8. Libido Logistics
Chapter eight
Libido Logistics
Sterling
A month ago, I thought I had it all figured out.
It was just a dry spell plus a sudden influx of close-proximity to Mandy was an equation I could solve with old-fashioned discipline and maybe a few late-night self-administered distractions.
When it didn’t work, I did what any thinking man would do, I sourced a sample set.
Two women in three weeks. Both uncomplicated, both initiated with the explicit intention of purging the system.
One was a nurse, one a city parks employee.
We had drinks, a few laughs, the kind of clean, polite sex that leaves everyone in a better mood and no one needing to swap last names.
Both times, I came back to the loft after, walked through my own door, heard Mandy laughing at her laptop from the kitchen, and felt, absolutely nothing.
No, that’s not true. I felt the particular flatness of a man who just tried the wrong medicine and now has to wait and see if the side effects will wear off. I thought about talking to a therapist about it, but the closest I got is talking to Jake, and he’s about as subtle as a car alarm.
My thumb is white where it’s pressing into the edge of the log. I shift on the bench, which makes a metal groan, and the logbook almost slides to the floor. I catch it one-handed, which would be impressive if anyone was here to see it.
Except someone is. Jake drops onto the bench across from me with the kind of unhurried ease you only get from a lifetime of showing up at exactly the right moment to make someone else’s day worse. He’s carrying a protein shake, which he sets down between his knees before he talks.
“Why do you look like you’re about to start a fight with the janitor?”
I don’t look up from the log. “Didn’t realize I was scheduled for a motivational speech this morning.”
He makes a sound that might be a laugh or might be the leftover bronchitis from last month’s fire. “You’re in here reading the maintenance log, man. You either have a secret lover in Facilities, or you’re hiding from your own thoughts.”
I flip the log shut and toss it onto the bench beside me. “Just catching up on the real drama around here,” I say. “You’d be amazed how often the ladder truck runs out of hydraulic fluid.”
Jake grins, slow and wide. “You wanna talk about ladders, or do you want to talk about the real reason you’ve been picking up extra shifts like a bargain shopper on Black Friday?”
“I like the overtime.”
“You hate the overtime. You’re allergic to it. Every time you do more than three in a week you walk around muttering about how the station’s air supply system is ‘one bad Tuesday away from killing us all.’”
I shrug. “City’s not going to save itself.”
Jake picks up his shake and gives it a gentle, almost parental swirl. “Or maybe you’re just dodging the situation-ship at home.” He says “situation” with a capital S, like he’s naming a hurricane.
“Nothing to dodge,” I say, but it comes out wrong, too quick, too thin, and the words evaporate before they hit the wall.
He leans in, elbows on his knees. “So, tell me how it’s going with your ‘roommate’.”
I try a smile, but my muscle memory is weak. “Fine. We set up a system. Dishes, laundry, bathroom schedule. She even got a color, coded dry erase calendar for the fridge.”
Jake makes a face. “Sounds like pure erotic hell.”
“Very funny.”
“Hey, man, you’re the one who used to live alone for the express purpose of not having to negotiate fridge rights. Now you’re sharing your, what, your couch, your shower caddy, your Monday Night Football privileges?”
I cross my arms, partly for effect, partly because the season has shifted and I’m cold and the heater in the locker room is the only thing less reliable than the hot water.
Jake tilts his head. “You do realize it’s okay to admit when you like someone, right?”
“Of course I like her,” I say, with the inflection you’d use if someone asked if you enjoyed breathing oxygen. “She’s my best friend.”
He raises both eyebrows. “So why do you look like you’re trying to solve a hostage crisis every time someone brings her up?”
I want to tell him it’s because Mandy is the kind of person who gets behind your perimeter before you’ve even called a briefing, and that I am not equipped to manage that level of occupation on top of a 60- hour work week and a city that is, at any given time, actively on fire.
