Fowl Play (Tuft Swallow)

21. Kodi

CHAPTER 21

By the time 5:00 rolls around, I am a walking corpse. My back is sore from leaning forward in my cheap-ass office chair reading through patient paperwork all day. Usually, I don’t mind picking up the slack around the clinic, but today, the fact that Dr. Cratchet is too much of a cheapskate to allow the board to hire nurses to handle all of this crap weighs a lot heavier than usual. Especially when all I want to do is go home, take a hot bath, and work out some of the tension in my shoulders.

Maybe some other tension, too…

I clock out and grab my bag, blowing out a breath as I comb through my text messages.

Lily

Hey girl. Are we still down for cosmos at the Crowbar tonight?

Right. Girls’ night.

To be honest, after the weird guilt-trip Lily tried to send me on after practice and her frosty attitude at the game last weekend, I’m not so sure I’m ready to be all buddy-buddy over drinks with her and Callie.

She seems convinced that I don’t know the difference between softball and cornhole, which couldn’t be more wrong. I know that nothing will ever be the same as softball. That ship sailed a long time ago.

Or, at least, I assumed it did. Now with Brian in the mix, and my knee feeling almost healthy half the time, maybe I’d still have a chance to play…somewhere.

Speaking of Brian, there’s an apology text from him explaining that he’d had to deal with an emergency at the fighting gym, asking for a raincheck on our pizza date.

That’s what he called it. A date.

A whole new wave of anxiety runs through me at that. I mean, sure, we’re pretending to be dating; that was kind of the whole point of our arrangement. But that’s only in front of other people. When it’s just the two of us, like on our text chain, it’s supposed to be like it’s always been. Friendly, but professional.

Except when he’s jumping on my prone body as he steps out of the shower–

NOPE! No. Nō. Bad Kodi. Bad Kodi!

A long time ago in my high school biochem class, there was a lecture about memory, and how the more you try to remember something that happened to you in real life, the more your brain replaces the real memory with your last recalling of the memory.

At this point, I’ve replayed that scene so often in my brain that it no longer feels real, like the innocent mistake that it was.

Now, I remember it as some Cinemax fantasy version of what actually happened. With Brian’s dripping chest, his hair falling in thick pieces across his forehead and dripping onto my shirt, making my nipples pop against the white fabric of my blouse as he slowly lowers his head to mine–

BAD Kodi! BAD!

Okay, self, refocus on the actual task at hand before my ovaries turn on and hotwire my nervous system. Again.

Brian wants to raincheck. Cool. That’s good. That gives me more time to cool off a bit. More time to forget the memory–both actual AND fantasy–of seeing his penis. And abs. And muscly arms. And toned thighs…

Me

No worries. Some other time than

Cool. Casual. Not even gonna correct that typo I made.

*then.

Old habits die hard.

By the time I close the door to the clinic and lock it behind me, Lily’s sent another text, saying she and Callie snagged our usual table at the bar. By the time I get to my car, she sends me a picture of my go-to drink order, a gin and tonic with extra lime.

Lily

Order up, sugartits!

Goddammit.

Ten minutes later, I’m walking into the bar, having left my Subaru on Oak Street outside of the clinic. There’s no point in driving the block and a half to the bar, only to drive the rest of the two blocks back to my place. The only reason I even took the damn car to work in the first place was because it was pouring this morning, and I didn’t want to fight with an umbrella and wet shoes all day.

Luckily, the puddles have mostly dried up in the hot afternoon sun, and I’m totally dry as I push open the door to the Crowbar to drink with my gal pals.

“Kodi!” Callie’s already tipsy as she waves at me with her cosmo. “Over here!”

Lily greets me with a cautious smile, as if she wasn’t quite sure I’d actually show up. I avoid holding eye contact with her for more than a second or so when I plaster a smile on my face in return.

“Thanks for the G&T.” I take the remaining seat and cheers with them.

“Don’t mention it,” Lily responds politely.

An awkward thirty seconds follow.

“Soooo…” Callie finally breaks the silence, stirring the remaining ounce of her fluorescent pink drink with her cherry on its stick. “How are things with Brian?”

“Ooo, yes. We need deets.” Lily leans in, eagerly jumping on the change in subject.

“What deets? You know the deal with us.”

“Deal?” Callie blinks. Lily gives her a look and twirls her finger, waiting for Callie to catch on. “OH! You mean the Chiropractor Trap.”

