30. Marco
Marco
We lie on the couch, cuddling and talking until she has to go to work. I think about Brin’s words. Part of my brain keeps thinking, “Yeah but she doesn’t know . . .” as if looking for excuses not to believe her.
I accidentally drift off waiting for her to get home, and when I get up to run the next morning, Brin is rock-solid asleep.
When I’m back from my run, she’s at brunch with Bea. The minute I hear her key in the door I’m on my feet.
Brin leaps at me and I catch her, mouth already bearing down on hers.
“Bea’s not with you?” I ask between kisses.
“She’s at Charlie’s,” Brin explains, pulling my T-shirt over my head. “All weekend.”
I groan and walk backward to the couch. “What time do you have to go to work?” When my knees hit the edge, I sit, Brin in my lap. She quickly wriggles off. “What are you—”
Brin tugs at my waistband, making her intentions clear. As soon as my dick is free, she licks the length of it.
She pauses to look up at me. “I have to leave in twenty minutes.” And then she sucks me as far down as she can.
My fists are balled at my side and I’m using every ounce of restraint to not grab her. I don’t even know what I would do if I did—I just know that I simultaneously want this and a million other things at the same time.
Brin hums, one hand holding my dick straight up while she licks and sucks the top. “I like doing this,” she says.
“It feels really good,” I tell her, panting. She works me over, teasing and tasting until I’m vibrating with tension.
She smiles and presses a kiss to the tip. “Put your hands behind your head?”
“Bossy.” I do as requested. My sweatpants and boxer-briefs are around my ankles now.
Brin’s eyes run over my chest and arms, gaze heating as she takes me in. I stretch and flex for her.
She retaliates by sucking me into her throat as deeply as she can again. I hiss and curve around her, but it’s too late.
“Brin, I’m gonna come,” I warn her.
She backs off enough to give herself breathing room and I blow, Brin swallowing as I pulse inside her mouth. “Okay, okay.” I pull away when I get too sensitive.
Brin sits back. On her heels, looking smug and the most confident I’ve seen her. Soon, I hope to put that look on her face any time we’re intimate.
“Okay, I’ve got to go to work,” she says, popping up from the floor.
“Wait, wait. I want to make you come. I can be quick.”
“Tempting,” she teases. “But I don’t want to rush.”
“Yeah that’s fair.” I pull my sweatpants up and follow her into the bathroom. She starts brushing her teeth, and I lean against the door. “Sorry you can’t make it to the party tonight,” I say.
By our calculation, we earned thirty-nine points for the activities we completed. We won’t know the judges’ points we’re awarded until tonight, so I promised Brin I’d text her as soon as I find out at the party.
She offered to try to switch her shift with someone, but I told her not to worry about it. She already took a night off because I’d run her ragged with the scavenger hunt, and I don’t want her to lose out on another shift.
Plus, I’d rather that she take time off for just the two of us to spend together. I don’t want to share her with a room full of strangers.
Brin can’t answer, ’cause she’s brushing the taste of my cum out of her mouth, but I watch her for the pleasure of it. When our eyes meet in the bathroom mirror, hers crinkle.
Her toothbrush finally finishes buzzing and she spits in the sink. “Stop making me laugh.”
I hold my hands up in mock offense. “I was just watching you. What’s so funny about that?”
“I don’t know! It’s domestic.”
I come up behind her. “We’ve been roommates for a long time.” I kiss her shoulder. “I know you’re my girlfriend now, but since we already live together this is off into the deep end.”
“I know,” she says, leaning her head back onto my chest. “I like it.”
The ballroom is still dressed in its Christmas finery, but now instead of a stage there’s a DJ and a dance floor. Two bars are on either side of the room and I’ve got four drink tickets in my pocket—two for me and two for Brin.
To the right of the DJ is a scoreboard. The bottom twenty-seven teams are listed in order of their combined score.
I quickly skim down until I find our names and run my finger across.
Just like we thought, thirty-nine points for the activities, plus another eight for the creativity. That’s forty-seven total points.
Damn. I was hoping for at least fifty, but we’ve fallen short. We’re still in the top half, though.
I scan the list again, looking for Greg and his partner. They’re not far above us in ninth place, with fifty-five points, so that means I’ve lost the bet.
The top three slots on the scoreboard are empty, waiting for the ceremony that will announce the winners.
I get in line at the bar and text Brin our results. I also tell her we lost to Greg but we’re still in the top half of the scoreboard, to give her some context.
While looking for Greg, I notice that the projector screen next to the DJ stand is playing a slideshow of photos and videos from the teams. I watch with amazement.
One team built a sleigh out of snow in the one hour that they had and posed with one of them as a reindeer.
Next is a video with two guys holding stained-glass cookies up to the camera before tapping the cookies together in a toast and taking a bite.
The “glass”—I can’t begin to guess how they did it—shatters and makes a mess, leaving both of them laughing.
There’s a gasp from the crowd around me when the next photo reveals a giant paper snowflake.
This is one of the tasks we didn’t complete, and there’s no way we could have competed with the size of this thing—the photo is taken from above, and the snowflake is laid out on a gym floor, the team members lying on the ground next to it, arms and legs spread like they’re trying to make snow angels.
