Bad Neighbor

by Molly O'Keefe

  I turned to her, pulling up my sweatpants. “You’re the third person to say that to me this month.”

  “Well, fuck man,” she said. “You put Henderson down last month. You do the same thing with Ramirez, I think people are going to come knocking on your door.”

  “Ramirez isn’t Henderson,” I said.

  “You scared?” she asked, her face twisted like the idea was ludicrous.

  I left the room.

  After yesterday all my fears were close to the surface. All my monsters rising from the deep where I kept them.

  I didn’t trust myself like this.

  “We gonna fuck or not?” she asked, and I winced at how loud she was. Charlotte could have heard that. We’d spent most of the day yesterday in bed, wearing holes in her sheets and fucking each other so right I couldn’t even imagine sex with Amber right now.

  “Not,” I said, looking into my fridge. It was just about empty. I grabbed a frozen burrito and put it in my microwave. A trainer would have me on a diet. Some kind of high-protein thing. Lots of vegetables.

  The trainer would not appreciate my frozen burritos.

  Amber came stomping out of my bedroom. “You are no fun anymore.”

  I grinned at my microwave. I was fun. Just not with her.

  Charlotte and the way she gave me her body. The way she came for me like it was such a surprise every time… I could not get enough.

  My loose, tired body was no longer quite so loose.

  “See you around,” I said to Amber as she grabbed her keys and purse.

  “Yeah, see you in two weeks.” She paused by the door and I turned toward her, surprised to see her seem to be biting her tongue.

  “You got something to say?” I asked.

  “I dig this shit,” she said. “The fighting and the stuff after. But… Jesse, you’re good. Really good. You shouldn’t be scared of trying to get a little something better for yourself.”

  And then she was gone.

  And my microwave dinged as I stared dumbly at the door.

  I left the burrito uneaten in my microwave. Grabbed a stack of condoms in my bedroom and went over to Charlotte’s place. And the thing I wasn’t looking at, the thing I wasn’t interested in, was why.

  Because it was sex. Yes. Of course. I wanted to fuck her six ways to Sunday.

  But there was something more.

  There was something about the way that Amber said I should reach for something better and I immediately thought of Charlotte. And yeah, I knew Amber was talking about finding myself a club. Some sponsors. Real money and real fights. With rules to make sure my career in this brutal fucking business would last as long as I could make it.

  But I was thinking of Charlotte.

  About how fucking good and decent and real she was.

  And I could not get enough of that.

  So I left my apartment and knocked on her door. To fuck her.

  To pretend for just a few minutes that Amber was right. That Charlotte was something I could have. Should have.

  Despite knowing, deep in my gut, that these things we weren’t talking about—they would end us.

  Her door opened and Charlotte was there, looking… fucking delicious. Rumpled and messy. She had this knot between her eyes that gave her the impression of a stressed-out mouse.

  I loved it.

  She blinked at me.

  “Jesse.”

  “Charlotte.”

  “What…what are you doing here?”

  “I want to fuck you.”

  She laughed, a bright wild crack of sound that made me smile at her. Really smile.

  “Oh, well in that case, come on in.” She opened the door wide and stepped aside so I could come in. I felt like I always did when I walked into her place. Like I was walking into another world. Some kind of opposite dimension of my world.

  “I need to finish a few things,” she said. “Really. I mean… I’m not putting you off, but I have this…” She looked at her watch. “I have this deadline.”

  “Cool. You can work. I’ll just…hang out.”

  We both realized how ridiculous that sounded even as I said it. Her place was soft and lovely and all the things my place wasn’t. But she didn’t have any fucking chairs.

  “Go work,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

  She nodded and scooted back over to her computer. She was wearing yoga pants and a flannel shirt that shouldn’t look so hot on any woman, but on Charlotte, it looked delicious.

  But then, I liked her in dresses with suns on them, so clearly I was fucked in the head.

  Back in my apartment I grabbed one of the few things I’d kept from the old house. It had travelled with me to Iowa and back and now, more than often than not, it sat forgotten in the corner of my bedroom.

  Dad’s old bean bag chair.

  It was made out of fake blue leather and duct tape, and I heaved it over my shoulder and took it back over to Charlotte’s. I pushed open the door to her apartment, and her little head popped up between her monitors.

  “I shouldn’t be long,” she said.

  “It’s cool, don’t worry.”

  I locked the door behind me and tossed the bean bag chair in the corner of the room and sat—gingerly, very aware of all the tears under the duct tape—in it.

  “Wow,” she said. “I haven’t seen one of those in years.”

  “I know,” I said, wiggling my ass a little, finding a comfortable spot. I’d forgotten how comfortable this thing was. It had sat in our TV room for years. Mom hated it, Dad loved it.

  Most of the tears in it were from Jack and I wrestling with it.

  “Where’d you find it?” she asked.

  “It was my dad’s.” Her head came up, like a puppy’s smelling dinner.

  “You don’t talk about your parents.”

  I laughed. “Neither do you.”

  Truthfully, we didn’t do a whole lot of talking when we were together. “Are your parents around?”

