Something Real

by Jessica Roe

  “In English?”

  Making a show of swallowing, she sticks out her tongue. “I said what's up? You didn't tell me you were stopping by. I would have tried to be less naked.”

  “Oh.” I pull a face. “I saw Adrian again today.”

  “Stalk much? Someone needs to punch that guy in the junk in a serious way.”

  Blair had never been a big fan of Adrian, though the feeling had been mutual. I guess he'd kind of looked down on her, and in return she'd let him know how much of a pompous ass he was whenever she could.

  “Well I think he's done with me now. For good.”

  “Awesome. He was a douche.”

  “I know,” I sigh. “But he was just so pretty.”

  “Aw, Jem, you're so lame.”

  “Shut up. You're so lame!” We can get a little childish with each other sometimes, like the fact that we missed out on each others childhoods mean we have to make up for lost time. She lived with her mom, and it wasn't until her mom died when Blair was seventeen that she came to live our dad and us.

  “There's something else,” she observes, pushing back her long dark hair and tucking the silver stripe behind her ear. When she first came to live with our family she had all these different colors in her hair. I didn't like it but it was her style, so I was totally confused when she got rid of them after our high school graduation in favor of one silver stripe. But then a week later she and Silver announced their relationship and it all made sense. It's cute. “You're picking your muffin to pieces. Also, you chose chocolate chip. You never eat chocolate unless something's up.”

  Sometimes it's annoying how well she knows me. “There was this guy,” I admit with a huff, looking down at my destroyed muffin. Because the truth is, I haven't been able to stop thinking about Reid and his perfect butt and his completely kissable lips since I left him earlier. “I met him today.”

  “And?”

  “I kissed him.”

  I chance a peek up to find her grinning at me. “Oh yeah? What kind of kiss? Chaste and sweet or dirty dirty?”

  “Just a peck on the lips! God, what kind of a tramp do you think I am?” She raises an eyebrow at me and I wince. “Oops, my bad.”

  The very day Blair first met Silver there was some epic vibes between them and they ended up getting hot and heavy in his Jeep. They never thought they'd see one another again, so I guess it was a surprise for them when they found out that not only were they neighbors, but Blair was the younger, long lost sister of Silver's best friend. Oh yeah, and he was her high school history teacher. What a bummer.

  She rolls her eyes, which is her way of brushing it off. She knows me and my big mouth and besides, Blair has never been the kind of girl to hold a grudge. “So tell me more about this guy.”

  “Ahh...” I try and think of the best way to describe Reid without sounding like an adoring fan girl. “Think Jesse Metcalfe with Jensen Ackles' jaw and Ian Somerhalder's sinful sexiness. With tattoos.” Adoring fan girl – check.

  “Tattoos?”

  “And piercings.”

  I can tell she's surprised and I don't blame her. I just described the complete opposite of every guy I've ever dated. “Sounds hot.”

  “So hot.”

  “Where exactly did you meet him?”

  So I tell her all about running from Adrian like a chicken and ending up in the tattoo shop, about Reid keeping my cover, about kissing him and dashing away.

  Blair watches me talk with rapt attention, her mouth hanging open and her long forgotten cronut held limply in her hand. “And he said you'll be back?”

  “Yup. Totally arrogant, right?” And not at all sexy. No sirree. Not sexy at all.

  Le sigh.

  “Jem, you have to go back.”

  “Ha ha.”

  “For real. He sounds like he'd be great for you – because you sure as hell need to change your idea of what you think the perfect guy for you is.”

  “Be serious, Blair. I'm not going back there. He'll get ideas.”

  “Good. Naughty ideas are fun.” She grins to herself, and I know she's thinking something dirty about Silver. She just has that look on her face. “Anyway, you said he was gorgeous. You should definitely get some of that.”

  “He's just. . .not my type.”

  “That's the point. Your type is stupid. That's how you end up with douchey losers like Adrian.”

  “Blair!”

  “You know I'm right. You have this rigid idea of what your future is gonna be and it stops you from taking chances. You can't only date future doctors or. . .business men or whatever it is you think you want.”

