T W O
It’s a Tuesday and my first night off in a fourteen-day stretch, so I sat in the middle of my bed wearing a green goo mask on my face as I held a book between my knees. I heard the door swing open, but I ignored it, only ticking a brow in relation.
“Scoot over,” is all he says, and the aroma of a hot pie fills my nostrils.
“You really need to learn to knock,” I say, not moving though I am salivating for whatever’s that box.
“You should be packing,” he counters, picking up my legs and sliding under them before setting the pizza box beside me. He lies on his side, angling his neck on his palm.
I continue to read as a pair of long fingers grab the spine and rip it from me. “Made-up man can wait, real man is here,” he utters like a buffoon ready to pound on his chest.
“Hey!” I snap as he throws my book on the floor.
He kicks off his shoes and sees my face. “Is that avocado?”
“No,” I frown, crossing my arms.
“Perfect.”
He hates avocado.
“Should I wait here for you to apply mine then?” He shuts his eyes wearing a wide shit grin across his lips.
“I am not wasting this mask on you,” I spat. “It’s forty-five dollars a tube. ”
His eyes snap open in a pout. “But I brought you pizza.” He gestures to the box.
“And you think that’s an equal trade?”
“How is it not?”
My gaze narrows, waiting for him to fold. Only he continues to pout. I let out a gruff, throwing my legs over the side of the bed. I wore a pair of loose gray sweats and a paint-stained t-shirt from my high school art class, my hair thrown up with a chopstick, but my nails freshly painted a mint green that I treated myself with after my relaxing bath. Kai is out of town till tomorrow for a convention, so I had the apartment all to myself. The apartment I was officially moving out of in a week.
I grab the tube from the bathroom counter and stroll back into my bedroom, which looks a hundred times smaller with Charlie lying in the middle of my bed with his legs hanging off the side. He wore one of his signature flannels, the yellow and black one tonight.
I sit beside him and grab his face.
“Not so rough, Banks,” he taunts me.
“Shut your eyes,” I demand.
He snickers but does. I squeeze some of the face mask onto my fingers and begin to thinly spread it over his face. The tiny spikes that have already grown back from his shave this morning tickle my fingertips as I paint. Soon we both look like little green pandas.
“Feeling great already,” he sighs dramatically as I go to rinse my hand.
He’s already eating a slice when I return, opening his mouth larger than necessary to avoid ingesting any mask with his pizza. He looks ridiculous but his self-secured masculinity remains intact as always.
“Just think we can do this every night in a week,” he cheekily says.
“You better start paying for my skincare then.” I grab a slice myself. It’s a barbecue chicken, tasty but no dice.
“It’s alright,” Charlie says as if I asked him out loud how the pizza was. “But not cheese.”
“Not cheese,” I reply as my phone rings on my nightstand. It’s Perry.
I accept the Facetime call and she appears, with wet cheeks and strained eyes. She stares at me blankly for a moment and bursts into a fit of sad laughter.
“Happy to be of service as your obviously needed giggle.” I take another bite of pizza.
Perry’s sitting in her car, clearly frustrated about something.
“What are you doing, Banks?” she inquires breathlessly.
“Charlie and I are masking and pieing.”
“Jesus Christ.” She hits her head on the steering wheel.
“Hey Perry,” Charlie calls, and I flip the phone just as she looks up. He waves at her as she grunts again.
“You two are five minutes from painting his nails and braiding each other’s hair, aren’t you?” she says a bit jealous.
“I think nails are a bit too far.” Charlie shakes his head and I flip the screen again. “But you know… a subtle autumn orange might be nice,” he adds in a flamboyant tone.
I blink at him a few times.
“Are you sure he’s straight?” Perry says blatantly .
“What’s going on, P?” I quickly changed to subject due to the mischievous look Charlie got in his eye.
Her eyes start to water again. “I’m so mad at Dan,” she groans. “He’s constantly nagging me about cooking or doing the laundry and I just want some time to myself. I wasn’t home five minutes before he started asking me what I was making for dinner tonight.”
Now I know what you’re thinking; this is the same girl ready to commit murder when he didn’t take her to a family funeral this summer.
“It’s like I walked through the door, ready to just shower and relax and there he is,” she continues. “Wanting to shower me with kisses and then demand I cook for him. He’s been off all day, why couldn’t he cook?”
Charlie purses his lips like a fish and kisses his pizza behind my phone while Perry continues to ramble.
“Where are you going?” I ask her.
“Carmen’s,” she huffs. Carmen is her co-worker.
“He should have made dinner,” I agree. “But is that why you’re really mad?”
“I hadn’t even sucked in a breath of our apartment air before his lips were sucking mine. You know I love that shit, but sometimes I just need some space.”
“So he was… he was just too… clingy ?” I murmur.
Perry shutters. “God, I’m being dramatic, aren’t I? I had a long shift and dealt with so many assholes today and I just took it all out on him.”
“No,” I lie and Charlie is shaking his head yes. “Your feelings are valid, Perry.”
“I should go apologize,” she sighs .
Listen, I’m not a Dan supporter. He is lazy and dammit he should have made her dinner, but he’s Perry’s favorite brand of guy. Her kink if you will.
“He probably thinks I’m such a bitch.”
“I doubt he thinks that,” I counter. “You’re just stressed.”
“I’m going to go apologize.” She decides in an instant and I see the wheel of her car turning. “Thanks,” she smiles. “Love you!”
