though I had Tristan's company to distract me from her absence, my heart still recognized that I hadn't spent any time with someone I loved and valued. My mom has been dead for fifteen years, and I still missed her in a way that words could never explain properly. I'd learned over the years that when you genuinely loved something, it left an impression on you forever.

  "Hi Kat," Calum piped up from his spot next to Nikki.

  "Hey," I said, holding my hand up for a high-five, which he slapped with vigor. I liked him. A good high-five said a lot about a person; just like a handshake did. I hated limp fish handshakes like you couldn't imagine.

  I felt my ass being grabbed roughly, and although I should have been alarmed by the intimate gesture, with Zoey and Josh possibly in the picture I had no doubts that it was one of their perverted asses. Sure enough, I turned around slowly to spy two blonde heads behind me. One head had short hair, while the other had much longer and darker blonde hair. Josh and Leo, of course.

  "Booger Bear!" Josh exclaimed in his loudest shriek. He only did that when he had already started drinking, so I was a little scared.

  "What's up, homolofagous?" I laughed and gave my friend a hug. I hadn't seen him since we'd gone bowling, and we had only been texting intermittently since he began seeing Leo the day of his party. That sort of absence with my closest friends seemed to be going on much more frequently now than ever before, leaving me a little unsettled.

  He rolled his eyes and shot me the middle finger. He hated it when I called him that but seriously, I thought he got a kick out of it secretly. Josh busied himself saying hi to Nicole and Calum while I tried to high-five Leo, who played hand-tag with me until he awkwardly landed his palm against mine. I'd forgiven him for the weak high-five since he could moonwalk. In no time, Zoey was back with what looked like two margaritas before shoving one in my direction. Nicole made us rally around the table, her hazel eyes wide and a little maniacal.

  I sat between Zoey and Josh, smashed in close to their two thin bodies when I felt two big hands land on my shoulders. Looking over one, I spotted the familiar reddish-brown hair towering over me. "Hey," he said, very close to my ear. I raised a hand to squeeze his fingers. I wanted to lean back against him but I didn't; he was warm enough to feel through the thin material of my blouse.

  "Now that all of you bitches are here," Nicole began. She stood right next to Calum, holding hands like cutie pies. "We have something very important to tell you."

  Oh my God.

  Then it hit me, she's going to start doing porn, too.

  "What? No!" Nicole blurted out, her pretty face screwed into a grimace. Oh shit, I guessed I said that out loud and blushed all over. "Calum asked me to marry him, and I said yes!"

  I gasped.

  Tristan's hands squeezed the shit out of my shoulders.

  Zoey tensed up.

  Josh made a noise that could only be described as a snicker and a snort mixed together.

  Then there was silence.

  "Seriously?" Zoey's small voice squeaked.

  Nicole rolled her eyes and held up her hand to show a mighty nice-looking solitaire diamond resting on her ring finger. "Yes, dumbasses."

  What. The. Fuck.

  My brain raced, and I was sure everyone else's were as well. Calum and Nicole had only known each other for three weeks. Three weeks! They'd only been seeing each other for two of those.

  I had fish that didn't survive longer than that same amount time, and Calum and Nikki were deciding to get married. I was dumbstruck. As my brain continued trying to process all of it, I only thought of Nicole and the person she was. She was the most self-assured and confident individual I had ever met, she knew what she wanted and always got it. Nikki didn't wear her heart on her sleeve, and never made decisions without seriously considering all of her options. She knew what she was doing.

  This was the Nikki who always catered to all of my whims, regardless of how stupid she might think them to be. Who stood in line for four hours to watch the last Transformers movie with me at midnight on opening night? Nicole. Who went with me to a book signing the day before her bar exam? Nicole. Who had always been there for me no matter what? Nikki. I loved her, and the fact that she was excited as hell while the rest of us just stared dumbly forward snapped me out of my haze.

  "I'm so happy for you!" I gushed out while my head spun with information and acceptance.

  She lit up like a firecracker and smiled so brilliantly I felt terrible that I hadn't been immediately excited for her. The only time I'd ever seen her so excited was when we'd been at porn con waiting to meet Calum. Go figure.

  "I can't believe it!" Zoey finally snapped out of her mind-trip, hopping out of her seat to jump into Nikki's arms.

  Very quickly after that, the other two idiots, not including Leo — who hadn't given me enough reason to consider him one — were offering their congratulations to the newly engaged couple. I was sure we were all wondering the same things, but none of us wanted to ruin their happy moment with difficult questions. Technically, it shouldn't be any of our business how they decided to work out their relationship, but I was so attached and protective of Nikki that I needed to have answers at some point.

  "I'm going to need another drink," Zoey whispered into my ear once our circle had dispersed a bit. She was sucking her margarita down like it was water on a hot day.

  It turned out that everyone needed another drink after the announcement. We chugged down drink after drink at the table before deciding to move to a different side of the pub.