“You’re calling it that now, too?” I roll my eyes. “Jesus, you two, that’s not even remotely a fake-relationship trope.”

“Shhhhh keep your voice down!” Lily hisses. “No one’s supposed to know!”

“It’s so exciting,” Callie giggles, “nothing like this ever happened in the other places I lived.”

“Not that you know of,” Lily says.

“Good point.” Callie pops one of the cherries in her mouth as she considers that.

“Nothing’s happened. I haven’t even seen him since Wednesday.”

“What? Why?”

I squeeze the three tiny lime wedges into my glass, then stir the pale green pulp deeper into the bubbles. Lily taps her fingers on the table. “Hello, Kodi? Why not?”

This is exactly the reason I didn’t want to go to girls’ night. I knew these two would grill me about something. And it’s really only a matter of time before I end up caving and spilling everything. Lily’s persistent like that. They should hire her at Guantanamo.

“Our last appointment was a little… awkward. I don’t know. I just think maybe we should keep things professional unless we’re out in public or something.”

“Well, when’s the next time you’re going out in public?” Callie asks, tilting her head. I take a breath to answer, then pause, and Lily jumps on my hesitation.

“Before you answer that, back up a hair. I want to hear more about that awkward appointment. What, exactly, was awkward about it? Did he smell bad? Was he wearing a sweater vest?”

“Oooo, that would be awkward,” Callie agrees.

“It’s more what he wasn’t wearing,” I mutter, and then realize my mistake.

“WHAT?” Lily shrieks. The whole bar turns to look at her, and she yells at Charlene, “Um, we need another round here! This just got juicy.”

She leans in toward me, and I swear my face catches fire. I’m mortified. I didn’t even mean to say that out loud, and now the whole bar is listening in to our conversation.

“Uhhh, no, I didn’t mean–”

“I hear there’s juice? That means gin.” Charlene plops another gin and tonic down in front of me, as well as two more cosmos for the girls. That was fast. Then she even leans down and puts her elbows on the table. “Is this about the new hot chiropractor? You’re seeing him, right?”

Is it possible to spontaneously combust from embarrassment?

“Uh, yeah, but you know. It’s still early. We just–”

“He’s totally swept her off her feet! Did you see them kissing at the match? My God. Talk about swoon-worthy.” Now Callie’s fanning herself, and I swear the elderly happy hour regulars are about to fall off their chairs from leaning in our direction. I’m beginning to hear the buzz of their hearing aids getting turned up.

“Guys, chill out, okay, it’s private stuff–”

“What’s private stuff?”

A whoosh of cool air rushes past my face as the group around the table collectively straightens, opening up my peripheral vision to reveal Brian.

Once again popping up behind me at the Crowbar on girls’ night and pulling up a chair.

“What did I miss?”

As I’m washing my hands in the bathroom, Lily crashes into the swinging door like a wrecking ball.

“Spill. Quick. Before someone thinks you’re pooping.”

“Lil, seriously, nothing–”

“Cut the shit, Gander, and tell your best friend what you saw. You can mime it if you want. Was it this general area…?” She moves her hands in circles around her pelvis.

I wince. Don’t think about Brian’s penis, don’t think about Brian’s penis…

“Why does Kodi have penis face?” Callie asks, also barreling into the bathroom.

“Can a woman shit in piece? Jesus!” I cover my face with my still wet hands, then push my hair back. “Did you say penis face?”

“Oh my God you saw his penis??” Lily’s voice raises three octaves in the last four syllables of her sentence.

“Oh God I’m gonna puke,” I mutter, darting back into the stall.

“Do you want me to tell Brian you’re sick?” Callie offers from behind the metal Hiney Hider. I shove down the toilet seat lid and sit down, burying my face in my hands.

“Yes.”

“No.” I can see Lily’s feet part in her defiant hands-on-hips stance under the stall door. “She’s faking it.”

“I’m not,” I lie.

“You’re just trying to get out of telling us, your best friends, that you saw your first penis and can’t stop thinking about it.”

Maybe if I just don’t say anything, the two of them will go away. Should I fake puking noises? I bet I’ll actually make myself sick if I pretend I’m barfing.

This isn’t exactly the cleanest bathroom in town after all, and I’d have to breathe pretty deep to make it sound convincing.

“Yeah, I’m gonna tell Brian you dropped your phone in the toilet.” I hear Callie’s footsteps retreat. A second passes, and then there’s a thunk as Lily leans her shoulder against the stall.

