The FBucket List

by Lena Fox

  “I was just asking.”

  “I just answered.” I was off the bed in seconds. “I have to go.”

  Blake pulled a pair of track pants on and sat on the edge of his bed, shaking his head at me. “Right. Fine. Call me whenever, or whatever.”

  “Whatever,” I said.

  I grabbed my purse and headed for the door. I slammed it on the way out and stood on his steps, staring up at the faded stars above, my legs still shaking.

  There was an invoice tucked under the wipers of my car windscreen from road service. I’d left my keys in Blake’s letterbox and called earlier so they could get the battery sorted for me by the time we got back. I wasn’t sure if I was glad or not, right then, that I was able to drive away.

  I got in my car, started it, and pulled out of Blake’s driveway, my hands shaking so much I could hardly hold the wheel. I was at the end of the street when he passed me, his body hugging his bike, which was slung low and dangerously close to the ground. He went around the curve far too fast, the roar of the engine echoing through my heart as he vanished from my line of sight but not out of my mind.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Blake

  There’s something wrong with her.

  That thought kept running around my head, like a mantra of doom, as I gunned my bike down the highway. She seemed so intent on that list, too dead set on doing all those things. Not just for fun. Not just for kicks. Like they were life or death.

  She was lying, too. A lot. It was obvious because she was not a good liar—another thing she wasn’t experienced at. At first, I’d thought she was just trying to impress me, or keep things anonymous. But now I was sure there was more.

  There had to be a reason for her wanting to do that list, and standing there in her dad’s house, looking at that picture of her at fifteen, it had hit me—she was hiding something.

  Then I had heard her dad say the wig was gone, and things started to click together in my mind. There was the long, thin surgery scar down the side of her left breast. While I had her tied up, looking at her, I saw small dots on her skin, spaced around her pale torso. Dots that were too tiny to be moles and too blue for freckles—tattoo marks, used to guide radiotherapy treatments for cancer. I’d seen enough medical dramas to know that, and it all added up to one thing.

  Something was very wrong with her.

  Maybe she’s finished with treatment and is making up for lost time.

  I tried to be hopeful, but the urgency with which she came at the list implied something more.

  I couldn’t just come out and ask. I didn’t know her that well, and she’d made it clear she didn’t want me to know her that well. I’d come into this—this what? Relationship? Agreement?—for the sex and for the ride. I didn’t want to know her either. I didn’t want complications, or feelings, or a relationship. Certainly not with someone there was something wrong with. Not again. I didn’t want that.

  I couldn’t do that again.

  So why did I care that she didn’t want anything from me but sex? Fucking ironic mess. She wasn’t the first girl to treat me like a piece of meat. I didn’t know why it made me so angry. Hadn’t I been after the same thing from her? Wasn’t I just in this to see her with another woman?

  Streetlights flashed overhead as I sped beneath them, pushing my bike too fast and letting that thrill of danger and the rush of cold night air cool my emotions.

  The truth was, I didn’t know what I wanted anymore.

  Actually, I did know. I knew I wanted to drink. A lot.

  So I did.

  “Is she ugly, or mentally ill in some way?” the guy next to me at the bar asked.

  I shook my head, rolling it against the cold bottle I had pressed against it. “No. She’s fucking to-die-for gorgeous. She’s the kind of girl that other girls would turn for.”

  “Let me see if I got this right. She took you to a great dinner, and then to a sex shop, gave you some pussy, then went home no-questions-asked, and now you’re out having a brew. And you’re complaining?” He sipped his beer. “Man, it’s the perfect night. Don’t tell me you’re upset because she didn’t want to cuddle afterwards.”

  I could hear the incredulity in Buddy’s voice. I had no idea who the hell Buddy was. I thought he was called Buddy, or Mac, or Billy, or something, but he seemed to be calling me Buddy too, so I wasn’t sure. Bloody Americans. He’d sat down next to me some time around my third beer, and we’d ended up talking. He’d just gotten divorced and I had my own problems, which made for us being great bar friends, especially after a few double tequilas. I supposed I was just drunk enough to expect some bloody sympathy—which, in light of the way he was looking at me, didn’t seem like it was going to be forthcoming any time soon. It wound me up.

