Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
TYLER
RenegadeRush
If animals could talk, which one do you think would be the rudest?
I grin down at my phone, giving myself a metaphorical pat on the back for asking the best question ever. Squeezing chocolate syrup into my glass of milk, I give it a stir before carrying it to my kitchen island and sliding onto a stool just as my phone buzzes.
ChaosQueen
It’s six-thirty in the morning.
RenegadeRush
I figured a question from me would be an excellent start to your day.
ChaosQueen
The time on the clock starting with anything later than a nine and a cup of coffee the size of my head is an excellent start to my day. This is…something else.
RenegadeRush
Not a morning person?
ChaosQueen
Mornings can fuck all the way off. I hate mornings. Mornings should never be a thing.
Giraffes.
RenegadeRush
What about them?
ChaosQueen
I think they would be the rudest.
Look at the way they hold their heads, noses stuck right in the air like they don’t give one single fuck.
And the way they swish their tails? It’s giving I am so much better than you and I know it.
RenegadeRush
Okay well I now need to go to the zoo to observe this phenomenon in person.
ChaosQueen
When it’s not a polar freaking vortex outside, do that and report back. Now that I’ve brought it to your attention, you won’t be able to unsee it.
RenegadeRush
And do you have a question for me?
ChaosQueen
What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you?
Without warning or permission, a scene from last night slams into my head.
Crash tackling Sophie on the couch and tickling her until she shrieked.
Pulling her into my lap to continue the torture.
It’s nothing that hasn’t happened before, so I have absolutely no explanation for what came next.
She was wiggling on my lap and all of a sudden, I was hard.
And not a half-chub that would probably be normal when someone is rubbing her ass all over your lap.
No.
This was a full blown, rock hard, could hammer a damn nail erection, and it was for Sophie.
My best friend, what the actual fuck. And from the way she froze the second she came into contact with my crotch, I know for sure she felt it.
I sure felt the way my dick slid between her ass cheeks, and I had to practically bite off my tongue to keep from groaning at the feeling.
Clench my hands to keep from grabbing her hips and moving her over me just the way I wanted her to.
Except then I froze too, and Sophie rocketed off my lap like her ass was on fire and started carrying on about pictures of herself or something.
I truly have no idea what she said because I was too busy trying to put out the fire in my veins and remind my dick that it doesn’t get hard for Sophie because Sophie is our best friend.
Fuck. No. Not my dick’s best friend. My best friend.
Sophie and my dick are entirely unacquainted.
Or at least they were, until last night. Goddammit.
So, yeah, it was weird and embarrassing, and weird and embarrassing tend to send me into either an anxiety spiral or a fit of babbling incoherence. It was by sheer force of will that I managed to avoid both of those things while I was sitting right in front of her.
Avoid, but not banish entirely, because both anxiety and embarrassment showed up right on schedule at three this morning.
Anxiety that things with Sophie will be weird today because of what happened last night and catastrophizing that maybe our friendship is ruined forever.
Even the thought of it has the fist around my spine tightening again and my heart speeding up, my hands opening and closing in rapid succession until I have to white-knuckle the countertop with my damp palms and force the breath in and out of my lungs to control the panic.
And aside from the anxiety of it all, there was the embarrassment that I’m twenty-six years old and should be able to control my dick. Especially when my best friend is sitting on top of it.
Fuck. My best friend sat on my dick. There’s a non-zero chance I never get over that.
The buzz of my phone interrupts my mental spiral.
Shit.
I forgot I was mid-conversation.
ChaosQueen
You still there? Did the question trip you up?
RenegadeRush
Sorry, I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night and I spaced for a second.
ChaosQueen
You and me both, football guy.
RenegadeRush
Oh yeah? What kept you up?
ChaosQueen
*waves hands everywhere*
It was just one of those nights. You?
RenegadeRush
My most embarrassing moment, actually.
ChaosQueen
Well, that’s convenient.
RenegadeRush
I’m not so sure that’s true. This one might be a moment that has to live solely in my head. It’s too weird to share.
ChaosQueen
Idk football guy. I think the rules of the game are that you have to answer the question that’s asked.