By the time I get up to the bar to order a beer I’ve seen two of our submissions: our Christmas tree made from candy—it looks even brighter green on the big screen and we had to make the trunk enormous so it wouldn’t collapse—and our sunny snow person.
“Marco!” A voice calls for me to my left, and I spot Greg and Luis at a high-top table. We shake hands and back-slap and Greg grins at me. “Did you see the scoreboard?”
I lift my beer to him. “Great job, you win.”
“I can’t wait to have my own assistant for a week.” He rubs his hands together. “I might unleash you on my spreadsheet. I know you’re an expert there.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time.”
We chat about the scavenger hunt and Greg and Luis tell me some entertaining stories about their adventures around the city. Soon, the lights are dimming and the music fades away.
“Welcome, SHiNY teams!” It’s the same woman who kicked the scavenger hunt off.
We applaud, there’s a welcoming speech, another speech by a guy on the board of one of the organizing charities, two more speeches, an award given to one of the corporate sponsors, and then they start announcing the top three teams, starting with the third place team.
The announcer slips through the photos and videos the team submitted and they are amazing.
The team with the giant paper snowflake is in third place and the second-place team had dressed up as Victorians to go caroling.
“And now, our winning team.” Behind her, the screen is black. “We’d like to spotlight how far this team, with an astounding thirty-eight creativity points from the judges, went to come in first place.”
The screen fades in and “Carol of the Bells” plays over the sound system. The video itself is in slow motion: snowflakes falling, walking through the woods, an axe striking wood.
It’s a goddamn music video for chopping down their own Christmas tree. It’s professional grade, and someone on that team has got to be a professional—or they hired one.
When the video’s done, the room is filled with applause.
Another video starts playing, but without sound now.
It’s as cinematic as the previous one. “With their thirty-eight judges’ points added to the activity points, our winners of SHiNY, with a total of eighty-five points, are Jacob Templeman and Rebecca Foley! ”
Everyone applauds as the team gets on stage and is handed their trophies and one of those giant fake checks.
“Oh shit, I know her,” Greg says. “She’s on Instagram and does these really popular underground concert pop-ups. No wonder she won.”
“That explains the amazing videos,” I add.
Once the applause dies down, the host steps back to the mic. “And our last award of the night goes to the team that raised the most money. As you know, this depends on both the team accumulating points and collecting pledges. The winner this year is Marco Russo and Brinda Shaw!”
Surprised that they would give out an award for that, I make my way through the crowd to collect our trophies. I shake hands with the people on stage and then go back to my table with Greg and Luis.
They congratulate me with handshakes and claps on the back. It feels disingenuous, since we only had one person pledge money for our team. Like maybe William should be here instead of me. Or at the very least, he should have gotten a trophy.
The music starts up again. As I chat with Greg and Luis, I debate about going home, but Brin’s not home, so I might as well hang out with my friends.
Luis is telling me about a trip he took to Costa Rica when Greg nudges me. He lifts his chin to the screen and I look up to see myself skating toward Brin, stopping next to her so we can smile and wave at the camera and she can take a few tottering steps.
“So what’s it like living with her?” Greg asks.
I blink at him. “It’s great.”
“I was wondering if you were roommates when I met her.”
“When did you meet her?”
“Maybe eight months ago.”
Yes, Brin had been living with me. I try to remember if Brin had ever said anything about a date, but if she did I can’t remember.
Greg leans in and tilts his head toward Luis. “I told him all about Brin. So, like, does she bring the guys home with her?”
I take a sip of my beer, buying some time. I don’t know what he’s talking about, but I’ve often found that if you leave room in the conversation, people will tell you more. I tell the truth. “No, she doesn’t.”
Greg smirks. “I guess that would destroy the illusion, right? Those girls aren’t there to bring men like us back to their shitty apartments.”
“My apartment’s not shitty.”
Greg gives me a look. “I’ve been there. You definitely live below your pay grade. And you told me it was because your roommate couldn’t afford better.” He laughs. “She probably regrets getting off the app. If she was still there, she’d definitely be able to afford better.”
“She is hot enough,” Luis agrees.
“Are you still on the app?” I ask.
“Nah,” Greg says. “They instituted an ID verification a while ago and I didn’t feel like going through the effort. And it got to be like, what’s the point? The women on Sugary were hotter and looking for guys to fuck, but it was too much work. They’re all gold diggers, anyway.”
This whole time, Greg’s smiling. It raises my hackles. Maybe it’s because there’s a vibe of “it’s not my fault these women don’t want me” or his use of gold digger as a slur, or maybe it’s because he’s specifically talking about Brin.
Greg and I meet up a couple times a month.
We race each other on runs, play one-on-one on the court, and talk shit about our bosses.
He never has trouble meeting someone at the bar to take home.
He’s good-looking, charming, and he has clout—his boss has climbed the ranks in the art scene in leaps and bounds since Greg started working for him.
How well do I really know Greg? What signs have I missed about his behavior?
Because no one is going to talk about my girlfriend like that.