3. Elias
THREE
Elias
Mia drops her class off on Friday, right before lunch.
“I see you have Kyle, the one with his hands down his pants,” I murmur to her as her class files into the gym.
She agitatedly smooths the blonde strands in her high ponytail. It leaves a lump that I have an inexplicable urge to smooth down. I poke it with a finger instead. She slaps my hand away. “It’s like, nonstop,” she whisper-yells. “I don’t know what to do about it! His hands are always down there! You’re a boy. Help me fix it!”
“Boys just love their penises, no matter what age we are,” I whisper back, shrugging.
A kid that has to weigh almost two hundred pounds walks by. I lift an eyebrow at Mia in question.
“Sean. He has diabetes,” she whispers to me. “P.E. will be good for him.”
“Hey! Ms. Roberts’s class,” I yell once they’re all in the gym. “I put a bunch of basketballs on the side there. Start dribbling.”
Mia frowns at me. “This is their first day of P.E., Elias. Shouldn’t you be going over like, gym safety rules or something?”
I shrug. “Kids will be kids.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means, mind your business, Mia. This is my classroom, and last I checked, you were not my coach.”
She peeks around me. “Half my kids are sitting down, including Sean.”
“Their body, their choice,” I tell her.
“But they aren’t engaged, of course they?—”
I maneuver her tiny frame out of the gym, an easy feat. I notice that my hands cover the entire span of her slim shoulders. “Go take your prep, Mia,” I tell her, tugging once on her ponytail.
She grumbles, walking away, and I also notice the curve of her ass in her jeans. I shake my head. I need to get laid . Especially after Bathroom Incident. I make a mental note to text Leo on my lunch.
“All right, friends, get up,” I say to the kids sitting on the floor. “Time to participate.”
“How was school this week?” Leo asks me later. A bunch of us are out—Leo, some friends from college, Mia and a friend of hers who I’ve met a million times but whose name I can never remember. We’re at a bar in Nolita, one of those trendy ones that skews more cocktails over beer and more club over bar. A Leo-type finance bro place. The women here are of the drop-dead gorgeous influencer model sort. Usually I’d be all about it, but for some reason I can’t stop looking at Mia’s neck.
I shrug. “Same old. Kids will be kids.” I take a sip of my beer, the only drink in the place under fifteen dollars. “Oh, but they’re sending me and Meems to a conference in New Orleans next week. I’m psyched. All expenses paid vacation, baby.” She’s over in the corner with her friend, folded into herself on a stool, eyes flicking around the room like a scared baby deer.
“Your school can afford that?” asks Mike, an old friend from school.
“Nope,” I tell him, continuing to scan the bar, forcing myself to find the one for the night. There , I think. We make eye contact. I wink. She smiles.
“Nice to know our city tax dollars are being used so responsibly,” Grant chuckles.
I shrug. Not my problem.
Mia and her friend wander over to us, drinks in hand. I sling my arm around Mia’s neck. “I was just telling everyone that they’re sending us to that conference in New Orleans because we’re such amazing teachers.”
She shrugs, her shoulders moving my arm up. “Should be exciting.”
“Not that Elias is going to the conference,” Mike jokes.
Mia frowns. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Relax, Meems,” I tell her. “It’s fine. He’s probably right,” I laugh.
She hums.
“How’s work going with you?” I ask Leo.
“Oh man. It’s whatever. There’s this new project I’m leading for one of our new pieces of software. We’re kind of behind schedule, but I think it’s because none of our engineers are following the schedule.”
“Isn’t that your job, though?” Mia asks.
“What?”
“To make sure your team follows the schedule?”
He scoffs. “I’m not an office manager, Meems?—”
“I mean, clearly not, with what you’re making,” I decide to step in. “But seriously, Mia’s right. Isn’t it your job to like, define the scope and the specifications of the project to your entire team? Requirements and stuff, like deadlines? You’re in charge, right?”
He looks at me with narrowed eyes.
“Do you forget I own my own business, or…” I start, with no intention of finishing.
“Honestly, we forget that it’s a real thing, sometimes,” Grant chimes in.
Mia scowls, ready to eat his face. She’s never liked him.
I decide to save his life and cover Mia’s mouth with my hand. “Well, I own my own business, asshole. Besides,” I say, turning back to Leo, “this is common sense. Teachers do this every fucking day. Plan, execute, assess. Come on.”
“Not with billions of dollars on the line, they don’t?—”
Mia takes this opportunity to bite one of my fingers on the hand covering her mouth.
