FLIRTY LATE GUY, MISSING HIS FERRY ON PURPOSE
2
Prudence : I will be late.
Prudence : A hot grumpy guy asked me out for a drink before his ferry leaves for Seattle.
Prudence : Is the Poke place doing deliveries?
Prudence : If not, I can cancel, don’t worry.
Jack : Don’t you dare.
Jack : I’ll order a pizza.
Jack : What does hot grumpy guy look like?
Prudence : Hot.
Prudence : I drew him. I’ll show you when I get home.
Jack : I need spicy content for my next book.
Prudence : I didn’t say I was going to sleep with him, Jack.
Jack : You didn’t say you weren’t either.
Jack : I’ll order two pizzas. You can eat yours tonight when you come back. Or tomorrow.
PRUDENCE
Maybe I’m completely stupid and someday I’ll end up on the news. They would find my body after I’d been missing for twenty four hours, and I would have been killed by some deranged lunatic. All that because of some drawing.
We went to a little restaurant just a little farther down the street. We ordered some wine. Not that Californian crap, it was an Italian one. Really good. We played the storytelling game for a while. He missed his ferry—again, I wonder if he really wanted to catch it—and we talked for two hours. At some point, we ordered some tapas.
I didn’t ask him for the truth. About why he missed his ferry in the first place. About why he was here and clearly unhappy to be when he arrived at the bar earlier. I didn’t ask about the scars. I didn’t tell him the made up versions I imagined either. But we did play the game on other people around us.
And he played the game on me.
He’s weirdly good at it.
Turns out he was right in some points. It was not in an Uber, but we did end up making out in my car, in front of what was probably an Airbnb he was staying in.
Now, moaning and arching beneath him inside the house, I realize I’ve never even asked for his name.
“I’m gonna need you to stay very still for a minute,” he breathes against my ear. “I’m really close and I don’t want this to be over so soon.”
I nod absentmindedly but my hips can’t help but try to move with his, chasing more . It’s been so long since I’ve had sex, and I feel so close already. If only he could just… I don’t know, but I’m getting right there, I need to—
His grip tightens on my waist, pressing me deeper into the mattress and effectively stopping my hips from chasing the pleasure I need. “Fuck…” He groans in my neck and my whole body shivers from the sound and vibrations against my skin.
He must realize there is no stopping it as he slides out slowly to push back in with one hard thrust, pulling a loud gasp out of me, and stilling instantly with a deep raspy moan.
I swallow the hint of disappointment that I was unable to reach that needed release. I knew it was unlikely to happen anyway—as it rarely does. About 20% of the time, if I’m being honest. And thinking about it, it’s kinda sad that I’m able to guess that percentage and be confident in its exactitude.
We stay like this for a few minutes, catching our breaths, entangled in one another. His thumb rubbing gentle circles on my hip, his lips kissing my neck and shoulder.
He finally leaves to go into the bathroom to clean up and throw away the condom and comes back two minutes later, still naked, to lay back down next to me. One of his arms propped behind his head under the pillow, the other pulling me against his side.
“Oh god, that was lame,” he sighs heavily and I frown.
“Thanks, you really know how to talk to a girl…”
“Oh no, god, not you,” he interrupts me quickly with an embarrassed chuckle. “Me. It lasted what, like five minutes or something? I’m usually better at this. But it’s been a while, and… Well, I’m sorry.”
Our eyes meet when I lift my face towards him. He really looks embarrassed. The smile I manage to give him is not even too forced. God, the last thing he needs is me stomping on his ego… And, it was good. Really. Just… Yeah. Not enough.
“It’s been a while for me too,” I say with a smile. I’m not usually the spontaneous one night stand kind of girl. I’ve been with three men in total in my life. Well, four now. And the three before were serious relationships. Okay, mostly serious. At least, they were for me.
“Just… God, you felt way too good. You’re really tight and honestly it was over in a minute for me. I tried to make it last but…”
“You… You felt really good too,” I smile. And he did. Really. The problem was obviously not him. I’ve always struggled to reach my peak. Maybe he’s right and I’m a little too tight? Or if I could just know what I need—or even just voice it, I usually know when something feels better.
God, something must be wrong with me.
“I swear I’ll make good use of the second and last condom I have…”
He rolls on his side to capture my lips and I melt into him. It feels good to be with someone. No matter that it’s just one night. No matter that I’ll probably never see him again as soon as I leave this place. The unattainable orgasm doesn’t even matter. It was a long shot anyway…
Right here and right now, he’s exactly what I need. I know I can’t settle down, Jack and I are always moving.
“I think I’m ready to ask for your truths now,” I say between kisses.
“Weren’t you scared that they’d be too boring?” He chuckles.
