by BT Urruela
I grin, though a new nervousness takes hold. My mind flashes back to yesterday’s date with Megan—she and I standing in this same position, having this same conversation—when just a day before, my biggest concern was making it out of this challenge with my head still above the water; without thirty different stalkers hounding my ass. As I look into Sami’s smoky eyes—with the little flecks of gold that glint with the sun’s rays—I find myself not just wanting to see this woman again… but almost needing to.
“I’d love to see you again,” I say with a smile, and I put my arms up for her to come in for a hug. She does so and I catch that fresh jasmine scent of hers again that sets my senses ablaze. “Thanks for today. I had fun,” I add, as I let her go and take a few steps back.
“The pleasure was all mine, Gavin,” she says, lifting her petite hand and passing a quiet wave before turning on her heel and walking away. I watch her for a moment, knowing full well I’m in trouble here, but appreciating something new… something different… something invigorating for once. It’s been so long.
I head back to my loft, and as I come up on my brownstone, I see Bobby seated on my front steps. His big torso is hunched over his knees, headphones in, and there’s a six-pack of Rebel pale ale at his feet—my favorite. He’s adjusting his cabbie hat and doesn’t notice as I stop just before him. His head turns slowly, and as he spots me, he lets out a little yell and jumps back, his hand coming to his chest.
“Fucker,” he says, catching his breath. “How long have you been standing there?”
“About two seconds… How long have you been sitting there?”
“About thirty minutes,” he says, pulling the phone from his pocket and his gaze falling to the sidewalk in front of him. “Babe,” he says, as if talking to the concrete. “Can I call you back. Gavin just showed up… Yeah, of course. Love you, too.”
He swipes the buds from his ears, wrapping them around his phone and he tucks both into his coat pocket. He stands with the six pack in hand, narrowing his eyes on me with a lifted brow, but a grin tugging at his lips. “You motherfucker,” he says, laughing and taking me in for a bro hug. “It’s cold as fuck out here. Let me the hell in.” He lets me go and jabs a thumb toward the door. “Move your ass.”
“Fucking A, man. You keep rushing me, I’ll make you sit outside with me while I smoke a joint.”
His face tightens and he shakes his head. “No, please. I need to warm up, man,” he says with a chuckle.
I let out a maniacal little laugh as I riffle the keys from my pocket and open the front door, snagging the six-pack from him with my other hand.
The loft is toasty, which pleases my body as I strip the coat off and flip on the lights. Instantly, I hear a small gasp from behind me. I turn and see Bobby paused in the middle of taking his coat off, his eyes trailing back and forth across the loft.
“Holy hell, when the fuck did you clean, man?” he asks, tossing his jacket onto the coat rack and taking a few more steps in, still engrossed in seeing my place clean for the first time since Joanne moved out.
“I’d like to take credit, but I ended up paying for a maid company to come out a couple days ago. I’ve just been trying my best to maintain it since then, which you’d think would be easy. I’m quickly realizing how much of a slob I really am.”
“It looks great,” he says, nodding his head and taking a seat on the sofa. “Just like back when… well, you know.”
“Yeah, I’ve missed it. I’m glad I finally pulled the trigger. It’s good to actually be able to see all the wood in here.” I head to the kitchen and toss the six-pack in the refrigerator, minus two beers.
“You mean other than an exorbitant amount of clothes, books, and weed paraphernalia laying everywhere?” he asks, laughing.
I make my way to the living room and hand Bobby his beer before plopping into my recliner. “Just don’t open that closet,” I jest, pointing to my utility closet and passing him a wink.
“Well, it’s good to see,” he says as I turn on some music, setting the volume low.
“You know, all that stuff last night…” my voice trails, my eyes scanning the hardwood floor.
“You’re okay, Gavin. Really. It’s no big thing. We’ve been boys for a long time.”
“Which is exactly my point. You should be the last person I shit all over.”
“Or the first…” He shrugs. “Sometimes that’s how it goes.”
“Doesn’t make it right.”
