Chapter 5 Chris
CHRIS
Jesse and i were sitting in the parking lot in my car with my dog outside the surgical center waiting for Mike and Xavier.
Mike was getting his wisdom teeth removed. He was thirty. Jesse had been making fun of him for a week.
I was doing well. In a better mood than I’d been in months. I think it was the dog.
He gave me someone to hang out with when I didn’t feel like hanging out with humans. He was friendly and sweet.
He did this thing every morning where he’d wake me up by army crawling his way across my comforter with his legs dragging behind him.
You wouldn’t think that getting teabagged by a Yorkie at 7:00 a.m. would be good for morale, but it was so funny it cracked me up every time.
I don’t think I’d ever met a quirkier dog.
He was a tiny mountaineer. He liked to climb up onto the kitchen counter to surf for snacks, so I had to move all the bar stools, and he had an insatiable prey drive that he liked to use to bring me dead things.
The first time I let him out in the yard, he killed a mouse, then brought it in and left it on the bed.
Two days later I found him eating a rabbit head on the couch.
I think an owl dropped it onto the lawn?
He prowled the yard like a tiny velociraptor. I liked him.
Unfortunately, I didn’t think I could keep him.
He wasn’t housebroken and I wasn’t home enough to teach him.
He couldn’t hold it when I was gone all day, he shredded pee pads and diapers when left alone, and crating wasn’t working.
He’d do his business outside if he was walked regularly, but that wasn’t realistic with my shifts. I didn’t know what I was going to do.
He sat on my lap, his paws on the steering wheel scanning the parking lot in his Doglet Nation shirt and a diaper, growling at people who walked by.
“Nice of Xavier to tap in,” Jesse said, typing a text on his phone.
“Yeah.”
“What do you think of flying out to see him?” I asked, looking over at him.
“Sure. In the winter though. In January, I’ll get the hell out of here any chance I can get.” He glanced up. “So what’s Larissa like? Heard you hung out with her last week.”
I shrugged. “She’s nice. I like her.”
“Becca likes her too. I think Mike’s sprung.”
“I think you’re right.”
“Heard he paid like, two thousand bucks to get her car out of the shop.”
“Yes, he did.”
“He said he had to snake toilets at Mall of America for like three hours to do it.”
“And he has not shut up about it,” I muttered.
As long as he didn’t bitch about it to Larissa.
I liked her too. She was funny and smart and interesting—and different from the women Mike usually dated.
I wondered if that was the point.
I’d never actually seen him this into someone—and now that I knew her, I got it. I really did.
The automatic doors opened to the building and Jesse sat up. “Here they come.”
Xavier was pushing Mike out in a wheelchair. Mike’s jaw was wrapped and he had gauze hanging from his mouth.
I got out and opened the back passenger door. “How you feeling?” I asked.
Mike looked at me like he didn’t know who I was. “Why are you here?” he slurred around the cotton.
“Like I’d miss this?”
He was so out of it he could barely stand. Xavier and I had to practically lift him from the chair to the car.
“Where’s Laritha?” Mike asked while Xavier and I helped him into the back seat.
“You told her not to come, remember?” Jesse said, twisting to talk to him from the front seat. “You said you don’t want to look like a chipmunk in front of her.”
Xavier chuckled and closed the door. He handed me Mike’s bag of medications. “Thanks,” I said. “You coming over?”
“No. I’m taking lunch to Hank.”
“You’re missing the good part.”
He huffed a laugh.
“We’ll record everything,” Jesse said.
“When do you go home?” I asked.
“I’m staying another week,” Xavier said, looking at his watch.
“Okay. We’ll get together for dinner before you leave.”
I said bye to Z. When I got back in the car, Mike was sleeping against the door with his mouth open and my dog on his lap. He was drooling on himself and Jesse was taking a picture.
“Damn, they fucked him up,” Jesse said, sitting back in his seat.
“I forgot how bad that surgery is,” I said, putting my seat belt on. “How many did they take out?”
“Three. How much anesthesia do you think they needed to knock his big ass out?”
“A lot.”
Mike was a large guy. Six three to my five ten, and buff. He was a personal trainer.
“They probably hit him with an elephant tranquilizer,” Jesse said. “Hey, Mike!” he shouted.
Mike bolted up, looking confused.
“You ready for the marathon?” Jesse asked him.
Mike squinted around. “What?”
“The marathon. You signed up months ago. We’re running in twenty minutes.”
“We’re running a… I don’t have my earbuths.”
“You’re gonna have to do it without them,” Jesse said. “The orphans are counting on you.”