“ Fuck , Meems?—”
“Nope, just the well-being, education, and livelihood of actual living, breathing, children, most of whom will never have the opportunity to work at these billion dollar companies,” Mia fires back, as I shake the pain out of my hand.
“Relax, Meems,” Leo says to her.
“Me?!” Mia is outraged.
“Her?” I say, in disbelief.
“Whatever,” she says, stomping away, Andrea ( that’s her name!) following behind her.
Leo blows out a breath. “You’re right. I don’t know why I’m arguing with you about this.”
I shrug. “You should probably tell Mia that.”
Grant and Mike wander back to the bar to get more overpriced drinks.
“How’s Meems doing, anyway? Did she ever contact that guy from the bar in Wildwood?”
I’m uncomfortable thinking about it. “I mean, we don’t really talk about that stuff,” I tell him, shifting on my feet.
“Right. That would be weird.”
“Extremely,” I say, while Mia’s blue eyes and flushed chest, mouth agape appear in my brain again. I find her across the bar. She and Andrea are cracking up, Mia’s shriek of laughter piercing the ambient buzz.
“But you haven’t seen him around your place or anything, right?”
“Hell no.”
“I don’t know why I’m still thinking about it,” Leo muses, taking a sip of his fancy gin drink, which I’m pretty sure is just straight gin poured over a shit ton of ice. “He would probably be good for her. I assume he makes a lot of money. Could probably get her out of that shithole you guys live in.”
“Hey,” I fire back, now uncomfortable and very irritated, for several different reasons that I can parse from that statement. “That’s our shithole, and there are plenty of good dudes out there who don’t make tech or finance money, asshole. What the hell is wrong with you tonight? You’re being a huge one percent dick.”
Leo holds his hands up apologetically. “Sorry, man, sorry. I take that back. Yes, there are good dudes out there who make a perfectly acceptable living wage. And obviously you’re great, and I love you, and you’re one of them. But it’s not like you’re going to date my sister.”
“Nope,” I say, the back of my neck prickling.
“Sorry again. But just keep an eye out for her, will you? Especially when you’re in New Orleans?”
“Will do,” I tell him, but I am already distracted by the blonde I spotted earlier and her friend walking up to us.
I look at the blonde girl and turn on the Dimple. “Hey,” I tell her. “It’s good to see you again.”
“Again?” she asks, her slicked back ponytail fluttering behind her in a familiar way. I’d like to wrap that around my hand.
“Yeah,” I respond. “Don’t you remember? We went out, had some drinks, went back to my place, had a great time?”
“When was this?” she asks, confused.
I grin. “Tonight.”
The next morning, I walk out to the kitchen, where Mia has already poured me a coffee. She hands it to me in my favorite mug.
“Thanks,” I murmur.
“You’ve always had a type,” Mia informs me.
I freeze, cup halfway to my mouth. I slowly place it back down. “Huh,” I grunt, nonsensically. Not a question, not a statement, just a noise.
She tilts her head, looking at me intensely with her crazy blue eyes. “Long blonde hair. Small. Hot.”
I watch her closely, searching her face for any sort of realization that she’s just described herself. “I… guess.”
This is all I can say because I’m still wrapping my head around the fact that I didn’t bring that girl home last night. Because of what Mia just said. Because at one point, the two of them were standing next to one another, ordering drinks at the bar, their backs to me… and I couldn’t tell them apart. They were the same height. Same build. Same hair worn in the same way. And then… I just couldn’t do it. I didn’t follow through. I went home alone and all sorts of horny and really fucking confused about the fact that ‘women who look like Mia’ has been my type all along.
She sighs. “I need to get laid.”
I gurgle a sound of simultaneous relief and dismay.
“I want to text that guy. The one from the bar in Wildwood that you and Leo bullied.”
“That soft looking emo kid?” I scoff.
She shrugs. “He was hot.” She pauses, thinking. She’s upset. “I’m so fucking bad at doing all of it, though.”
“All of what?”
“Like,” she waves her hands in the air, gesturing at everything and nothing.
“Like… the stove? Cooking?
“Like, men ,” she finally says. I shift in my seat. “I’m so bad at the whole thing. Flirting, texting, dating.” She looks at me, outraged. “I haven’t been fucked in two years, Elias!”
I die a slow and painful death. I try to make myself as small as possible. I close my eyes and hope to disappear. I do all of these things at once. “This is too much for nine o’clock in the morning, Meems.”
“That’s easy for you to say! You just got fucked a few hours ago! And I’m sure all you had to do was swagger over to her in the bar and show her your stupid fucking Dimple?—”
“Actually, she approached me ,” I mutter. “And I didn’t?—”
“—because you’re all, you —,” she says, furiously gesturing at my body.
