His & Hers

by Francheska Fifield

  “When you and I argue it’s not like it was with my ex. I would argue, fight, whatever it took to get his attention. He would stand there and let it go in one ear and out the other. Then he would just walk away. And that was the end. It’s not healthy. It festers.

  “There’s such a thing as healthy arguing. Arguing means you are still invested in making a relationship work. It’s when you ignore problems that you have a real problem. Besides we are friends. Friends don’t have to like the same things or agree all the time. We are friends because of what we have in common, not what we don’t.”

  “Interesting logic.”

  “If we were in an actual relationship, like dating not just friends and employer/employee relationships, then we would have to worry.”

  And just like that I am shot down. “I’m afraid to ask why, but now I’m curious.”

  She laughs, likely thinking I am joking…I’m not.

  “Yes well, you tend to get caught up in your work a bit. If you were to get into a relationship with anyone you’d have to work at balancing your life.”

  “I never really had someone in my life I’d rather be with than work. It sort of started because I needed to work a lot at first. To make my company successful. To show my parents I didn’t need them to succeed. I’m a work in progress.” And I had better work on that progress fast or I will never be able to get and keep her.

  “Aren’t we all?”

  Her question doesn’t make sense to me since I don’t think she needs any work. She grabs her phone out of her back pocket.

  “I think Cindy misses me already.”

  “Missing you isn’t hard to do.”

  I get up and go into my office as quickly as possible. Before I make a bigger fool out of myself. I have already put my foot in my mouth big time. I lightly bang my head on the wall once in my office. Not because I can’t use a real banging of the head, but I don’t want her to hear and come running to see what is wrong. I’m a fool, a great big fool.

  After a few minutes I go back out. She is sitting in the living room watching an anime. I sit down and watch as well. It is cutesy, girly, and not something I would watch under normal circumstances. But it turns out to be surprisingly funny. She spends the whole time giggling, except when something frustrates her, and then she bites her lip to keep from yelling at the characters.

  I try to keep my smile to myself. She is so damn adorable when she is frustrated. I want to soak up time with her now. I won’t see her tomorrow night or the first half of Saturday. It will drive me nuts.

  Chapter Six

  The next night is Friday and guys night. Trisha cleaned everything during the day and got everything ready for the guys before she retreated to her room to get ready. I hear all the hustling before I even come out of the office.

  When I do, I heard Trisha say something to Tommy. She is giving him a one armed hug. Why is it so easy for him? His response when I ask is it’s easier if you don’t actually like them. You lose nothing by offending them. Well great, so what if you do like them? I feel like I am in that song ‘Crazy for This Girl’. She loves that song, walks around singing it. Now I can’t hear it without thinking of her.

  “Tommy why are you harassing Trish this time?”

  I get around the corner and see Trisha for the first time since she has dressed for going out. She is in a halter top that is stretched across her chest. It leaves no question that she has curves. Her pants are leather and fit like a second layer of skin. No one taking even a glance at her will have to wonder about what size anything is. I know my jaw drops and somehow I can’t get it to hinge again.

  “Exactly Will. And here you were about to yell at me again. I wasn’t harassing her, but she looks smoking hot and someone should tell her.”

  A knock sounds and she bounces over opening the door to reveal Bobbi and a shorter girl.

  “Hey Bobbi, thanks for agreeing to be our DD.”

  DD? Why does she need a DD? She doesn’t drink. At least I have never seen her do so. If she gets drunk, sleeps with some moron, and comes back full of regret I’ll find the ass that takes advantage and kill him. Anyway, she can’t go out dressed like, that she will get arrested for indecent exposure.

  “Have fun boys. Try to leave a path for me in case I come home before tomorrow.”

  Her friend smiles and speaks up.

  “Oh we won’t. Wait don’t I get to meet them?”

  “Next time. Let’s go.”

  She rushes out and everyone turns to look at me. Tommy smiles and sits on the couch reaching for one of the controllers.

  “Hey someone put in a game with lots of killing; Will’s going to need it tonight.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Dude you are screwed. If I were you I would have been out that door and hotwiring one of our cars to follow. She isn’t my type and I think she looks hot. What do you think guys are at the club are going to think?”

  I know what they are going to think and I wonder how much of my untouched trust fund I am willing to use to hire a professional killer. I have no right to think like this. We’re not a couple, but I want to be so damn bad. I can’t help feeling like this.

  “Will you have to tell her how you feel or it's going to kill you when she moves on with someone that’s not you.”

  Tommy and Steve are already going at it. I hear shooting, explosions, and lots of killing each other.

  There will be no sleeping tonight for me. I’m going to be pacing all night. I slump onto the couch next to them and scowl at the TV.

  “Eat you will feel better.”

  I glare at Steve until he rolls his eyes and turns back to the TV, forgoing saying anything else.

  “No he won’t. He’s gonna spend all night thinking of all the guys out on that dance floor dancing all over her, feeling up her ass. He should have offered to go to. I would have.”

  Tommy won’t shut up no matter how I glare so I just focus on squeezing my empty coke can, which is starting to look almost as thin as paper right now.

  “It’s not like I can do anything to stop her. We aren’t a couple.”