“I didn’t say it did. But it’s realistic.”
“I know you’ve been around for a lot of my struggles. You’ve heard a lot of what I’ve been through, and how I’ve felt at times going through this rollercoaster life.” I take a deep breath, my conscious weighing heavy on me, knowing I haven’t been truthful with my best friend in this world… and realizing it’s only been for selfish reasons. I’m afraid of what he’ll think of me. “You know that reality show I told you I was on… the one I had to pretty much vanish off the face of the earth for. The one that didn’t end up making it on TV anyway?” I ask, my voice low and hands fidgeting in my lap. Bobby puts his thick hand up and it draws my eyes to him. His lips tight, he passes an understanding nod.
“I know, Gavin,” he says softly, but the words come heavy. A hot wave of shame washes over me. My mouth is open, but I can’t quite find the words to say. “Gavin, bro, it’s okay.”
“How do you know?” I manage to ask through the tightness in my throat and gritted teeth.
“Javon…” he says, and he must notice the anger rising in me because he quickly continues. “Listen, your story, bro, no offense… it was shit.” He lets out a nervous chuckle. “Like, epically bad.”
“It could happen.”
“Bad.”
“I looked into it. You can’t have any outside communication on reality shows—”
“Just. Bad,” he says, cutting me off.
I nearly start talking again before realizing my story—the only one I could come up with that would explain my month in inpatient, outside of the truth, of course—is, in fact, a massive, steaming pile of excrement.
“How long have you known?” I finally ask, a nerve-spiking wave of shame cloaking me.
“I don’t know. Four, maybe five months. Javon finally broke down and told me. He thought I should know. Shit, I think I deserved to know. I’m your best friend, for Christ’s sake. And don’t even think about being pissed at him.”
“Okay, okay… I get it. But you don’t. You just don’t get how our relationship has gone since elementary school, bro.”
“What are you talking about?” he asks, his brows scrunched in confusion.
“You were the cool kid growing up, Bobby. The kid every other guy wanted to hang out with and emulate, and the girls all wanted to date. The football player. The class president. The valedictorian—”
“Gavin, what are we doing here?” he asks, cutting me off.
“No, let me finish… Then I find a little success in this thing, this one thing I’ve always been good at, and what happens? You come in, no damn writing degree, no experience, and you literally blow me right out of the water.”
“You think I’d be where I am now if it weren’t for you?” he asks, leaning forward with an intent look on his face. “You think I would’ve had the guts to even start putting words to paper if it weren’t for having you show me the way?”
“It doesn’t change the fact that you’ve beaten me… crushed me at my own damn game,” I say in a stale tone before chugging my now lukewarm beer. I was so immersed in the conversation, I forgot I was even holding it.
“Gavin, I know a lot about your past. I’ve been there for you through all of it. I get that you have a lot of inner turmoil, but you can’t live like that. You can’t let it control you. And you most certainly can’t even think about doing something like that again,” he says, his tone stern.
“I wouldn’t. That was a different me,” I say quietly, my head down and fingers nervously p
icking at the beer label.
“Gavin,” he barks, drawing my eyes and he passes a fatherly look at me over his black frames. “I’m dead serious here.”
“I am too,” I say, louder now and my eyes remaining on his. “I don’t know who that guy was. I think about that night, how I felt, and it’s almost unrecognizable. I’m not saying I don’t feel shitty most of the time now, but never like that. Never again.”
“Good,” he says with a look of resolve. “That’s how it has to stay. And if that is truly how you feel, and your lungs are still taking in air… and your veins are still pumping blood… well, then you still have the ability to write. So instead of talking about how I blew you out of the water, why don’t you come right back at me swinging?”
“Bobby, to be frank, disregarding how doubtful I was when you told me you were quitting your job to write a book, you have become an incredible storyteller.”
“Thank you—”
I put a hand up and flash a wry smile. “I’m not finished… In saying that, you know just as well as I do what writer’s block is like. I don’t have to remind you about that first book you wrote, and how many late-night phone calls I had to answer.”
