64. Helena
Helena
Well. That settled that, then.
Helena was hoping that after the last many nights of sleeping with Bertram—not like that, of course, but still! —he might have felt at least some spark of old feelings toward her.
But nothing confirmed his lack of interest in her more than his insistence that she go on a date with Diana, when that possibility hadn’t even been brought up in ages. And yet Bertram reminded her of that possibility. Like he wanted to pawn her off.
Maybe he just wanted his bed back.
If so, she couldn’t even take it personally. Bertram didn’t sign up to share a bed with his ex . . . ex-something-or-other, much less a wild animal complete with sixteen razor-sharp talons and no concept of personal space.
And so, Helena found herself accompanying Diana to A Really Wild Thyme.
She felt guilty—Diana was so cool and so nice and so beautiful.
But try though she might, Helena wasn’t sure she could muster any romantic interest in Diana.
She really liked her as a friend, but she wasn’t even able to see it as a fun girls’ night out when she was preoccupied over-analyzing the implications of Bertram encouraging her to go with Diana.
“What do you think?” Diana asked as she sat Helena down at a nice quiet little table in the back. “Pretty cool joint, right?”
“It’s wonderful,” Helena said. “Bertram told me I was going to be obsessed with it—all these flowers, and he said the music was the perfect volume, which it absolutely is.”
“Oh, good!”
“When we’d go barhopping with our friends, Bertram always stayed near me and made sure we found bars I was okay with in terms of number of People and music volume . . . so he knew what he was saying when he told me I’d love this bar.”
“That’s so sweet.”
“Yeah, he pretty much got me through my pre-teen years. And my teenage years. And college, honestly. He was really good about watching out for me. I know his mom asked him to, but still. He always went out of his way to make me feel safe.”
“You know, it’s funny.” Diana smiled. “You’re talking about Bertram on our date almost as much as he talked about you on his.”
“Oh, gosh!” Helena blushed. “That’s—sorry.
That’s embarrassing. I’m sure he didn’t mean to be rude—and I’m not trying to be rude either—we just, you know, outside of spending time with you, which I don’t need to tell you about because you were there, Bertram is the only other Person I’ve interacted with in months, so we’re probably just on each other’s minds and would automatically feature in a lot of each other’s stories anyway, even from childhood, so I’m sure he just didn’t know what else to talk about. ”
“He could’ve asked me about my personal life,” Diana said.
“We established there’s been somewhere between sixty and six hundred years or so of it, and he didn’t even try to pry about my age.
He could’ve told me about his orc or vampire heritage or any of the numerous field studies he was on before this one, but mostly he talked about you.
I don’t even think he knew he was doing it. ”
“That’s so rude!”
“No, that’s love.” Diana smiled. “But he’ll never make the first move, you know.”
“Two things can be true—that can be love and be rude,” Helena said before her mind fully caught up to what Diana had just said.
Then she froze. “Love? No. I mean, maybe platonically, if I’m lucky.
I do hope he at least went from hating me to, you know, at least—but—first move?
What do you mean ‘first move?’ He’s not going to make the first move because he doesn’t . . . did he say something to you?”
Diana sighed. “First, it’s obvious just by looking at him looking at you.”
Helena’s mouth fell open. “What? No. What?! No!”
“Bro,” said Diana, “and I do mean that in a completely gender-neutral way, guy is down bad for you.”
Helena shook her head. “You’ve got it all wrong.”
“Dude. My guy. Girlfriend. Even when he first gave me his number, he was staring at you the entire time. He even winked at you while he was supposedly flirting with me.”
Helena blushed.
“It was honestly embarrassing for him. And would’ve been genuinely insulting for me, if I didn’t see through his bullshit right away.”
“Then why did you ask him out?” Helena asked.
“Because you weren’t going to,” Diana said.
“But then, you went out with him . . . and said you were interested in me . . .”
“Uh-huh.”
“And now we’re here . . .”
“Uh-huh.”
“And you’re telling me that, you’re not into me? Or you are? Or—sorry.” Helena shook her head. “Sorry—what the fuck is happening here right now?”
“What’s happening is I saw two absolute cuties radiating sexual tension, but who were probably going to repress their feelings forever if the pot weren’t stirred. That’s what I do. I’m a pot-stirrer. I stir pots.”
“So . . .” Helena searched for words, but none sprang to mind to encapsulate her utter confusion.
“Normally all I have to do is sow a little bit of mischief and People will naturally find their way to one another. You two are either the stupidest or most na?ve or idiotic or most wholesome or moronic People on the planet, because you just keep mooning over each other without doing aaanything, which is why I’m now having to spell it out for you word-for-word rather than putting something in motion and letting it play out naturally, which is my preferred methodology. ”
“So, wait.” Helena blinked. “Were you—are you—were you interested in . . . either of us?”
“Noooo, no, no, no.” Diana put her hands up. “Whatever’s going on between you guys is a whole mess. I don’t fuck with mess. Actually, I don’t fuck at all. I’m asexual.”
“What would you have done if we had agreed to have a threesome with you?” Helena asked.
Diana snorted. “I would have quietly backed out of the room while you idiots were ravishing each other, and you wouldn’t have even noticed.”
Helena blushed. “That’s not—that’s not even . . .”
She wanted to say that that wasn’t true, but if she were honest with herself, that’s exactly what she would have done in a threesome with Bertram and Diana, or with Bertram and literally anyone.
“I just like sowing chaos and creating love stories,” Diana said. “If I can do both at the same time, even better.”
“Garlic aioli fries and two Charcoal Whiskeys for Robin!” the bartender shouted.
Diana stood. “Good, I was getting hungry.”
Helena gave her a quizzical look. “Robin?”
“Oh, the bartender has a running thing where he calls me bird names.” Diana leaned forward conspiratorially and mouthed: “It’s the wings.”
She flapped them and headed off in the direction of the bar, before returning with garlic fries and drinks.
“Anyway!” Diana grinned. “Ready to get plastered?”