I pinch his arm with a smile. “Just tell me. Real or made-up, it doesn’t matter.”
“Alright, what do you want to know?”
“Why were you so upset about missing your ferry?”
There’s a long silence. I don’t push him, happy to listen to his heartbeat through his ribcage and his steadier breath. I fold my leg over his and he drops a kiss on the top of my head.
“I wasn’t upset about the ferry,” he finally answers.
“What were you upset about then?”
He releases a heavy sigh. “Because I had a shit year. I got divorced six months ago, and my older brother just died. Pancreatic cancer. I was here for his funeral today.”
“Oh my god,” I try to sit up but his hold tightens, keeping me laying with him. “I’m sorry I asked. And if I was a jerk to you at the bar.”
“It’s alright. It was just a bad day. My ex wife was there too and that was the most upsetting. She was also the reason I missed the ferry in the first place. We were supposed to take the same flight tonight. By missing the ferry, I was trying to get a little more time before… Well, being stuck with her for a few hours.”
I nod silently. If he stayed long with his ex-wife, I guess it made sense that she was at his brother’s funeral. She probably knew him. Knew his family.
“Wait… So you were supposed to take the plane tonight?”
“I was.” He cocks a brow at me with a mischievous smile.
“And you intentionally missed it?”
“Best decision I made in a while.” I giggle as he nuzzles his face in my neck. “Do you have another question?” He asks softly.
I sigh. “What’s the signet ring? You keep looking at it like you don’t expect it to be here, like it’s foreign to you.”
“Wow… You’ve got a knack for difficult questions, don’t you?”
“I’m sorry, if you…”
“Nah, it’s alright,” he says, but I can feel it’s a difficult topic for him. “It was my brother’s. It’s a family heirloom, given from first-born to first-born. I’m the second child and since he didn’t have any kids of his own, I got the ring.”
“Hm. Makes sense.” I pause to see if he wants to add anything, but when he doesn’t, I continue. “What is the scar on your cheekbone from?”
“A fight with my brother when I was in High School,” he answers sadly but with a faint smile. “Over a girl. He won. They got married two years ago.”
“Wow… They were together for a long time.”
“Seventeen years.”
“And they didn’t have children? Didn’t they want any?”
“They did. They just wanted to wait a little. They figured they had all the time they needed.”
I guess they didn’t. We can never know what will happen.
That makes me sad for my brother. He knows his years, or even months are numbered. He always told me he would never want children, not wanting to risk passing his rare disease along. But for the last couple of years, he begged me to settle down. Build roots. Find love, and get my own family so he could have nieces and nephews to spoil. Our other siblings being as close to us as strangers, we never really got to know any of their kids.
Plus, how can I settle when he won’t stop moving from state to state? I can’t leave him on his own. We’re a pair. We belong with each other.
“The scar on your jaw?” I ask, touching it with the tip of my finger, making him chuckle through his nose.
“My grandmother.”
“What? How?”
“We were making cookies. I was about eight. She opened the oven door and I was in the way, she didn’t see me, and the corner of it hit me on the jaw, right over the bone. I remember that it hurt like hell,” he says, muffling a laugh.
And here I was, thinking first that he was some kind of bad boy getting into fights when he seems like he’s more of a Teddy Bear. Fighting with his brother over a girl, baking cookies with his grandmother…
“That’s kind of cute. I guess it’s better getting a scar from baking than from a fist fight with your brother…”
“And yet, to this day, my jaw hurts every time I see a fucking cookie.”
A laugh escapes my throat and he smiles. From the beginning of our conversation, I wouldn’t have thought we’d be laughing now.
“Were you planning on missing your plane? Or did you just want her to wait a little?”
His smile falters imperceptibly before he flashes me his teeth again.
“I did not plan to miss it. I wanted to spend more time with you. And there was a feeling in my chest… Like if I left, you wouldn’t be here the next time I would find the courage to show back up. Or I’d miss something. I don’t really know, I just felt that I had to take a shot.”
He’s right. I know that our departure is a matter of weeks if not days. Jack is probably waiting to move after his monthly health check up in Seattle to ask them for a file transfer to a new city. The appointment is in two days, on Friday.
“And so you found a house last minute because you knew you were going to woo me?”
“ Woo you?” he snorts. “I didn’t find a house last minute just for a night. This house belongs to me, I just almost never stay in it.”
“Wait…” I sit up to look at his face properly, and this time, he lets me. “Why do you own a house in a shithole?” The confusion must be obvious on my face.
He laughs again, throwing his head back against the pillow. “I grew up here. Left as soon as I could, but my whole family was around here. When my grandmother decided to go to a retirement home, she gifted me her house. In case I ever needed to stay here and so I wouldn’t have to stay at my brother’s or share a place. Plus, it makes wooing beautiful women easier.”