  “Lawyers,” I interject in a small voice. I hate when she talks sense.

  “You can't plan your life out like that. Things happen. Life happens. I mean, do you think I planned on falling in love with a total dork?”

  “Hey!” Silver calls from their bedroom, though he doesn't really sound pissed. “I heard that!”

  “You know I love your dorky ass!” she yells back with a smile on her face. And then to me she says, “Though I gotta admit, anything is better than Vic the dick.”

  I grimace as I remember my on again/off again high school hook up. His dad had been a real jerk and it had kind of messed him up; in our final year of high school he'd started playing around with drugs and had become a major ass. “He was troubled,” I defend, though I don't really know why I bother.

  “He was a sleaze.”

  That much is true. For the longest time I'd thought I could change him, had thought he cared about me so much that he'd at least try. And I think he almost did, in a way. We'd grown up together after all, we had history. He just didn't care enough. After I found out he'd tried to hook up with Blair while I'd been laying in a hospital bed after drinking too much at a party one night, our on again/off again switched permanently to off. “I heard he's in rehab now.”

  “Really?”

  “Yuh huh. I was speaking to Imelda on the phone the other day. Their parents are close.”

  Blair digests this for a moment, then she throws the rest of her cronut at me. “Off topic!”

  “Stop attacking me with delicious fried dough!”

  She picks up a blueberry muffin and peels it out of its case. “Promise you'll at least go back and see tattoo guy again. Just to say hey.”

  “No way. I told you, he's not my type. And I know when you say 'just to say hey' you mean 'jump his bones'. I couldn't date him.”

  Sighing, she picks a blueberry out of the muffin and pops it in her mouth. “You're so predictable.”

  “Hey!” I'm oddly offended by this. “Am not!”

  Before she can retort, Silver finally ambles out of their bedroom, bare foot, in a pair of worn jeans and a gray hoodie. “Hey, Jem. I was just. . .” He blinks. “uh. . .changing out of my work clothes.”

  Sometimes I really have no clue how he and Blair managed to hide their feelings from us all for so long. He is the worst liar. “Nice sex hair,” I drawl.

  He blushes and rushes to pat down the curls that are sticking up all over the place while Blair laughs at him. He gets way more embarrassed about things than she does. But then, Blair doesn't really have a shame filter. It's one of the reasons I love her so much.

  “Babe, what are you eating? Don't forget we're going out for dinner toni. . . Heeey, muffin!” He comes up behind Blair and wraps an arm around her waist, placing a sweet kiss on her neck before stealing the muffin out of her hand and shoving the whole thing in his mouth.

  “Pig,” she accuses affectionately.

  I can't help but smile as I watch them. The love they share is so special, the kind of thing secretly romantic girls like me dream of having. Each touch between them is casual, almost an afterthought, but so passionate and loving. Like the possessive way he splays a hand across her tiny waist, or the way she rests her head in the crook of his neck like there's no safer place in the whole world.

  Looking at them now, you'd never be able to tell the kind of
hardships they had to overcome to finally be together.

  I remember the day they walked in to our house, hand in hand, and announced they were in love. My family hit the roof in a serious way. None of us saw it coming. I mean, it was Blair – tough, bad ass Blair – and our long time family friend and nerdy history teacher, Silver (though I'd still been calling him Keegan back then, before Blair got me into the habit of calling him Silver – the nickname she'd given him). I guess I'd always known he was kind of a babe, but he'd been around forever and had always been just another big brother to me. It had never occurred to me that it wasn't the same for Blair.

  Back then I'd thought I'd never, ever get used to seeing them together, but now it doesn't feel weird at all. Most of the time.

  My cell beeps with an incoming text. I already know it's my room mate, Dahlia, reminding me that I promised we'd go out dancing tonight. I check my pocket watch and realize I'm running late.

  “Gotta go,” I tell them, hopping off my stool and shouldering my purse. “Oh, Mom wanted me to remind you that you still have to come home for Thanksgiving this year even though you've got your own place now.”