  “Buddy, if you’re done with her, give me her number. I could use some pussy right now.”

  That really really sent me spare. My fist stopped a hair’s breadth from his long and too-narrow nose. His eyes went round, and then bloodshot. I dropped my hand, hoping he wouldn’t be a jackass and retaliate. That he would laugh it off, but the tequila was working, because he slammed his beer down on the bar hard enough to bust the bottle and shouted, “You wanna fight? Huh? You wanna have a go?”

  The guy was maybe five-foot five but built like a brick outhouse. His wife had cheated on him with his own brother, which must have made for some uncomfortable holiday dinners. Worse, he’d lost his job over the situation. Buddy’s brother had also been his boss, and clearly, keeping him employed wasn’t worth the awkwardness in the work environment. The saddest part was he wasn’t much older than me, and he was acting like his life was over.

  Buddy had enough shit on his plate. He didn’t need mine too.

  I sat my own beer down and said, “Nah. Bloody hell, you’d kill me. Let’s have another shot, and some of those hot wings. I am fucking starving. I’m buying. What do you say?”

  The anger on his face dissolved, replaced by a grin that said Christmas had just come. “My man!” he said, throwing his arms around me in a bear hug.

  I ordered wings and boilermakers. My head was already spinning. I was about to spend half my night puking and the other half with one foot on the floor, trying to keep the world from spinning me right off its axis. I couldn’t seem to care. I wanted to escape all the thoughts whirling in my head, trying to work out just what was wrong with Georgina and what that meant to me. And the alcohol was barely working, only just enough to make me think it was a good idea to keep drinking.

  I had reached the stage of drunk where it felt like I was caught in one of those old foreign films, the ones where the people talking moved their mouths way before their words started to make sense. The edges of my vision blurred, and everything moved too fast, yet not as fast as it should.

  I had been lurching toward the bathroom when I saw her, her long dark hair tumbling down her back.

  How’d she find me?

  Didn’t matter.

  I didn’t care. What mattered was she was here, and we’d work things out. I’d make sure she was okay.

  “Hey, gorgeous,” I said, and grabbed her and kissed her, right there in the hollow of her neck, next to the sloping curve of her shoulders.

  As soon as my lips hit her skin, I knew I had messed up. Her perfume was wrong, and her skin shimmered with some kind of glitter dust.

  The woman turned around. Her eyebrows had been plucked to narrow curves and she wore a bright pink lipstick and tight minidress to match.

  She didn’t look happy. “Gee, thanks, asshole. Next time, maybe you could give me some warning before assaulting me.”

  I backpedaled. “I am so sorry. I honestly thought you were someone else.”

  The girl put a hand on one hip, looking me up and down. Her pouty indignation started to crack as her lips curled upwards.

  She half closed her eyes, smiling like a hunter setting a snare. “Are you saying you wouldn’t kiss me if you didn’t think I was someone else?”

  T
he words made my tipsy head spin with tricky double negatives. I didn’t want to offend her any further. “Yes. No. Yes. No, wait. I mean, yes, you are a gorgeous woman, and I would have kissed you anyway.”

  “Really?” she said. In one smooth step, she had her hips up against me.

  Her overly strong perfume assailed my nose as she leaned closer and pressed her lips onto mine.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Georgina

  Last night with Blake was … it was almost more than I could bear.

  My head was in the worst state. The things he’d done to me, the way he’d behaved while he had me tied up, and how considerate he’d been either side of that, left me utterly confused about the kind of man he really was. He seemed so ready to play the part, to use me however he wanted. Was that the real him, and he was just pretending to care? I had to remind myself that that was actually what I wanted from him—a man who was just after sex.