RenegadeRush
Can I propose an addendum to the rules?
ChaosQueen
Depends what it is.
RenegadeRush
If I don’t want to answer, tomorrow you can ask two questions, and I don’t get to skip either of them.
ChaosQueen
You really don’t want to tell me what happened, do you?
RenegadeRush
Chaos, I don’t even want to tell myself what happened, and I lived it.
ChaosQueen
Fair. How about instead of doubling my questions tomorrow, you tell me something true right now. Anything.
Before I can even think about what to say, my truest thing leaps into my head, and suddenly all I want to do is tell this anonymous woman on the internet about it.
The one thing about me I’ve never told anyone else.
Not Sophie. Not my parents. No one. I don’t know this woman and she doesn’t know me.
Not really. But somehow it feels like we’ve been talking forever.
Like I’ve known her for way longer than the three conversations we’ve had.
RenegadeRush
I have anxiety. Not all the time but sometimes, and sometimes it gets pretty bad.
I’ve never told anyone.
I set my phone down on the island and take a long, slow breath, the elation of finally telling someone—anyone—my secret mixing with the shame that comes from dealing with this in the first place.
The fact that I have almost everything I’ve ever wanted and still can’t get my brain to cooperate with me.
Letting out the breath, I pick my phone back up and see the new message.
ChaosQueen
Until now.
RenegadeRush
Until now.
ChaosQueen
Thank you for telling me. I’m sure it wasn’t easy.
Can I ask you why you’ve never told anyone before?
RenegadeRush
I guess it’s mostly because of my job. I think maybe in the kind of job I have, a brain that tends to catastrophize and spin out of control isn’t something they let you have.
ChaosQueen
Well, whether they let you or not, you have it. It can’t be easy to keep it a secret.
Pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes, I think about the exhaustion that comes from pretending to be cheerful when I’m not.
How hard it sometimes is to be the happiest, most unaffected guy on the football field when the truth is the opposite.
Not always, but enough. All the times I hide in the bathroom before games.
The way I open and close my hands on the field before plays, or rock back and forth on my feet when I’m waiting for the snap.
I’ve heard the commentators talk about those motions before, how they’re signs I’m dialed in on the field—a bundle of energy waiting to spring into action.
They have no idea what’s really going on under my surface, and I like to keep it that way.
RenegadeRush
It really, really isn’t.
ChaosQueen
You don’t ever have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but if you do, you can talk to me. Maybe it’s easier to talk to a stranger on the internet about it than anyone in your real life.
I smile at the way her thoughts mirrored mine. Is it weird to be grateful for someone you’ve never met? Because right now that’s what I’m feeling for this stranger.
RenegadeRush
I think you might be right about that.
ChaosQueen
I’m always right. I have to go now—time to drag myself out of bed and turn into a human so I can get shit done today.
Above my head I hear a thud and a muttered fuck, and I grin at Sophie’s habitual morning grumpiness, knowing I have about five minutes until she walks in here requiring an infusion of caffeine to turn her into a human, too.
What are the chances there are now two women in my life who face mornings like the rising sun has wronged them somehow?
RenegadeRush
Good luck with the humaning.
Tomorrow?
ChaosQueen
Same time, same place.
Setting my phone down on the island, I feel a million times lighter than I did when I woke up. Anticipating Sophie, I stand and flick on the coffee machine I set up earlier this morning and grab the pancake batter I made from the fridge.
The coffee is just starting to drip when Sophie makes her appearance, and I lean against the island to watch her.
She’s wearing the pants from the green pajama set I washed for her, and her pink fuzzy knee socks pulled all the way up, one leg of her pajamas tucked haphazardly into the top of the sock.
She must have gotten hot in the middle of the night because she exchanged the pajama shirt for one of my old high school football T-shirts with my name and number on the back.
Her dark brown hair is pulled up on top of her head in a messy bun, strands of pink tinsel weaved into her curls shining under the kitchen lights.
A bunch of the curls have escaped, like they object to being contained, and they tumble wildly around her face and down her back.
Her eyes are half closed, but if they were open, I know they would be a little bleary, still half asleep as if they, too, are protesting the fact that her body is awake right now.