  Blair snorts at that, like the idea of not going home for the holiday is unthinkable. I get her point – neither she nor Silver are exactly Paula Deen in the kitchen.

  “I haven't missed Felicia's Thanksgiving since I was four years old,” Silver says with a grin. He mindlessly twirls the silver stripe in Blair's hair around his finger. “and I sure don't plan on starting now.”

  “Totally,” Blair agrees. “But it's only September. Kind of jumping the gun, isn't she?”

  “You know what Mom's like.”

  “'Kay. I'll tell her we wouldn't dare miss it the next time she calls to remind me how to do laundry.”

  We both chuckle affectionately. Mom is a chronic worrier. Even though we're both in our second year of college she still thinks we'll forget how to survive if she doesn't call to check up on us every other day. She forgets that Blair practically raised herself when her mom would disappear on drug binges for days at a time. But Blair doesn't mind – I think she likes having someone worry over her.

  When I leave, Silver is whispering something in Blair's ear that's making her both blush and smile widely.

  Sex animals.

  Dahlia is half naked when I get back to dour dorm room, clad only in a pair of tight black leather pants and a lacy purple bra. She holds two tops up to me when I enter, and without even saying hey, asks, “Which one should I wear tonight? Wait, let me clarify. Which one makes my boobs look better?”

  Most people think Dahlia is rude. I know better. I mean, she is rude, but it's just because she's larger than life, the kind of person who walks into a room and turns it into a party with only a hoot and a shimmie. When we were first put together as room mates last year I was sure we would clash and wouldn't get along; she was so in your face and wild and opinionated. But she grew on me and now I couldn't imagine a life without her, because I discovered that not only is she a dramatic party girl, but she's smart and fiercely loyal and one of the best friends I've ever had.

  “Hmm.” I cock my head as I debate. “They're both mine, so neither.”

  She waves my comment away, knowing not to take me seriously. We share everything, like sisters. In fact, I'm almost as close to her as I am to Blair. “Seriously? I'm getting me some action tonight which means the girls are coming out to play.”

  “The dark blue one.”

  She throws the other on the back of the desk chair and shimmies into the top, turning to check herself out in the mirror. She smirks at me in the reflection as I flop down onto my bed. “I look hot, right?”

  “To trot,” I agree.

  The reason Dahlia gets away with being so bold and rudely spoken is that she's a babe of epic proportions. Tall, with a sexy, voluptuous body that I would kill for, she has flawless skin the color of dark honey and waves of dark, wild hair all the way down to her waist. I'd be jealous of her model like features if I didn't love her so much. The weird guy who works at our nearest Starbucks calls her a beautiful, exotic siren. She lets him, but only because she loves to be complimented and he gives her free coffee. He has no idea that he hasn't got a chance in hell – he's definitely not her type.

  “Where are we going, anyway?” I ask.

  “A new bar opened up a couple blocks away,” she tells me, craning her head to check out her butt in the mirror. “The girl working behind the bar is delicious. She thinks she's straight, but I'm totally taking that ass home tonight.”

  Sometimes Dahlia reminds me of a guy. She has a different girl every week, and she never, ever calls them back, despite them all being half in love with her after just one night. She's kind of like the lesbian version of my commitment phobic older brother, Nash.

  “I hope you mean her home,” I warn. “I'm not sleeping on Blair's sofa again.”

  “You could always stay and watch,” she teases, and I flip her the bird in response. “Or you could go find that tattooed hottie and take him home.”

  My mouth drops open and I sit up in shock. “How the heck do you know about. . . Oh, you spoke to Blair. I'm gonna kill her, she's such a blabbermouth.”

  “Yep.” Dahlia plugs in our curling iron and sits down cross legged on her bed to wait for it to heat. “She said you got your lady loins all in a twist over some juicy piece of man meat but you won't go back and see him so he can put his sausage in your hot dog roll. You being prissy again?”

  “Okay, that was just gross. Blair did not say that.”

  “I'm summarizing. She told me to change your mind.”