“No, you don’t.” He shakes his head slowly, letting out a heavy breath.
“So, then you know how hard it is to come back swinging when your arms have been hacked off.”
“Interesting way to put it. You should save that for a book,” he says with a smirk.
I roll my eyes, setting my beer to the side table and leaning in. “Stay with me now, Bobby boy. You’ve spent plenty of nights in front of a blank screen toiling away, and lubricating the imagination with whiskey. That’s been me for nearly two years. Two fucking years, Bobby. I sit there, I try to type, and my fingers don’t fucking move. And when they do move, the shit that pops up in Times New Roman is junk I wouldn’t even put in a high school term paper.”
“Could I maybe read some of it? I do know how writer’s block can be, but I also know how self-critical we writers can be too. Especially you.”
“No, I have nothing. Nothing I’ve cared to save, never mind share with another human being.”
“Ughhhh,” Bobby groans, taking a long swig of his beer until it’s empty.
“Huh uh, don’t make that sound you make when you’re annoyed. You know I hate it.”
“Why do you think I do it so much?” he says, flashing a grin. He motions to the empty bottle on the coffee table and asks, “Can I get you another one?”
“Yeah, I’ll take one. Thanks.”
He stands and makes his way to the kitchen. “So, how goes the challenge?” he asks from over his shoulder as he pulls two beers from the fridge. He returns, intrigue in his expression. “Well?” he adds, handing a beer over and taking a seat.
“Surprisingly, I just had two great dates in a row. My only good ones really.”
He pulls his head back, the beer bottle in his hand and hanging in the air. “No fucking way.”
“Yeah, I’m about as surprised as you are. This experience otherwise has been pretty daunting.”
“Well, cheers,” he says, tilting his bottle neck. “That’s good news.”
“Yes and no…” my voice trails, my eyes drifting and a smirk growing on my face.
“Indulge me,” he says, leaning back into the couch, and propping one leg over the other.
“Think about it, man. I’ve only been on five dates so far. Two of them I dig. The others, not so much.”
“What is it about these two?”
“I mean, shit… I don’t have a whole lot to compare it to. I always kind of go back to the wedding, and then that next day with Joanne. How I felt, and how perfectly it all seemed to unfold. Not saying that’s what this is… but that’s my baseline.”
“If that’s not what it is with these two… what is it?”
I pause for a moment, running each date through my mind—the fluidity of them, the instant, obvious chemistry, the intense desire to not end the date—and I try and make sense of it.
“I don’t really know,” I say, shrugging. “They made me feel something different. They made me feel something, period. Intrigue is the best word I can use. I’m intrigued as fuck.”
“Well shit, man,” he says with a broad, genuine smile. “That is really good to hear.”
“I’m sure glad you’re so optimistic.”
“If I’m not, who the hell’s gonna be? Just sit back and see how it all plays out. Don’t overthink it.”
“I’m going to remind you, Bobby, I’m coming up on day six… I’ve only been on five dates and two of them I ended up liking. I have twenty-five dates left. Can you do the math for me here, you fucking nerd?”
He laughs, nodding his head in agreement. “You’ve got me there. It’s not looking good. But I still don’t think it’s all that bad.”
I grab my phone from the side table and hold it up for him to see, shaking it a bit before setting it back down. “You’re not the one getting hourly fucking texts from Maria!”
“Oh shit, that’s still going on?” he asks through a stifled laugh.
“Yep! I told her I just wasn’t in a place to date right now. That I’m a mess from my last relationship and still… it actually made her text me more. Like she wants to save my ass or something.”
“Your ass needs saving. Besides, what’s so wrong with her? Did the date really go that bad?”
“What, two girls taking up my damn thoughts isn’t enough? You want to keep piling them on?” I joke, taking a swig of beer and setting it on the table. “It’s not that the date was bad. It just wasn’t right. There wasn’t any chemistry, and I thought she felt the same way… obviously not.”
“Are you going to see these other two again? What are their names?”
