40. She, Green Day
"She," Green Day
Cruz
“You should have seen his face,” she said as I merged her car onto the parkway, marking our unofficial departure from the Hamptons.
“Honestly, baby, I never want to see that smarmy asshole again. I’ll befriend Alex if it means you’re done with Spencer.”
“God, that feels good,” she said as her shoulders relaxed. “I’m done with Spencer.”
Pretty sure most people wouldn’t consider ‘my ex is still living in my childhood home that his new wife destroyed’ as being ‘done with,’ but if she could walk away without looking back, I wasn’t going to tell her otherwise.
It had been surprisingly easy to escape. The valet knew my poor ass didn’t belong in her Audi S8 but begrudgingly helped me load all her suitcases. When Victoria emerged like a goddamn queen with her giant sunglasses and a luxury purse dangling over her forearm, he opened her passenger door without a word as I slid behind the wheel. This car was a dream to drive, I couldn’t wait to get on the highway upstate to open her up.
But first, I would take care of my girl.
My girl . Still wondering when she’d come to her senses on that.
I pulled into a gas station, encouraging her to change into something more comfortable. She rummaged in the trunk and emerged in jeans and a Stanford hoodie.
“I’ll call management on Monday,” she said as she slid back into the passenger seat. “I checked the condo bylaws, and there’s no rule against a relationship between a super and a tenant as long as there’s no preferential treatment. So as long as we disclose that we’re together, we’re in the clear.”
I pulled onto the highway, still a little surprised that she was so serious about a relationship with me. But I kept my mouth closed to prevent myself from talking her out of it. I wasn’t gonna look a gift cobra in the mouth.
The dashboard lit up with a phone call from her dad. After a brief hesitation, she declined then tucked the phone into the cupholder and dropped her temple onto the window.
I knew the perfect song to lift her spirits.
“Play the playlist called Paperclip,” I asked Siri. When her brow lifted, I explained: “People Against People Ever Re-enlisting: Civilian Life is Preferred.”
“Quite an acronym.”
“Wish I could take credit for it. Sort of like NAVY: Never Again Volunteer Yourself,” I said. “I listened to this playlist on patrol, tired of being told what to do.”
“You don’t mind when I tell you what to do.”
“That’s different, my commanding officers didn’t reward me with pussy,” I smirked.
I skipped past Rage Against the Machine, the Sex Pistols, the Clash, Joan Jett, and landed on the first song that Pike taught me on guitar on the sub. He’d been attempting to settle a debate about whether guitar or drums was more of a pussy magnet. While I still believed it was drums, I’d learned guitar as a back-up plan. And that reminded me, I should bring Victoria to the next Your Local Phantom show—Stacy hadn’t been wrong about her taking me home when she saw me play last week.
“Green Day songs, go.”
“Ohhhhh, God, you’re gonna destroy me on this one,” she moaned, tilting her head back to stare at the ceiling. “That one about Buddy Holly?”
“I've won already! That’s Weezer,” I said, steering with my knees so I could throw my hands in the air while she pretended to be disappointed.
“This is ‘She,’ my favorite Green Day song,” I explained, as I queued up the song that describes a woman who screams in silence—and nobody embodied that better than Victoria. “Billie Joel Armstrong’s feminist girlfriend explained how historically women haven’t been allowed to speak their minds. He wrote this to tell her he was willing to listen and learn.”
The familiar bass line echoed through the car’s luxury speakers. I drummed along on the steering wheel, singing about a woman locked up by other people’s expectations, holding a brick of self-control.
When Victoria’s tentative smile emerged, I reached across the console to use her thigh as my ride cymbal, promising that whenever she was ready to scream, I would listen until my ears bled.
By the second chorus, Victoria’s fingers drummed along her other leg. When I finished the final line and tried to lift my hand, she gripped it to keep it on her thigh.
Right, she would want her boyfriend to touch her legs, I guess. I caressed the denim, fingernails scraping along the inseam, and thought about heading north between her thighs … until she stifled a yawn.
“Why don’t you close your eyes? It’s five hours to Saratoga.” I squeezed her leg. “What’s the point of having a boyfriend if you can’t wear comfy clothes and trust him to drive your exhausted ass home?”
When she closed her eyes, I was disappointed that she didn’t explain the point of having a boyfriend. I honestly didn’t know. I’d never had a girlfriend before, let alone the most beautiful and smartest woman I’d ever met.
Way to ease in, Cruz.
I merged her Audi onto the Long Island Expressway, picking up speed as the view out the windshield changed from tree-lined estates and sprawling vineyards to strip malls and car dealerships.
When she asked to be more than friends, I thought she meant sex. Friends with benefits. But her eyes had been so full of yearning that it had blown me away … and scared the shit out of me.
I considered telling her no. She was a princess from the highest echelon of New York. At best I was her willing sex toy. She should be with someone who understood her world, a guy with perfect hair and chinos and a bank balance that could afford more than Chipotle.
I’d wanted to explain that to her, but her family spent the whole weekend condescendingly treating her like she didn’t know her own mind. How could I treat her the same way? True, her request was deeply misguided … but I was her mistake to make.
Plus: I was selfish as shit. She didn’t belong with me, but she sure as hell deserved better than a douche canoe like Spencer. Looking into her pleading eyes, I couldn’t say no to her. For some lapse of judgment, she wanted me, and I would ride the wave as long as she’d keep me.
Say yes and figure it out later, I always said. And being Victoria Blackstone’s boyfriend was the opportunity of a lifetime.
I tapped a rhythm on the steering wheel, her Audi zipping between minivans navigating the suburbs and the Teslas commuting back to the City and I recognized familiar personal injury attorneys on billboards and graffiti tags on overpasses. She shifted on the leather seat and I turned down the volume, leaving Green Day’s album playing a song about finding paradise in the slums.
Someday, probably soon, she would be swept away by somebody who preferred those slick skyscrapers to these corner bodegas, and she would leave me for him without looking back. I could feel the clock ticking.
While I had her, I’d show her how she deserved to be treated: like a goddamn queen, bowing to nobody. I would fucking worship her so that when she left me—and she would inevitably leave me—she’d demand better.
She looked so peaceful, expecting to wake up at our building upstate.
Boy, was she going to be surprised when I woke her up and we were still 200 miles from Saratoga.