  “Because you refuse to get off your ass and make a move. I know you are not the only one here that likes her, and I know the guys are being nice and giving you first shot because you met her first and we aren’t idiots. You don’t say anything about liking her outright, but we all know you do. Eventually if you don’t make a move someone else will. If she says yes you will have no one but yourself to blame dude.”

  Tommy is annoyingly honest sometimes. Asshole.

  “Fine, so make your move. Whatever.”

  “It’s that attitude that’s going to make her end up with someone other than you. Why don’t you just tell her how you feel?”

  “I do.”

  “Not really. You hint and hope she will understand and make a move. Dude it doesn’t work that way. Girls like to know you like them before they do anything. They are okay making the first move if they know it’ll be received as they hope. They don’t like subtle and they are easily embarrassed. You need to basically spell it out for her.”

  “She’s not an idiot.”

  Tommy shakes his head and finishes killing Steve.

  “No, but she’s a girl, one that’s been hurt bad. She’s insecure, more so than most because of her ex. You have to be more obvious if you want her to take a chance on you.”

  “Our relationship is already awkward. I work for her, she works for me, and we are friends. I can barely keep track of which role we are playing and when. If we were dating it’d be even more work.”

  Tommy shrugs and tosses me the controller getting up and heading toward the food.

  “If she’s worth it you put in the work, if not you don’t. All good things take time and effort.”

  I hate that saying. I’m patient by nature and I have been trying to be patient with her since, as Tommy said, she has been through a lot. Instead of being considered considerate, I am now stuck in the friend zone. Ugh
! This is all too damn complicated.

  I kill Steve three times before he passes off the controller. I try venting my annoyance. It doesn’t work. I keep thinking about how she looked before she left I’m alternating between pissed off and turned on. Isn’t love supposed to be all romance and kissy faces? I’ll have to ask Trisha the next time I see her writing.

  “Okay someone take the controller before he melts it with his fury.”

  I toss it to the person closest to me and go to the window. I look out. It is dark. It is also 11 pm. She has only been gone a few hours and still I keep hoping she will get home early despite saying she won’t be back until well after we are all in bed, which is always after 1 am.

  I spend the rest of the night pacing. Tommy mentions a hole in the floor more than once. I always find something to throw at him. Eventually 1 am arrives and the guys start blowing up air beds and getting ready to sleep. I am still pushing the curtain back, waiting for her to walk through the door safe and unmolested.

  By 2 am everyone is sleeping and I can’t stay out in the living room anymore. I go into my room, lie down, and fall asleep.

  The pounding wakes me. What the hell?

  “Will wake up Bobbi is here, something’s wrong! Will!”

  Tommy comes running into my room wearing his boxers….just his boxers.

  “Tommy leave and put clothes on.”

  “Bobbi he’s awake.”

  Bobbi comes in. Wait, he was the driver tonight. He looks worried. Oh shit. I get up still dressed because I hadn’t meant to fall asleep and look at the clock. Just after 3 am and he is here alone.

  “What happened?”

  “She called me. I figured they were done and her phone battery died because it wasn’t her cell number.”

  She never lets her phone die, ever.

  “She called me from the police department. She told me to bring five hundred dollars and she would pay me back. I called back, but they wouldn’t talk to me about anything. I figured you would know what to do better than I would.”

  Oh shit. What the hell happened? What did she done to land herself in jail?

  “Let’s go.”

  I grab my wallet and throw on my shoes at the door before hurrying out to the car. Bobbi has been my driver since college. After leaving my parents place I kept him as a friend and rehired him once my work took off. Trisha thinks he is just a friend doing me favors and helping out. I know she will be pissed I lied to her when she finds out the truth. He doesn’t work other jobs; I pay him a steady income to be on call 24/7. That expanded to including Trisha when she moved in.

  We get to the police station and I talk to them. More like I call my lawyer and he talks to them and throw my parents’ names around. There are two kinds of rich people, the ones that poor people look at as rich because they have a home, a business, and so on. Then there are my parents. Their biggest problem is which house to live in this year and how long to spend vacationing in other countries because my mother wants to go to Paris and Milan for shopping and my father likes Spain and England during the summer. I know Trisha thinks my family is the first kind of rich. I let her think that. Knowing I have money changes how people perceive me. Some of the guys still don’t know.

  By the time I get there my lawyer has smoothed almost everything over so I only have to mention who I am and who I am there to pick up. They are beside themselves to be helpful (my family donates to charities each year to be more likeable, and last year they had decided to add the California Police Department to that list so making me happy in their eyes meant money again this year since very few people know I have nothing to do with my family).

  When Trisha walks out she looks confused. The police are being nice, not usually how they act when you’ve been arrested. She looks up, sees me, and shrinks into herself. Geez, I’m not here to beat her. Sure I’m not happy about this, but who is really happy to have to go to the police station at almost 4 am and bail someone out?

  We get to the car and I open the back door and give her a pointed look. She is not getting away with sitting up front with Bobbi who seems to find this situation more amusing than it actually is. She gets in the back and I put the divider up between the front and back seats.

  “Are you okay?”