I want to tell him it’s because she moves through my apartment like she’s always lived there, and that it feels less like I invited her in and more like she let me rent space in her world.
I want to say these things, but I don’t. What I say is, “I’m fine, Jake. You don’t have to play Dr. Phil.”
“You sure about that?” He pats my head and I frown. “You are backstroking in a river of denial my friend.”
I laugh, but it’s hollow. “Look, nothing’s changed. She’s still Mandy. I’m still me. We eat Chinese food, we binge shitty TV, we argue about whose turn it is to take out the trash.”
Jake gives me a slow nod. “And?”
“And what?”
He smirks. “You’ve been going on dates again. Lot of them, actually. Noticed you’ve been coming back early.”
“Stalker.”
“Dodger.”
I set the logbook down. “So, I’m dating. That’s a crime now?”
“Nope.” He takes a long pull from the shake. “Just interesting timing. You used to space them out. Take your time. Now it’s like you’re running a tryout schedule.”
I think about the nurse and the parks employee. How I’d sat across from both of them and kept doing the math, kept waiting for something to add up to something else entirely.
“Maybe I’m just being efficient.”
Jake looks at me. “You came back from that last one at nine-thirty on a Saturday.”
I don’t say anything. Jake lives in my building, but I didn’t think he paid much attention to anything around him.
“Nine-thirty,” he repeats, like he’s reading it into evidence. “On a Saturday, Sterling.”
I stare at the middle distance. “We ran out of things to talk about.”
“Or,” Jake says, “you already knew what you wanted to talk about. Just not with her.”
I flex my hands, then relax them, then do it again, just to feel something in the fingers. “I don’t know, man. Maybe I’m just out of practice.”
Jake looks at me for a long second, then laughs, the sound echoing off the tile like a bark. “Saint Sterling. Patron Saint of hoe saving is out of practice?” He shakes his head. “No way. More like you finally have an opponent who can play at your level.”
“Are we still talking about Mandy, or did you switch to Mario Kart?”
He grins. “Same thing, man. Same exact thing.”
He stands, stretches, and lets the shake dangle from his hand.
“Look, I don’t want to tell you how to live your life, but if you ever decide to, you know, admit to yourself that you might actually want her, you should probably do it before she moves on and finds some other guy with a better dry erase calendar. ”
He leaves, and the locker room is suddenly empty, except for the distant sound of the bay radio and the wet mark where my boots were resting on the tile.
I sit there for a few seconds longer, staring at the logbook, and then at the closed door.
I have been on hundreds of calls. I have triaged wounds, kicked in doors, carried grown men down three flights of smoke-filled stairs. I have never, not once, come across a problem I could not solve with the right mix of tools and timing.
But right now, I am completely out of tools.
I lace my boots, stand, and leave the log on the bench. Someone else can worry about the hydraulic fluid today.
I’ve got a more urgent situation to triage.
When I get back to the kitchen, Jake’s already there, stirring sugar into a mug the size of a paint can.
The lights are still off except for the under-cabinet strip, which means he’s waiting for me to finish what I started, or maybe for the room to stop spinning.
He doesn’t turn around when I enter, but I know he’s listening.
I lean against the doorframe and look at the coffee machine, which is both ancient and finicky.
If you want a decent cup, you have to punch the “brew” button exactly three times and then threaten it with physical violence.
I watch the display flicker from “CLEANING MODE” to “READY” and think about how many appliances in my life only respond to direct confrontation.
Jake doesn’t say anything. He’s left a second mug on the counter, a silent invitation.
It’s stupid, but that’s what does it.
“I can’t do this,” I say.
Jake keeps stirring, slow and even.
“Can’t do what, beat her at Mario Kart?” he asks, as if there are a million things I might have meant.
I shake my head and he smirks, knowing that we aren’t talking about video games. I press my hands flat on the counter, cold laminate grounding me. “I can’t keep pretending she’s just a roommate. That it’s all the same. That it’s not…” I lose the word.