“Megan and Sami… I told them both I would, and I want to, but on top of the dates I already gotta do? Fuck me.”
He lets out a maniacal little laugh, his lips against the mouth of the bottle.
“I’m going to make you choke on that beer if you keep enjoying this as much as you have been.”
“Hey, if I’m losing out on twenty-five grand here, you bet your weed-loving ass I’m going to enjoy every second of it.”
“Speaking of weed…” My eyes trail to the back door that leads to my private garden and he lets out a heavy sigh.
“Why the fuck did I have to say something?”
“Come on. Stop being a bitch. You’ve had time to warm up and you’ve got insulation,” I say, standing from my recliner and motioning to his beer gut.
“Hey, chicks dig the dad bod now, my friend. Get with the fucking program.” He stands, grabbing his beer, and pinching my stomach fat with his other hand. “Looks like you’re well on your way, young Jedi.” He lets go just as I bat his hand away, and he heads to the coat rack.
“I’ve learned from the best. And ‘dad bod,’ Bobby? That’s not a real thing. Don’t feed into the lies, amigo,” I say, laughing as he shoves his bulky arms into the coat sleeves.
“Hey, who’s the single one here?” he asks, narrowing his eyes on me. “I got my shit, Schnoz. You do you.”
“Just get outside, Bitch Tits,” I say through a laugh and motion toward the back door.
After catching a good high and bullshitting with Bobby about this garbage election day coming up, the Cubs winning the World Series (bastards), and the depressing world of first draft composition, I’m horizontal in bed, with the tube playing some terrible sitcom that probably wouldn’t be funny if I hadn’t just burned some green. Being high for me isn’t quite what many experience, not anything like when I was a teen. I don’t get utterly incompetent. My brain isn’t foggy. Emotions aren’t repressed. I enjoy the time spent with my thoughts as they pass more freely throughout my mind. I’m better able to analyze them, to understand them, and to accept them.
I can’t help but think of Megan and Sami and the time spent with each. Regardless of how I feel about relationships, it doesn’t
mean I don’t have the desire to get close to another human being. It doesn’t mean I don’t want someone to just lay with, watch movies, and laugh. It’s not so out of the ordinary, is it? And for God’s sake, I’m a man after all. And though I’ve had the ability to go a year and a half without sex, it doesn’t mean it’s been easy, or that I don’t ache to feel that passion, heat, desire, and intensity again. I do. It just has to be right. It has to make sense. But damn, how my dick hates me these days.
After a less than stellar date with a corporate lawyer last night—bad coffee breath and smugness in tow—I’m hoping for a better one this evening. I’ve decided to switch it up and go bowling, hoping it can take a little of the pressure off. Tabitha, 31, from the Upper West Side, is one of those fidgety nervous types who can’t ever quite sit still. She’s constantly adjusting and readjusting her thick retro glasses. Piercing brown eyes set behind the lenses bounce around the busy bowling alley. She looks uncomfortable as she holds onto the pair of bowling shoes, but doing nothing with them. As I slip mine on, I analyze her rigid body, hidden beneath a Mr. Rogers sweater and a loose pair of jeans.
“You okay?” I ask, looking up and she seems to snap back into the moment.
“Yeah, yeah. Just something on my mind,” she mutters, dropping the shoes to the floor and removing her own sluggishly.
“Is that so? Please, do share,” I say, standing and going to work on the setup screen. I type in our names and realize she’s still yet to respond. I glance back at her and she’s biting her bottom lip, a nervous wrinkle in her brow. “Well?” I add, and she clears her throat.
“I Googled you,” she says, in a matter-of-fact tone, and her words catch me off guard.
“Did you now,” I ask, followed by a nervous chuckle as I study her expression. Is she fucking with me here?
“I did. Last night. I do for everyone I meet online.” She’s looking at me now, her eyes unyielding. “Usually, I don’t find as much as I did with you.”
“Do you meet a lot of people online?” I ask, trying to veer the conversation away from wherever the hell it’s heading.