  But despite reminding myself over and over that it didn’t matter what kind of man he was, everything felt like it was getting way too complicated.

  I drove to Blake’s that day, fifty-fifty torn between doing the next list item and ending this arrangement.

  I got out of my car and went to the door but just as I raised my hand to knock, the door opened and a girl with a face covered with smeared makeup and a neck covered in hickeys peered out at me.

  “Holy shit, that sun is going to kill me,” she said in this perfectly calm voice. The smell of alcohol baked off her, mingled with sweat. She raised a shaking hand, shielded her eyes, and added, “Wow. You must be her.”

  I blinked. “Her, who?”

  “The girl Buddy thought I was when he kissed me the first time.” She looked me up and down as I did the same to her. I was too busy wondering if she meant Blake was Buddy and what she meant about the first time to assess how similar we appeared.

  “Dude, that guy drinks like a fish swims. I am lucky to be alive.” Glancing down the driveway, she let out a long groan. “I think I threw up in my car. This is going to be one fucking rough ride home.”

  I followed her with my gaze as she wobbled across the lawn and peeked in the windows of a blue sedan parked half on and half off the curb. “Yeah, I definitely threw up in there.”

  “Maybe you should roll the windows down,” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “Yeah, smart one. What time is it, anyway?”

  “Two.”

  “In the morning?” She gazed up at the bright sky. “Duh, of course it’s two in the afternoon. I am so fucking fried—fri—fired … both,” she said. Blinking a few times at the sky above, the color dropped from her face and she dashed back from the curb to hurl in the neighbor’s hydrangeas. Then she fell over and got tangled in the bushes, and yelled a bunch of words I wasn’t sure were even English before making it back to her feet and getting into her car.

  The windows went down, more yelling ensued, and then a pair of panties flew out the window and landed on the sidewalk. Her car lurched from side to side, and I winced, hoping she made it back wherever she had come from without killing someone.

  Blake’s front door was still open and I closed it, softly.

  Tears sat in my eyes. I had no idea why. I shouldn’t care who that girl was or what she’d done with Blake. He wasn’t mine. That was the agreement. I couldn’t get angry because he had screwed another girl. Right after me. He had every right to do whatever he wanted to just like I had every right to do what I wanted to do, and what I wanted right then was to get the heck out of there and go somewhere quiet to cry.

  I was halfway down the path when the door banged back open and Blake’s head popped out. He looked awful. His skin was a greenish-gray. There were dark circles under his eyes, and he gasped harshly when the sun hit his face.

  I honestly expected him to burst into flames for a second. He must have too, because he wrapped his arms over his head and scuttled down the grass to where I stood. The old man from next door was out getting his mail again and watched the whole scene. Blake waved to him. The neighbor made eye contact with me for a moment and shook his head with disapproval.

  “Where are you going?” Blake asked me.

  “Sorry, you might have me confused with the woman that already left.” I knew it was snarky but I was still stinging with jealousy and I didn’t know how to handle that at all.

  His red-rimmed eyes looked slowly to the street, now empty, then back to me.

  Blake put his hands to his chest like he was making a vow. “Oh, no. No, no, no. Veronica? I didn’t do anything with her, I swear.”

  “I couldn’t care less what you did with her,” I lied. “Just don’t lie to me like I’m an idiot.”

  Could I be any worse of a human being right now? My hypocrisy left a bad taste in my mouth, and I tried to walk away again.

  Blake stepped in front of me, and wobbled like he might fall over. “I’m not lying. Why would I lie? I know you don’t care. Look, just … this fucking sunlight. Come inside, and meet Buddy, and I’ll explain.”

  “Buddy? She called you Buddy. She said you thought she was me, and you kissed her. More than once.” I was letting him lead me up the path, letting myself hope he was telling the truth.

  Blake winced. “I was completely bottled at the time, and I really did think I was kissing you. Things got a bit crazy, and all my new friends ended up back at my place.”