“Orpanths?”
“The orphans!” Jesse yelled. “All the proceeds go to the orphanage! Get it together!”
I was trying not to laugh.
My cell phone pinged as I was starting the engine. It was Larissa.
How’s Mike?
The last message from her was Thanks after I’d given her my streaming password. Her mom asked for it. It was kind of weird.
I keyed in a reply.
Me: Fine. Asking about you.
Larissa: He won’t let me come over
Me: He’s pretty messed up. We’ll take care of him.
“Who’s that?” Jesse asked.
“Larissa.”
“Aw, sweet, send her a picture,” Jesse said.
“We are not doing that,” I said, setting my phone in the drink holder.
“What? Dude, what fun is it if we can’t fuck with him?”
“He didn’t want her to see him like this, so she’s not gonna see him,” I said, starting to drive us home.
Jesse made a disappointed noise. Then he twisted in the seat with his cell phone on record. “Say hi, the marathon’s televised.”
Mike looked glazed.
“Knock it off,” I said.
“Do you think sheths gonna be proud of me?” Mike asked from the back seat. “Because of the orpnaths?”
Jessie snorted.
“Who?” I asked, looking at him in the rearview. “Larissa?”
“Yeah.”
“She will if you run fast enough,” Jesse said.
“I have to streth,” Mike said around his gauze.
“Yes, definitely stretch. We can’t have you pulling a hammy,” Jesse said. “You’ve been training for this moment your whole life.”
“Laritha’s gonna be there, right?” he asked.
“Oh yeah,” Jesse said. “Everyone’s gonna be there. Even the pope.”
Mike nodded like this made total sense.
“Mike?” I said, glancing at him in the rearview. “You in any pain?”
“I don’t thinth so.”
“I’m playing this at his wedding,” Jesse said, still recording.
“You thinth sthe’ll marry me?” Mike asked. “I like her stho much. Do you guyths like her?”
“Larissa? She’s great,” I said.
“Too good for you,” Jesse said.
“Fuck you,” Mike slurred from the back seat.
“Should we get him something to eat?” Jesse asked, looking at me.
“I got him stuff. He can’t have anything he has to chew.”
Jesse twisted in his seat again. “Mike, you want some baby food?”
Mike raised a single middle finger and Jesse laughed and sat back again.
When we got Mike to the house, Jesse helped me get him in bed, then he left to meet Becca for lunch.
I was initially planning to leave, too, but I decided to stay.
He wasn’t in pain but he was out of it. I wanted to make sure he was in a place to take his medications when he had to, especially the first few hours after sedation when he might be too zonked to take things on a schedule.
I wish I’d thought of this ahead of time, because there wasn’t anything to do while I waited.
Mike’s place was spotless like always, there was nothing to clean.
I was sitting in his living room with the dog on my lap flipping through Men’s Health, the only reading material in the whole house.
I could have used one of those books Larissa had offered right now.
There was a sweater draped on the back of one of his dining room chairs. A woman’s sweater. Hers probably. I wondered how much time she spent here.
It’s funny because in my mind, she existed independent of him. I’d spent hours with her when he wasn’t there. I knew they were dating, but it didn’t fully compute because I’d never really seen them together and I couldn’t really imagine it either.
Mike and I never had the same taste in women. To be honest, Larissa was more my type than his.
She liked to read, he didn’t. She was artistic, he wasn’t. He probably couldn’t impress her with the stuff that he usually used to impress women—and those things were impressive. Mike took racing medals. He could bench-press her. Hell, he could bench-press me.
Mike typically went for athletic women. Sylvia, his longest relationship before Larissa, had been a dance instructor.
The last woman he introduced us to taught Pilates.
He liked people he could bike with, train with, who could run the same races as him.
Larissa didn’t strike me as a turkey trot person. The two of them together seemed weird.
But he liked her. A lot. And I could definitely see why. I could see why she liked him too. Who didn’t?
Mike was the charismatic one of our group. If he had his sights on someone, nobody else stood a chance. Especially me.
I wasn’t charming or confident like he was.
In even the most ideal circumstances, I was never going to be the best at selling myself and my rideshare services to a beautiful stranger—and definitely not against him.
I wasn’t magnetic. I didn’t light up a room.
And that night I’d been sad and tired and yes, a little cranky.
By the time I was standing in front of her at that concert, I was worn out and I just wanted to go home. But I had wanted to drive her.
I hated that “irritable” was her first impression of me. I’d been like an ogre or something, scowling at this beautiful barefoot girl.
I don’t know why it bothered me so much.