I snort, staring at him and he arches a brow at me. I arch one back and he tilts his head in a “come here” way. I roll my eyes but oblige, placing my head back on his chest, one of my legs on top of his. His hands are stroking my thigh, my hip, my waist. A soft touch, leaving goosebumps to erupt in its wake.
Next thing I know, we’re both panting, laying on opposite ends of the bed. His hand is circling my calf and grazing little circles with his thumb.
“Not as long as I would have wanted to last, but at least it was more than five fucking minutes.”
I chuckle lightly. His breath is short and sleepy. I feel tired too. Good tired. The kind of tiredness you only get after sex, with your muscles a little sore but still buzzing with the effort and the pleasure, your head a little dizzy but numb from everything else.
Didn’t get my orgasm, but I think I got closer to it. And it felt good anyway.
He gets up to use the bathroom and I sigh. The little alarm clock on the bedside table says it’s nearly 3:00a.m.
When he comes back and lays down on the spot he just vacated, I sit up to look at him. His eyes are closed. There is no tension visible on his rugged beautiful face. I can’t see the pain, the sadness or annoyance on his relaxed features anymore. Just calm. I left a couple love bites on his neck and clavicle. Better hope he doesn’t mind too much. Those can be embarrassing to explain when they’re from a casual hookup.
“Is this the moment you skin me alive to harvest my organs?” He asks in a sleepy voice, probably feeling my eyes on him.
“Can I draw you?”
He opens one eye to search my face.
“Do you want to pin my naked body to the bar wall?”
“No,” I laugh softly. “I won’t be able to make a copy of it, and I want it just for me, anyway.”
“Mhmh,” he shakes his head, “I have a copy machine. I want one too.”
“Deal.”
He pauses, hesitant, before adding, “do you need me to be awake?”
“Not necessarily.”
My sketchbook is in my bag, discarded next to the bedroom door. I use the bathroom quickly before grabbing it and settle down on the floor, my back against the wall. Quickly, I can hear his breathing even out, deep in sleep. And I draw him, smiling sometimes when I think about how different the man on this sheet of paper is from the ‘Grumpy Late Guy, in a shithole on a rainy Wednesday’.
When I’m done, I study it. Covered by the sheet from the waist down, leaving his toned stomach and chest on display. His ringed hand holding the white sheet at his hips, the other arm folded behind his head under the pillow, showing a large bicep. His head tilted to the side, disheveled hair partially hiding his closed eyes. The two bruising love bites on display. I smile as I name it ‘Just Fucked — not-so Grumpy anymore’ and sign it ‘ Prue ’.
I pull the sketch off and instantly start a new one from memories. Him at the restaurant, playing the Storytelling game on me, with a smile and that flirtatious glint in his eye. The slightly crooked nose, the dimple on his chin, the faint laugh lines at the corner of his eyes, the relaxed wide shoulders. ‘Flirty Late Guy, missing his ferry on purpose on a rainy Wednesday.’ – ‘ Prue ’.
The alarm clock says 5:30a.m. Not-so Grumpy Guy did not move an inch. I put my clothes back on and look for the copy machine, finding it in the next room, just like he said it was. After a little bit of fumbling, I go back to the room with the two sketches and their copies. He’s turned on his side, his face buried in the pillow. I leave the two copies on the unoccupied pillow next to his and go back to the bathroom to fix my hair in front of the mirror. As soon as they are back in a ponytail, I can see the little love bites and slight teeth marks on my own skin. Looks like he too got a bit carried away.
With the two sketches in my bag, I leave the house silently with a distracted smile.
It felt good to let loose. My last relationship ended over a year ago and it feels lonely sometimes. Jack keeps telling me to go out, meet people and enjoy myself so he can live vicariously through me. But I am not a one night stand kind of girl—or maybe I am now—and knowing we never stay put in the same place for too long, I can never imagine myself dating. Why would I risk falling in love with someone just to move to the other side of the country a couple of months later? I can’t. Hence why my dating life is a desert.
But after all, I can’t really complain. I could date if I wanted to. Jack can’t. His last boyfriend dumped him two years after he finished college when his condition suddenly worsened. He’s been alone for seven years. Each year losing a little more of his mobility. Each year struggling a little more to breathe. Each year his heart weakening. But he’s never complaining, always trying to keep on living, seeing the bright side, pushing me to pursue drawing, to keep dreaming, storytelling. But never pushing me away, like he knows I need him near, to know he’s fine.
On my drive home, I realize that again, I never asked ‘Not-so Grumpy Flirty Guy’ his actual name.