  We got to the front door and Blake pointed through at the couch. A man with pale ginger hair, wearing nothing but an old sheet covering his middle, was sprawled there, snoring loudly.

  “That’s … I’m not sure what his name is. I’ve been calling him Buddy. He hooked up with the girl that just left. I let them crash here.”

  “You let two complete strangers sleep at your place … possibly sleep with each other at your place?” I wasn’t sure whether to think it was kind or crazy of him. Blake was picking up strays all over the place.

  “Buddy needed a break. He’s been having a rough time.” Blake looked down the street. “I didn’t really get to know Vicki at all.”

  “You called her Veronica a second ago.”

  “She might be Verity.”

  I shrugged, trying to hide the immense relief I felt. “She tossed her drawers,” I said.

  “Is that Yankee slang for threw up?”

  “What?”

  “You know, like tossing your cookies?” Blake asked.

  “No, I mean she threw a pair of panties out of her car. But also yes.”

  “Ah.” He stared at them on the sidewalk.

  “You’re just going to leave them lying out there, aren’t you?” I asked. My mouth was twitching upward.

  “Yep. I don’t think I can face any cleaning up right now.”

  “You do look like you’ve been hit by the hangover bus. And then it reversed back over you a few times,” I observed.

  “I feel worse. You look great.”

  “It’s the pure joy of not being hungover, radiating out of me.”

  Blake smiled, but it faded fast. He seemed worried by something more than his hangover. “Do you want to come in?”

  “Better not wake Buddy. I was thinking maybe we could go do that next thing.” I gestured to my sundress, the swimsuit underneath, the cues that a trip to the beach could happen. I was excited for this list item more than just for the sex. I’d never actually been to the beach before. It was a long drive from here, and since the lake was so close we always just went there instead. But I’d always wanted to go. My heart came alive at the thought of swimming in the ocean.

  Blake blinked bloodshot eyes at me. “Seaside? Today? You trying to kill me? Maybe we can skip to the ‘sex with a woman’ part of your list.”

  Too soon. I bristled again. “Maybe you could call your new girlfriend back, see if we can’t knock that out real quick so I can go do what I really want to do today.”

  Blake looked way too eager for a split second before my tone caught up with him.
“Wow, can you hold the sarcasm a little? I’m about to drown in it. I thought you didn’t care who I slept with.”

  “I don’t,” I lied. I could feel my invisible armor thickening, ratcheting tighter with each click, constricting my breath with each lie. “I care that you didn’t sleep with her. That you think that’s what I want. You’re not mine. I’m not yours.”

  Click, click, click.

  Blake threw up his hands. “I didn’t ask for this shit.”

  “I think I remember you did. I should have said no.” I turned and walked back to my car.

  “Don’t run away again!” He wobbled down the path after me, and put a hand on my shoulder, but I wasn’t sure whether it was to stop me or stabilize himself. “Just tell me what the fuck is wrong?”

  My armor wasn’t thick enough. Tears came. Too fast to stop. Blake saw them and his face looked ashen.

  Mortified, I turned and ran, slamming the car door and driving off, vowing never to come back.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Georgina

  The next week dragged by. I had lost all interest in my list. Without Blake, I wasn’t sure how to get started on it again. I went back to class just to fill in time and give my brain something to occupy it and stop it from going crazy.

  I told everyone I’d had a bout of the flu, and after I told the counselor about my past chemo and resulting lower immune system they gave me a medical pass, so my scholarship was no longer in danger.

  Julie thought I had seen the light, and even offered to help me catch up. I asked her how her physics knowledge was going to help with my graphic design assignments, and she just shrugged and moped away. I was being a bitch to everyone, it seemed.

  I called her back and suggested we watch a movie. It took even more time away from getting assignments done, but it was exactly what I needed. We curled up on the couch together and watched The Way You Do. One of the actors in it was so intense, I started to wonder what was going on in her life. Whether she was going through something traumatic. Whether her life was any easier or worse than mine. I made up whole stories in my head about her. It helped put things into perspective.