“Kodi?” She asks, this time in a quieter tone. One I haven’t heard her use in a long time, actually.

“Yeah?”

“Why don’t you trust me anymore?”

I’m not sure if it’s the way she says it, or the words themselves that take me completely off-guard. But I don’t respond right away.

I do trust her.

Don’t I?

“I–”

“Don’t lie to me again,” she whispers. “Ever since you graduated and started working at the clinic, moved out of your parents’ place…you stopped telling me about your life. Your feelings.

“I tell you everything. I try to be your friend. But sometimes, it feels like you won’t let me.”

“Lily…”

“I know something’s going on with you being team captain. I know it’s gotta be bringing up memories for you, and how Coach Blevins abused you and put all that pressure on you–”

“What?” I slam open the stall door, and Lily jumps back. “What do you mean abused me?”

“He was awful to you, Kodi. He convinced you that you only had worth if you pitched a perfect game. He made you practice for hours–hours–after we’d all left and gone home. Your dad used to tell me to make sure you ate lunch everyday because you’d skip dinner and head straight to bed when you got home at night.”

“Dad did what?”

“We all just want to be there for you, Kodi. I frickin’ love you. You’re my best friend, but you won’t let me be yours.”

I stare at her, gobsmacked, for a long moment. Long enough that Callie comes back in, looking like she has something to say, but I hardly even notice.

I won’t let her?

“Hey Kodi, Brian says he hopes you feel better and he’ll touch base with you tomorrow. And good luck with your phone. Also, Charlene says she doesn’t have rice but has some panko in the back if you want to try to dry it out.” I finally snap out of my stare and wave to Callie in recognition.

“Right, thanks.”

Callie looks between the two of us, and hisses out a breath. “I, uh, I’ll settle up at the bar and let you two wrap up in here. See you tomorrow at practice?”

I nod dumbly, and Lily thanks her.

Then it’s just me and Lily again. She scuffs her toe against the tile floor.

“I used to think that maybe you really were gay, like everyone said, and maybe that was why you didn’t want to talk to me about guy stuff. That maybe if I just gave you enough time, just let you process and come out in your own way, you’d realize that you could talk to me about it. When that didn’t work, I made that whole big deal about Brian being bi to try to get you to admit it out of anger, but then I saw the way you two looked at each other at the match and I realized that it wasn’t that at all. You like guys just fine, Kodi. In fact, you like one in particular so much, that you’re manufacturing a fake relationship with him just so you have an excuse to spend time with him.”

That wakes me up. “That’s not what I’m doing!”

“Oh, please. It’s absolutely what you’re doing.” She rolls her eyes, and the look is so quintessentially Lily that it brings an involuntary smile to my face. I cough out a half-laugh, and Lily’s lips tilt up in a shy grin. “Hey. There you are. So what’s actually going on with you? Can we like, talk about it for real? Like actual friends? For once?”

As I look into her eyes, it’s like I’m seeing her for the first time again. All of a sudden, we’re back on the playground in first grade and Lily’s busting some kid’s balls for stealing our kickball when I threw it out of bounds. Back when we’d hide out in the jungle gym for hours and talk about everything, and nothing at all. Then later, in high school, when we’d hike to the lake and she’d wax poetic about her future wedding while I talked about my dreams of going to the Olympics.

She’s right here. She’s been here the whole time.

I’m feeling so many things that I don’t understand right now, and you know what?

I could really use a friend to talk to about it.

“Yeah, actually,” I sniff. When did I start crying? “I’d like that.”

Two hours and three pints of Ben and Jerry’s later, I’ve caught up Lily on the entirety of mine and Brian’s fake relationship. We’re in my Subaru at the Plume n’ Zoom, totally wearing out the battery listening to the same driving mix CD that’s been in the car stereo since I bought it in 2018 on repeat.

“Oh my gosh, so he literally was trying to save you from hurting your knee again, and the towel just flew off??”

A couple flecks of chocolate ice cream and marshmallow fluff fly out and hit my cheek as she talks around a mouthful of Phish Food. I laugh at myself and wipe it away.

“No, no, that’s the most ridiculous part, it didn’t fly off until he was already beside me and I was panicking so hard that I was like, kicking him off of me, and the corner of it caught under my hip and then, shwoop!” I mime an avalanche with my hands. “There goes the towel. Full view of the goods.”

“Was it nice?” She waggles her eyebrows.