  "Honk!" Zoey exclaimed, palming my boob roughly as we walked over to the pool tables located on the opposite corner of the bar. She was plastered after two margaritas and paid the bathroom about eight visits since we'd gotten there. I was the one stuck going with her each time, and she fondled my ass or boob on every run.

  I swatted her hand away, carefully maneuvering my way over the step that led up to the pool tables. I'd only drank two margaritas and was now on a strawberry daiquiri; I wasn't drunk but I was slightly more than buzzed. My body felt warm all over, and I couldn't really judge distances very well by that point. I was laughing at everything that had been said at the table a moment before.

  "Nicole! Play a game with me!" Zoey yelled, while simultaneously pointing at Nikki who shrugged her acceptance.

  Josh pushed Leo toward the other open table with a thrust of his hips and a wink in my direction. "Gross," I murmured.

  A moment later Leo was bent over the pool table while holding a pool stick like he had absolutely no experience holding phallic-shaped objects in his hand. Josh was hunched over him, pressing his hips way too closely to him. For the record, Josh sucked ass at pool and had no business trying to teach anyone how to play, but I guess he just wanted an excuse to publicly rub his junk against his man-mate so who cared.

  "Hey good looking," a voice purred from my left.

  I looked to see a guy with jet black hair standing on the other side of the railing that separated the pool table area from the rest of the pub. "Hi," I replied dumbly and borderline drunk.

  "You wanna play pool?" he asked me. His eyes were so dark they reminded me of those belonging to a seal; it was creepy.

  "Uhh—," I mumbled out, because yes, I did want to play, but I doubted I could hit a ball if I tried my best.

  "I have a pool table at my house," the stranger offered, leaning over the railing with a smug look on his face.

  "Kat!" a silky, strained voice yelled over by the pool table Nicole and Zoey were playing at. I looked back to see Tristan and Calum waving me over.

  The strange man frowned in their direction before shrugging. "Maybe another time."

  All I wanted to do was sit down to gain my bearings, but there were only two chairs on the s
ide of the pool table closest to my best friends, and Calum and Tristan were already sitting in them. I frowned and made my way over. They were in the middle of a conversation, but after the amount I'd drank, my verbal filter had left the building.

  "Can I sit there?" I asked slowly.

  Their conversation ceased. Tristan raised an eyebrow as a crooked smile splayed across his lips. "I'm sitting here."

  "I know, but I want to sit there. Can I sit there?"

  Calum snorted, and I thought Tristan gave him a look but my brain felt like slush so couldn't be sure. "But then where am I going to sit?" he asked.

  I shrugged and pointed down. "On the floor."

  "I'm not sitting on that dirty ass floor," he replied. "Do you need some water?"

  "Yeah." I nodded, taking notice of the dryness in my throat. "But I also need to sit."

  Tristan laughed and uncrossed his arms from over his chest. "Come here," he said, and I took a step forward because I trusted and listened to him more than I should. When I was standing right in front of him, he reached out to grab my hips and pull me down so I was sitting sideways across his lap. My left side was resting against his chest, while my bottom rested on his muscular thighs.

  "I promise I won't fart on you," I mumbled while squirming on his lap to situate myself a little better.

  He chuckled against my ear as his hot breath fanned out and gave me goosebumps. "Thanks."

  "I'll go get you some water," Calum announced before standing up and walking off.

  I thought about getting up for maybe a nanosecond, but when Tristan didn't say anything about taking Calum's seat, I didn't either. It was so easy to rest my head against the crook of his neck, so I did. "You smell nice," I told him with a deep whiff of his natural, clean scent. He smelled like something manly. My nose brushed against the vein in his throat when I smelled him again.

  "You do too," he said so softly I almost didn't hear him. I felt one arm wrap around my lower back and the other one rest on top of my knees. "You smell like oranges."

  I sniffed him again, wishing I wasn't so out of it so I could recognize whether he shivered a little or not. "You smell like a man."

  "I'd hope so," he chuckled. I couldn't but notice how close he was to me, I thought his lips brushed the skin right by my tragus. "What was that guy telling you?"

  I shrugged against him, letting my weight come to rest against his sturdy frame. Usually, I'd feel uncomfortable laying against or on top of someone, but with Tristan I could care less. I knew that if it bothered him or if I weighed too much, he wouldn't have a problem telling me. "I don't know. He said he had a pool table at his house or something."

  "What—," he started to say before Zoey's shrill voice cut through the air effectively ending our night out.

  "I think I'm going to throw up," she groaned.

  Chapter 30

  Tristan was many things.

  He was smoking hot but also beautiful; he was funny, smart, a jackass, and compassionate among many other things.

  Two traits he was not: organized and neat.

  I'd been watching him fold his laundry for nearly twenty minutes, and I didn't know how I managed not scream in frustration or yank his clothes away from him to do it myself. I shouldn't have been surprised considering the haphazard way his kitchen was set up but nevertheless his folding skills were some of the worst I'd ever seen. Right then, he was folding his t-shirts into something that looked like a geometric anomaly. Yoda and I were sitting on his king-sized bed staring at him. I was pretty sure even Yoda was wondering what the fuck he was doing.