  I shook my head. “Dead. Mom when I was a kid, Dad…a few years ago.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  I shrugged like it was no big deal, but the weight was heavy on my shoulders. “Where are yours?”

  “Florida.”

  “Living the dream?”

  “Something like that. I’m so sorry, Jesse. I need to get this done. They had a few edits for me,” she said, looking at her screen but talking to me. From where I sat her face was illuminated by whatever was on her screen, and she looked paler than usual. “And the turn around was tight because they are sending out a few sample pieces to reviewers. A buzz thing, apparently.”

  “That sounds good,” I said.

  “It does, doesn’t it?” Her voice had absolutely no enthusiasm in it.

  “You’re not excited?”

  She glanced at me, her lip between her teeth. “You really want to talk about this?”

  I blinked, surprised. Not so much by the question but that she had the stones to ask. “Yeah,” I said. “I do.”

  Because I did.

  I wanted to talk about whatever she wanted to talk about. I wanted to just sit here and drown in her soft little world.

  “They want me to go on tour,” she said.

  “A book tour?” That sounded pretty fucking legit. I could just imagine Charlotte in her glasses, her hair all wild around her shoulders, talking to a room full of people about her weird amazing book.

  “Yeah.”

  “And you don’t want to go?”

  She shot me a “give me a break” look. She didn’t like people either. One of the many things I was completely surprised we had in common.

  “They’re just people.”

  “Hilarious, coming from you.”

  “This is a big deal. Seems a shame to be too scared to take it.”

  “I’m not scared.”

  “Bullshit.”

  She scowled at me and I shrugged. “Call it like I see it. You got any beer or anything?”

  �
�There’s a bottle of red wine on the fridge.”

  I wasn’t much for wine but I stood up and got it anyway. “You mind?”

  “No,” she said, absorbed back in her screen. “Go right ahead.”

  “You want some?”

  “Sure… maybe a little.”

  I opened the wine bottle and opened her cupboard, looking for a glass.

  “You’ve got real fucking wine glasses,” I said. I flicked my finger against the edge of one and it tinged.

  “I do.”

  “You know what half the people here drink booze out of?”

  “Coffee cups?”

  “The bottle. And a brown bag.”

  “Are you mad because I have wine glasses?” she asked, and I realized how mean my voice was. “You don’t have to use one. Drink out of the bottle. I don’t care.”

  I poured us each a glass in her nice glasses.

  “I’m not mad because you have wine glasses,” I said. “I’m mad because there’s shit you’re not telling me.”

  She didn’t meet my eyes—she pretended to be absorbed in whatever she was working on. I knew the difference between when she really worked and when she was pretending. This was total bullshit. But I didn’t push, because I had plenty of stuff I wasn’t talking about either.

  “Here,” I said, putting the glass down by her elbow. I took mine and sat back down in the bean bag chair.

  My imaginary trainer who didn’t like my burritos told me not to drink this wine.

  One of the perks of not having one, I thought and drank from the glass.

  The wine burned going down. But it sat in my stomach nice and warm.

  “So?” I asked. “What are you scared of? With that book tour thing?”

  She scowled at me. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “I do.”

  “Well,” she said, grinning at me, an evil little grin that got my blood pumping. “What if I wanted to talk about your brother?”

  I laughed at her bravado. “Not gonna happen.”

  “Well, neither is talking about this book tour.”

  I took a sip of wine and she went back to her work.

  “But you’re going to do it, right?” I asked.

  “No!” she cried. “No. I’m…not going to do it.”

  “But you want to.”

  “No, I can…see the merit in it. But I don’t want to.”

  “Like you didn’t want to watch Amber blow Matt?” She shook her head, her cheeks getting red. If I touched them, they’d be hot. “Like you do, but you’re scared.”

  “No. Not like that at all.”

  “You’re such a liar.”

  “What if no one comes?” she asked. “What if people laugh? What if I vomit all over the place? Or fall down? Or can’t answer anyone’s questions? What if—”

  “Does that stuff happen on book tours?”

  “It might happen on mine.”

  “Why do you get all the bad shit?” I asked. “Like, what makes you think that’s what’s going to happen to you? You’ve got this awesome career, doing this awesome thing and it’s like you don’t see it.”

  She looked back at her screen, mutinous and close-mouthed. “You’re not going to get fucked this way,” she said, all prudish. I wanted to laugh at her, because she’d melt under my hand and we both knew it.

  “You have a fight coming up,” she said.

  “I do,” I said, sensing a massive change in conversation.

  “Do you… the thing with Amber and Matt… does that happen after every fight?”

  I narrowed my eyes, wondering which way she was going with this. “Not every fight. Most.”

  “How…how did that start?”

  “Amber’s a medic. The guy that organizes the fights, Sal, he pays her to be there in case something bad happens. She likes to fuck fighters.”

  “And Matt?”

  “Matt likes to fuck fighters, too.”

  “So… you’re bi?”

  I smiled at her, but felt my teeth on edge. I didn’t peg her for this kind of person. “Are you bothered by that?”

  “No!” She looked up at me wide-eyed. “No, I’m not bothered. It’s consensual adult stuff. There’s nothing for me to be bothered by.”