“Oh man, Lily, I don’t know!” I groan, shoving a spoonful of The Late Dough in my mouth. “I don’ havv a-nee-fing to com’pair it ‘oo.”

“Okay, okay, I’m gonna start spreading my hands apart, and you stop me when I get to the right size, okay?” She holds her hands in front of her like she’s praying, and then slowly separates them.

One inches. Two. Three. Four…

“Oh my God, Kodi, was he like, hard when this was happening, or–”

I shake my head. Her face pales.

“Jesus.” She looks down at her hands, now almost half a foot apart. “And this is flaccid??”

“I mean, that I remember? I was also in full panic mode, like, literally convulsing and trying not to look, but as far as I remember…”

Not that I can trust my memory of that moment anymore. Pretty sure there wasn’t Usher’s Love in this Club playing in the background or any candles burning in wall sconces, despite me picturing them in my mind now whenever I bring it up.

She shakes her head, and we both chew another few spoonfuls in quiet reflection.

“Well,” she finally says, smacking her lips. “You know what you gotta do, right?”

“What?”

Her eyes flash, and my stomach drops. “You gotta sleep with him.”

“No way.” I dig another heaping spoon of ice cream out of the carton. “Not gonna happen.”

“You’re never gonna stop thinking about it if you don’t.”

“I’ve lasted this long without sex,” I argue. “Clearly it’s not that big a deal, or I would have imploded by now or something.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t want sex before. Now you want it. Bad.”

I chew for a minute, letting out a sigh through my nose. “No, Lily. He still likes his ex. It’s not gonna happen.”

“He only still likes his ex because he doesn’t realize you’re interested yet. Trust me, Kodi. The way he looked at you?” She whistles. “He’s gonna fall for you hard. If he hasn’t already.”

I chew on the ends of my plastic spoon. “I don’t know, Lily… that’s not what this is about. We have a deal. I don’t want to fuck that up just because I’m… horny.”

She gives me a hard look, as if she’s about to disagree. But then a moment passes, and her eyes soften. She pops in another spoonful of The Late Dough and then gesticulates with her spoon.

“Well then, just fuck him to get it out of your system! I mean, come on. Once you ride his giant dick and realize the sex is just fine and he’s totally mediocre at it, you’ll buy yourself a vibrator and it’ll be back to Operation: Win Back Zeke.”

“Or I could just use the vibrator I have.”

“Text him tonight. Tell him you’ll meet him tomorrow after practice for a late-night nerd session. Then seduce him.”

I chuckle, the picture of me attempting to seduce anybody too ridiculous to ignore. “I’m gonna be exhausted after practice.”

“Not if you end it on time for once,” she says pointedly. I sigh. She doesn’t relent. “Which brings me to–”

“Can we not talk about that tonight?” I place my pint on the dashboard and meet her eyes. She raises her eyebrow at me, giving me a look that says, are we really going back to not talking again? “Not because I’m hiding it from you, I swear. I just… I…”

I don’t know how to process what you said earlier.

I don’t think I was abused by Coach Blevins.

Was I?

“I can’t open that can of worms right now. There’s too much going on,” I finish lamely.

Lily narrows her eyes and assesses me for a second, but whatever she sees seems to satisfy her. She nods once, and puts the lid back onto her carton. “Okay. We’ll table it for now. But you’re seeing him tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

“And you’re gonna tell me all about it.”

“You got it.”

“As soon as he pulls out.”

“Lily!” I smack her with my spoon. She winks at me and opens the passenger door, tossing the unfinished pint in the front seat.

“I’m walking home. I’ll text you in the morning.”

“The Doc doesn’t like tex–”

“I know, I know, I won’t file a missing persons report if I don’t hear back until after lunch.”

She leans down into the wedge of space in the open door and catches my eye. We share a smile.

“Thanks, Lily. And…I’m sorry.”

There’s so much more in those two little words than their syllables can contain. My throat catches as I try to say more, try to figure out how I can explain how my whole life felt like it ended at eighteen, and I didn’t think anyone could understand what I was going through. How I’d been so isolated from the late night practices, and the scholarship rescindment letters, and the antidepressants, that I couldn’t even bring myself to get out of bed until she’d shown up at my bedroom door with DVDs and Doritos. And then when I did finally get my act together, I was terrified that if I confessed to anybody the thoughts that had been running through my mind on any given day…

She waves it all away with a flick of her wrist.

“I know. And you’re welcome.”