  "Why are you looking at me like that?" he finally asked, a couple minutes later. He had one eye on me, and the other on a pile of folded clothes teetering in a tower.

  "You're really shitty at folding laundry," I admitted.

  He scoffed. "You think you can do better?"

  "Tristan, a blind man with no hands could do better than you." I gestured toward the big lug next to me with my head. "Yoda can probably do better than you." I laughed.

  He sighed before dropping to his knees, disappearing from view. "I'm not that bad," he said from underneath the bed. A moment and some scraping sounds later, he was dumping a black duffel bag on top of the mattress, and I realized that the time had come. He'd only mentioned in passing a few times that he was leaving the next day to film over the weekend. Each and every time he said it, I got this sickening feeling deep in the pit of my stomach. It was the same kind of pain I used to get when I had to do some form of public speaking.

  "How long are you going for? A couple weeks?" I tried to joke when he shoved about ten shirts into his bag.

  "I always need to be prepared," he said with a chuckle. He was leaving the next afternoon, Friday, and coming back sometime Sunday evening. Zoey usually flew to Los Angeles for an entire week each month for her scenes. I'd asked her before why she didn't just move there. All she did was roll her eyes and ask me, "Who do I have in L.A.? No one. No thanks." It also helped that the cost of living was cheaper here than there.

  A couple piles of underwear, jeans, dress pants, socks, three containers of his temporary hair dye, little reusable bottles filled with shampoo, and a razor went into his duffel bag, but he didn't zip it.

  He walked over to his dresser and opened the drawer, specifically the top one I became familiar with the night he got sick. I saw him reach in and I had to look away. Yoda was lying down next to me with his massive head resting on the bed, so I scooted down and laid down alongside him before throwing an arm over his muscular frame to bury my nose into the rolls of skin on his neck.

  Tristan was grabbing condoms. Dozens of condoms for all I knew. Dozens of condoms to use on other girls.

  What was wrong with me? I'd known since the beginning of this friendship that Robby Lingus was a part of who he was. Regardless of how often he brought up this side of his life, it was still there. What did I expect? The feeling in the pit of my stomach was getting worse, it spread from my stomach to my heart, and now made its way up my spine to the back of my head. Why did I feel like he was cheating on me? Why was I doing this to myself?

  I squeezed my arm around Yoda, holding him tighter to me when I felt my eyes start to get watery. Fuck. I couldn't remember the last time I'd gotten so emotional. I heard him close the drawer, and then start moving around the bedroom while humming the main theme song for Star Wars. The zipping of his duffel bag and the soft thump of its weight hitting the floor played background music to his humming. I squeezed my eyes closed before starting to blink away whatever remaining tears were still traitorously squatting in the corners of my eyes. I didn't want to cry in front of him. I didn't want to cry, or feel like this period.

  After last Friday, I'd had hopes that he'd act differently around me but he hadn't. Wouldn't a normal guy put the moves on me, or something after I'd sat on his lap? The last time I sat on Ryan's lap I had his massive erection pressed against my ass for fifteen minutes, right before he tried to make out with me. Sure we were a little drunk but still. Ryan made me feel something.

  "Are you asleep?" his milky voice asked at the same time the bed dipped right next to me.

  "No," I mumbled against Yoga's brown coat. The big lug smelled like maple syrup.

  "Want to go downstairs and play rummy?" he asked sweetly. It was my favorite game and he knew that. I brought it over one day and just left it; Zoey and Josh didn't get how to play, and Nicole was a good opponent, but only when she was in the mood to play— which was never.

  "Okay," I responded, but didn't loosen my death grip on Yoda. I didn't trust myself to not be upset in front of Tristan. I didn't want him to be able to tell that the situation was bothering me, because I had no right to feel emotional and disappointed. We were just friends. That's all he'd ever promised me and continued to reassure me of on a regular basis. I sucked in deep breath to help steady my emotions. Once I felt like my breathing wasn't ragged, and that tears wouldn't spontaneously spill out of my eyes and down my cheeks, I r
olled onto my back and sat up.

  I made an effort to keep my eyes on Yoda's bulky form as he got up and jumped off the bed to follow us out of the room. I wanted to avoid looking at those intense green eyes as long as possible. "So, your mom is keeping him for the weekend?" I asked to keep him busy so that he didn't notice the change in my mood. He was too perceptive for his own good.

  "Yeah. She hasn't seen him yet, so I'm a little worried. I warned her that he's really big, and she said it was fine but I don't think she realizes just how huge he is," he told me on the walk down his steps.

  I looked to the side, seeing the three other doors upstairs that I still hadn't gone into before following him down with Yoda trailing behind me. "He's a good boy, I'm sure he'll be fine."

  Once we were in his kitchen with the tile pieces spread out on his breakfast table, he snuck to the fridge and brought us both cokes. "What are you doing this weekend?"