  I want to start with that because if something happened I need to know. So when I shake her it won’t traumatize her.

  “Yes.”

  Nothing so traumatizing that she needs to go to the ER for a psych evaluation. That is a good start.

  “So what exactly happened? The police said you were arrested for being rowdy. The club called the cops on you. I told them you aren’t a violent person that I’ve never seen any behavior like this from you before. So what really happened? Is it that new friend of yours?”

  She told me herself she’s not actually violent. She is all bark no bite. So what happened to make her get the cops called for being rowdy? She isn’t drunk; no one can walk in a straight line in heels that tall when drunk.

  “Well we were out clubbing, just dancing, having some drinks. There were five of us girls. Well one of Cindy’s friend Cindy’s friends was keeping our table for us; she’s new to clubbing, kind of shy, and dating someone. She was glad to just be out because she works all the time. So this guy goes over, she tells him she’s flattered but no thanks. Our table is close to the bar so we hear the whole thing while grabbing drinks. She was so polite about it too, not at all mean or trying to start trouble. He didn’t take no for an answer. So I told him to buzz off.”

  I sigh and put my head in my hand rubbing my temples. I know where this is going. Oh God.

  “Shall I finish the story?”

  “Might as well, though I think I know how it will end.”

  I don’t look up, I just let her continue. If I look up she will see how annoyed I am and think it is directed at her, and some of it is, but not all.

  “Well he turns and tries to hit on me. I mean really I had just told him to buzz off and so I told him again. His idea of a good response was to grab my ass. Anyway I turned around, flung his hand off me, and smacked him across the face. So the bouncer asks if we have a problem. He says ‘yeah this bitch slapped me’ and I said ‘yeah this asshole is sexually harassing me’. He tells us all to leave and I asked what he had against women defending themselves?”

  I sigh and have to stop myself from banging first my head, then hers on the window. What was she thinking?

  “Anyway, he grabs my arm and I tell him if he doesn’t want me to knock his teeth in to let go of me. He squeezed and it hurt so I made him take his hands off me.”

  Yes, because threatening the bouncer is a great idea. It had been on the verge of closing time and she picks then to get in trouble? Not say midnight, when I was still awake? “How?”

  “I kicked him in the balls. These heels are amazing! Anyway, then they call the cops and say I’m being rowdy. I wasn’t rowdy; I just refused to be punished because I defended myself in a sexual assault situation. I didn’t fight the cops, and I wouldn’t have fought the bouncer had he come up with a valid answer to my question instead of trying to man handle me.”

  “Only you could say all this like it’s perfectly rational.”

  She shirks back into her seat; she had given up the damsel in distress routine as the pride of defending herself came out during the story. Now she seems to remember it is 4 am and I just bailed her out of jail. If they press charges the press will have a field day when they find out she works for and lives with me. It is hard to stay off the radar and I want to stay off.

  “I’m sorry. Bobbi wasn’t supposed to call you. I told him I would pay him back if he bailed me out.”

  “Its fine, but the next time you plan to go out on a Friday night you will have all thirteen of us in attendance. I was rudely awakened by Bobbi pounding on the front door. Which woke everyone in the living room up before it did me. Tommy came running into my room in nothing but his boxers. I’m scarred for life.”

 
She cringes and I play on it nodding.

  “Exactly.”

  “I promise never to return to that club and not attack anymore bouncers should I go out.”

  “How about you avoid wearing those clothes ever again.” Unless alone with me where I can strip them off you. Wait not the right thing to think about right now. I am supposed to be mad. Yes annoyed, mad, and back to her naked.

  “You can’t blame the clothes. No matter how I am dressed it doesn’t give a guy the right to grab me.”

  Is she really this dense about men? No it doesn’t, but guys don’t care about that. I’m not the type to give in to my hormones easily, obviously given my current predicament, but that outfit tested my boundaries. Guys with less control aren’t going to fight it at all.

  “No, but most meat heads don’t think of it that way. And since meat heads are the only guys that go to those clubs you need to remember that.”

  “That’s kinda a bad thing to say. Not all the guys there are jerks. What about the ones there with girlfriends?”

  They weren’t looking at their girlfriends tonight. “They go to check out other girls and make their girlfriends dress slutty. It’s not something to brag about.”

  She crosses her arms over her chest and glares.

  “When I get a boyfriend I am proving you wrong. He is going to go with me and dance with me without staring at any other girls and I will dress however I want all the time, including when I go out with the girls.”

  I almost tell her when we date she won’t be dressing like that in public, and going to the club would only be allowed if we have a private room. I pinch the bridge of my nose, my head is killing me. Less than an hour of sleep will do that. I lean my head back and take some deep breathes. Don’t knock her senseless for being herself. Now I only need to repeat that a hundred more times to believe it is the right thing to be telling myself.

  “Are you okay Will?”

  “Don’t ask me that before I have had more sleep and something to eat. We can talk more tomorrow.”

  “Fine.”

  She turns toward the window, looking grumpy. Ugh, I hate her pouting, her lower lip juts out and looks so damn sexy I want to nibble it. I have to look away because if I don’t I’m not going to be able to stay mad at her even if she is insane.