  That was a pretty good answer. “So what are you bothered by?”

  “Are you going to do it after this fight?”

  “It’s not like we make a plan, it just kind of works out.”

  She hummed in her throat.

  “Do you want it to happen?” I asked. “You interested in watching again?”

  “I don’t want to watch you fuck another woman,” she said. “Or a man. I don’t want you to do that at all… while we’re… you know?”

  “I know,” I said.

  “If we’re together like this, I don’t want you to be with anyone else. And I don’t want to be with anyone else either. Is that… like a deal breaker for you?”

  “You done working?” I asked.

  “Just… a few more seconds.” She tapped a few keys. A few more. She hit one key pretty hard and then sat back with a sigh. “Done.”

  “Come here,” I said, motioning her over to me. And she came, spreading her legs to sit on my lap on the bean bag chair. She looped her arms around my neck and I pressed one quick kiss to her mouth.

  “I’m not fucking anyone while I’m fucking you. And you…” I kissed her again, getting into it. “No dates. No dressing up in those jeans for other guys.”

  “I dress up in those jeans for me.”

  I hummed in my throat, liking the idea.

  She sat back just as things were starting to get interesting.

  “So,” she said, tucking hair behind her ear. “Your fight is on Saturday, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can I come watch?” she asked.

  “You want to?” I asked, dubious as fuck.

  “Yes.” She didn’t hesitate or anything.

  “It’s pretty rough.”

  “I gathered.”

  “Is that…is that hot to you?” I asked. I mean, it was most of why Amber was sticking around me. She and Matt could go fuck anyone, but she liked shit rough and a little scary.

  I was the rough and scary.

  She was silent for so long that I realized it had been a dumb question. Of course that was why.

  “Well,” I said, wondering why I was so fucking angry by her non-answer answer. “You saw me after. I’m not in the best of shape for fucking. Not the way you like it.” Though I’d given it my best shot, mostly in an effort to scare her away.

  “I don’t…that’s not why I would like to go.”

  Like I was some wild dog waiting for a beat down, I watched her out of the corner of my eye.

  “Amber dumped you on me afterwards, like…” Charlotte blew out a breath. “Like you didn’t matter to her.”

  “Well, it’s not like Amber cares,” I laughed, the idea funny to me.

  “I care,” she said and my laughter dried up. “Maybe I’m not supposed to. Maybe that’s not how this works, but… I care. And you’re pretending you’re not nervous, but…I can tell you are. You’re nervous about something.”

  I spun the glass around in my hands, afraid in a way to look directly at her. Like she was the sun and my eyes would fry. Or she was something I wanted—really wanted—down deep where all the old things lived and breathed but I pretended that they didn’t.

  “If you don’t want me there, I won’t—”

  “I want you there.” The words erupted from my throat. My belly.

  She put her arms around me, hugging me close. My hands went immediately to her hair, pulling out the heandband and the ponytail holder she liked to wear, until those crazy curls all fell down around her shoulders.

  “I want you to go on that book tour,” I said.

  “Why do you care so much about the book tour?” she asked with a laugh that did nothing to disguise her worry. Her fear.

  “Because I care,�
� I said.

  I kissed her and I took those clothes off of her and I spread her out on the floor like she was my personal feast and I kept us busy so we wouldn’t say anything else.

  Wouldn’t confess any more of our feelings.

  Wouldn’t give away any more of our wounded hearts.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Charlotte

  What, I wondered, does a woman wear to an underground fight club held in the bottom level of a parking garage?

  I stood in front of my closet, wrapped in a towel, at a total loss.

  The sunshine dress was out. The Big Bird tee shirt. The overalls.

  In the end I grabbed what I’d worn on my last torture Saturday. The tight jeans, slinky top and the leather jacket. I wore my hair down because Jesse liked it that way.

  My stomach was a ball of nerves, my hands were sweaty. I’d been imagining scenes out of Fight Club all day. I’d been trying to remember all my basic first aid, like that would matter. I’d been trying to imagine what people would think when we walked in together. And I’d been trying not to feel…excited about that. Proud of that.

  Proud, in a weird way, of Jesse. Of being the girl he picked. Of having the guts to pick him.

  I did my makeup with a heavier hand than usual, and the person looking back at me in the bathroom mirror was a sexy stranger with my eyes, and I dug that like crazy. I grabbed my boots and sat at my computer to put them on.

  The picture of my sister and me on my home screen made my heart ache with a nearly impossible pain. A breathtaking grief. She would love this if she was here. She would love seeing me with someone, she would love seeing me happy.

  Because I was. I was happy.

  Part of me, insidious and small, wondered if I would be this happy if she was here. If I would have even taken the risk with Jesse. Or would my time have been tied up in Abby? I didn’t like thinking that thought. It felt disloyal.

  Still, my boots on, I turned my chair fully toward my screen and opened up the Facebook message that I’d never deleted.

  My I need you message was still not responded to, and if it was in fact a spammer, they weren’t trying very hard.

  Feeling as if I’d settled down somewhere outside of myself, on the very far edges of the life I’d been telling myself all along that I liked while at the same time feeling almost wholly unsatisfied, I typed a message to Cheetara…