Jake stops stirring. “Not what?”
I exhale, hard. “Not everything. It’s not everything.”
He pours the coffee into the other mug, slides it towards me, and waits.
“She was on the couch,” I say, “yesterday morning. Wearing my shirt, like, actually my shirt, not a cute version of my shirt, just the wrinkled, slept, in one from the night before. Her hair was in this…” I gesture vaguely at the side of my own head, “thing. And she was eating Cheerios out of a coffee mug and sketching something on her iPad, and she looked up at me, and my brain just… full stop. Hard reboot.”
Jake grins, “You’re a man of simple tastes.”
“No, it’s,” I falter. “It wasn’t like that. I mean, sure, she looked good, like really good, but that’s not what I’m talking about. It just felt… right.”
Jake lifts his mug in a salute. “Captain Save-a-hoe finally meets his match. I’m proud of you.”
I groan. “Don’t start.”
He sips, then sets the mug down. “I’m serious. You sound like a guy who just figured out he’s been playing checkers on a chessboard.”
I shake my head, “If I’m playing chess, I’m at least six moves behind.”
Jake’s grin softens. “That’s okay. So’s she.”
We sit in a silence that isn’t uncomfortable, but feels like the air is getting rearranged at a molecular level.
“There was this thing when she first got here,” I say. “I went to the pet store, right? Because her cat was there. So, I got a bunch of cat stuff. And then I got home, and she was in the kitchen, and she just… hugged me. Out of nowhere. Like I’d just come back from war.”
Jake raises a brow. “You said you didn’t want this?”
“No. I do. I mean, I really do, but I also don’t, because,” I grip the coffee mug so hard it might shatter.
“Because it’s Mandy. She’s always been the one person I could trust not to go nuclear on my life.
She doesn’t complain if I can’t make an event, of if I’m late, or have to leave early because of work.
She’s consistent. If I mess this up, I lose everything. ”
Jake considers that. “You ever think maybe she’s scared, too?”
I stare into the mug, which is now half-empty and tastes like dishwater. “She’s the bravest person I know.”
He smiles, “That’s not the same as not being scared.”
I bark out a laugh. “I sound like a twelve, year, old.”
Jake shrugs. “I’ve heard worse. Remember Tommy LaPlante? Fell in love with his dental hygienist, didn’t tell anyone, just started flossing three times a day until his gums bled. Brought in his own toothbrush to every shift. You’re not even in the top ten for embarrassing confessions.”
This time, my smile is real. “Thanks, I think.”
“Listen,” Jake says, “you ever wonder why you do this job? Why you keep putting yourself in the line of fire, literally and metaphorically?”
I think about it. “I like to help people.”
He waves that off. “Everyone says that. The real answer? You like to fix things. You like being the guy who knows what to do when the world is on fire. But this isn’t something you can fix, man. You have to let it happen.”
“That’s not how I’m wired.”
Jake leans in, serious now. “You can’t rescue yourself from this. You either go for it or you don’t, but if you keep running, she’ll figure it out, and then it’s over anyway.”
I swallow, hard. “What if I do it wrong?”
Jake sits back, arms crossed. “Then you pick up the pieces, same as always. But if you don’t even try, you’ll regret it. Trust me.”
He gets up, rinses his mug, and heads for the bay. “You got a shift tomorrow?”
“Yeah. Double. Then two days off.”
He nods. “Good. Figure out what you want before then.”
The door swings shut behind him, and I’m left in the kitchen with the world’s worst cup of coffee and an echo of his words bouncing off the tile.
For the first time in my life, I don’t know what happens next.
I finish the coffee, even though it’s cold and kind of gross. I wash the cup, dry it, and put it back.
Then I go to the window, look out at the street, and let the quiet settle in.
I could stand here all day, looking for a sign. But that’s not how this works.
Because if I’m going to screw this up, I want to be the first to know.