  “Won't work,” I say, forcing my voice to be light and airy as I hop off my bed and go to my closet, trying to figure out what to wear. “He's not my type.”

  “She said you'd say that.”

  “Well it's true.”

  “Blair and I are in agreement – your type is lame. Especially when it comes in the form of gross little white boys like Adrian. I bet his dick was all tiny and shriveled.”

  “Dahlia!”

  “Ha, you're not denying it.”

  Ignoring her, I pull out a black, off the shoulder mini and hold it up against myself, frowning. “Do you think I'm predictable?” I ask, partly to change the subject and party because it's been playing on my mind ever since Blair said it.

  “Aw, honey.” She sets the curling tong down and reaches over to give me a one armed hug. “Totally.”

  “I'm not,” I protest, pouting. “I can be spontaneous.”

  “Uh huh. Aside from today – yeah, Blair told me all about the smoochies – give me one time in this last year you've done something out of character.”

  I sigh and curl a strand of my highlighted hair around my little finger. “Shut up.”

  She kisses my cheek affectionately, helping herself to a pair of my shoes before going back to her bed to do her hair. “Yup. Predictable.”

  Predictable.

  Ha!

  That awful, ridiculous word replays over and over in my mind again during the next week, nagging at me, eating away at my mind. It's annoying because with all my classes and studying, I don't have the frakking space in my brain for extra niggling thoughts!

  Blair isn't right, is she? And neither is Dahlia. Dahlia is never right. Except for that time she talked me out of getting bangs. That was definitely the right call.

  Predictable.

  Ugh.

  Am I predictable? I mean, sure I like things to be a certain way and it annoys me when Dahlia moves stuff in our dorm room. And I guess I have a certain image which I stick rigidly to – it's called having style. And maybe my boyfriends do all tend to be one specific type of guy. And who cares if I have my life planned out to the tiniest little detail?

  Oh God, I'm predictable. A predictably well dressed, hot ball of boring. I'm like the opposite of the sun. Is that even a thing? Maybe a. . .black hole?

  I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M A BLACK HOLE!

  This is awful
in the worst way.

  I hate this new self discovery. I hate that I'm so closed off to change. What I really want is to be more like Blair – wild and playful and free. Or even Dahlia – crazy and devious and bigger than life.

  It's time I shook things up.

  And I know just how to do it.

  “I want a tattoo,” I tell the man behind the counter in my most confident, no nonsense voice. Not gonna lie, I'm totally channeling my mom. Except she would kill me if she knew where I was right now.

  The man raises an eyebrow, like duh-you're-in-a-tattoo-shop-what-else-would-you-want-go-back-to-school-jackass. Or maybe I'm reading too much into it. “Okay.”

  It's not Reid this time and I try to quell that super inconvenient disappointment because I'm not here for him. No sirree. I'm here for a tattoo and that's it. And the reason I came back here to Reid's tattoo shop and not one of the many others in the city is because. . .

  Well, I haven't quite come up with an excuse for that yet, not even in my head.

  Blair is right, I am lame.

  Because not only have I been consumed with that word, I've also been consumed by him. Reid. A guy I only met for ten minutes.

  “What kind of art are you thinking? Do you have something specific in mind or do you want to take a look through some folders of previous work and other ideas to get inspiration?” This man is older than Reid, maybe in his thirties. He has on a plaid shirt with the sleeves ripped off and tattoos cover almost every inch of his visible skin, even crawling up his neck. He should probably be scary but he gives off a friendly vibe. Perhaps it's his warm eyes or the way he keeps running a hand through his floppy brown hair in a manner that reminds me a little of my older brother, Zac.

  I bite my lip as I think his question through. “Uhm. . .nothing specific in mind yet.” It's possible I didn't quite think this plan through.

  “That's okay,” he says with a smile. “Why don't you take a look through the folders, get ideas. Then you can take some time to think it over and decide.” He looks at me knowingly. “Getting a tattoo isn't something you should rush into – they're pretty much for life, you know? A tattoo should mean something to you. It's a form of expression, an extension of your soul.”