The line blinks before ending.
By now Charlie is completely unfazed by mine and Perry’s level of crazy and continues eating.
“Every time you talk to her, I understand more and more why you’d rather hang out with them.” He tilts his head toward my stacks and stacks of books.
“Perry likes her men how a waste plant likes their materials.”
“Everyone’s a little toxic, Banks,” he murmurs. “But she’s over there hitting golds in the Shitty Men Olympics.”
“My luck she’ll marry him, and it will be like this forever,” I huff, taking another bite of my pizza.
“Why don’t you just tell her she’s being ridiculous?”
“I can’t do that,” I rap. “Girl code, Next-Door-Charlie.”
“Girl code says you should allow your friend to stay in a toxic relationship because you’re too chicken shit to tell her it’s toxic?” he gawks at me.
“No,” I mutter. “Girl code says to support your friend. Regardless of their choices, they will make the same choice with or without you. At least with you, you are there to pick up the pieces when it crumbles.”
“Oh I see,” he quips. “You listen to bullshit and then wait to get shit on,” he snickers, mockingly .
“We’re self-sacrificing.”
“You know Bro code is much simpler,” he tells me. “Bros before Hoes. You might want to remind Perry of that.”
“She isn’t choosing Dan over me.”
“Then why isn’t she moving back home?”
I purse my lips. “It’s her life. She can live wherever she wants.”
“But she hates it there,” Charlie points out. “The only reason she stays is for him.”
Perry does hate it in Arizona, and she graduated this spring just as I did. She planned to move back home but after meeting Dan, that all changed, and she kept her waitressing job there. Yet, I can’t blame her. The only reason we stay anywhere is for love. Why should that be any different for Perry?
“We’re adults,” I say. “We don’t have to be stuck at the hip.”
“If the only thing keeping me from moving home to be near my best friend and my loving parents was a dickhead guy, I would be moving.” Charlie gives his final two cents.
“When you’re in love, you’ll understand,” I defend her.
Charlie shakes his head.
“Are you going to be free to help me move boxes?”
He nods. “I took the day off.”
“You didn’t need to do that. I just need help with the heavy stuff and Kai has appointments all day. An hour or so after work would have been enough.”
“It’s not every day I get a new neighbor, Banks,” he snickers.
As luck would have it, Susie’s studio had the best view and accommodations for the price. Every other place I looked at in my price range was either disgusting or in sketchy neighborhoods. It also had the most perfect wall for a collection of shelves to house all my books. I could go get the ones sitting in boxes at my parent’s house finally.
“Well, in that case maybe I could talk you into going to Ikea with me and getting some shelves.”
“Alright,” he murmurs. “You just want me for my truck, don’t you?”
I grin. “No, of course not.”
He sees right through my sassiness and snorts.
“Okay maybe the truck,” I say. “And your strong arms to mount said shelves.” I take a large bite.
He then looks at his arm and flexes a little, wiggling his brows under the green goo. I try to not giggle, for the sake of not choking on my pizza.
“See,” he hums. “You need real men in your life, Banks,” he cockily utters. “Your made-up men can’t hang shelves or drive you to Ikea, now can they?”
“That’s why I have you,” I retort. “All the muscle and none of the expectations.”
“Expectations?” He cocks his brow, grabbing another piece of pizza from the box.
“You don’t expect me to be anything more than this,” I explain.
“I don’t know that I’m following.”
My eyes roll. “My point exactly.”
“What do they expect you to be?” Charlie twists his neck.
I stare at him; unsure I can have this conversation while our faces are painted green.
“I think you put too much pressure on yourself, Banks,” he then adds. “Guys are simple. ”
“Maybe too simple,” I agree. “Simple enough to think that because I look a certain way, I must be a certain way.”
Charlie looks at me like I just tried to explain quantum physics to a five-year-old.
“I really have to dumb this down for you, don’t I?” I sigh.
“What’s wrong with how you look?” He looks me up and down.
I cringe. “I’m starting to think that green goo is seeping into your brain.”
“I’m serious.” He sits up. “Why do you think there’s something wrong with how you look?”
“There’s nothing wrong with how I look,” I gloat. “It’s just how I am perceived because of it. How men have always perceived me and why I prefer to hang out with men written by women as opposed to real ones.”
I can see the frustration settling on Charlie’s forehead.
“Alright,” I grunt. “Fine. When you look at me, what do you see?”
“You.”
“Thanks, Captain Obvious,” I rumble. “I mean like if you didn’t know me—if you saw me for the first time right now, what would you see?”
“A girl with green goo on her face.” He tries to make me laugh.
“Forget it.”
“I’m sorry.” He stops me from moving off the bed. “I’d see the same thing I’ve always seen,” he murmurs. “A pretty girl with cool shoes.”
“A pretty Asian girl,” I correct him.
“Why does that matter?” he glints. “Yes, you’re Asian but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change anything. ”
“But it does,” I counter. “When it comes to relationships, men look at me and assume I’m some crazy sex goddess or demean me because of stereotypes. Treat me like a blow-up doll. They have no interest in who I am, even the ones who seem promising slip up at some point.”
Charlie’s face falls emotionless as he lets me go.
“Happy?” I blink, standing. “That’s why I like the made-up ones.”
He swallows.
“I need to wash my face,” I sigh, leaving him as I shut myself in the bathroom, ready to let myself swirl down the drain with this green goo on my face.