I look down and remember I’m only wearing my boxers.
“—and it’s not fair.” She harrumphs.
It’s not fair; I agree. It wasn’t always like this. It’s just easier this way, having a revolving door. After being dumped by handfuls of women for various and very mean reasons ( too much of a himbo, not enough substance, not having enough earning potential as a teacher, blah, blah ). That sucked . Besides, I’m good at revolving doors. I could go around and around in circles forever without getting dizzy or dehydrated.
She pulls out her phone. “Help me,” she asks me. “Help me snag Adam.”
“Who’s Adam?”
“The guy from the Shore,” she tells me.
“Was he even nice?”
She shifts, looking uncomfortable. “What does it matter if he was nice? I’m sure you don’t go around selecting your blonde for the night based on their Enneagram type and monetary donations to the ACLU.”
I frown at her body language. “What aren’t you telling me? Was he a dick?”
“No,” she says exasperatedly. “He just… I wasn’t his first choice, I guess. But I’m never anyone’s first choice. It’s like men don’t even know I exist.”
“I know you exist,” I insist.
“You don’t count,” she huffs. “I’ve known you since the womb.”
I roll my eyes. “What do you mean, you weren’t his first choice?”
“That blonde wrapped around you in the bar was his first choice,” she shoots back, extremely irritated now.
I think about that. “She was really hot,” I admit. She looked like Mia, too. The fuck?! I didn’t take her home either, though. She was too wasted by the end of the night, and no one wants that. I went home alone and horny. Again. In fact, that’s what led to Bathroom Incident.
“ELIAS!” she shrieks. She smacks me on the side of the head.
“Fucking hell, Mia?—”
“Okay, so what should I say in this text?” she asks, after calming down.
I have an irresistible urge to grab her phone and throw it across the room. “Umm…”
“Actually, wait,” she says, putting her phone down. She looks at me with her X-ray eyes, and I can see the thoughts brewing in her head. I close my eyes in dread. I don’t know what this is, but I already know I’m not going to like it. She pokes my chest repeatedly. “Elias, listen to me. Look at me.”
I open my eyes, my green matching her blue.
“Elias, I need your help.”
“Help…what?”
“Help me be like you.”
I choke on my saliva, peering into my coffee and wonder if Mia’s laced it with LSD, shrooms, or both.
“Help me with everything, the flirting, the texting, the whatever. I don’t trust anyone else to help me do this. You’ve known me my entire life, and you’re basically my older brother, but you’re not actually, so it’s not weird for you to be helping with this. I trust you. I need this. Elias, please,” she begs.
I keep my mouth shut.
“And we’re going to be together all week for the conference!” she realizes with a start, looking at me with a feral grin. “We can practice the whole time we’re there! On strangers! Please, Elias.”
I’m pretty sure this is not what Leo meant when he asked me to look out for his little sister.
“Elias,” she says, poking me in the chest again. I swat it away, wishing she would stop repeating my name. “You owe me for Bathroom Incident.”
Excuse you . “I don’t owe you shit for Bathroom Incident; you’re the one who went in there?—”
“You’re the one who kept going and came while I was in there, like a fucking pervert—” she fires back.
My cock twitches in its boxers. “Oh, so you wanna talk about Bathroom Incident now, Mia? You want to have a real detailed discussion? You ready to talk about my dick? Are you sure that’s what you want to do?” I’m sick. This is sick.
She freezes, collecting herself, a flush climbing up her neck. “No. We said we’d never discuss it again.”
I grunt.
She takes a deep breath. “Elias.” She places a soft hand over mine. “Please help me.”
Something in her voice makes me focus. I find myself mapping her face, the one I’ve known for twenty-nine years, the features I know as well as the back of my hand. I look at the flecks of darker blue in her ice-blue eyes, note the dark blonde eyelashes framing them. The smooth skin stretched over her perfect little nose. The tiny scar above her lip from a freak roller skating accident.
“Leo will be so weird about this,” I attempt.
This is the wrong thing to say. She is outraged.
“Fuck that, Elias,” she says, slamming both hands on the table, making me jump. “Fuck Leo. Leo has always been such a judgmental dick about my life.”
“Well, he is your older brother,” I try, wincing.
“ And I’ve always been second best to him. With my parents. With my family. With you ,” she hisses. “Can’t you be on my fucking side for once?”
I look at her. Her eyes are shining, face pink.
A memory pops into my head. Mia at eight, maybe ten years old, adorable with a crown of metal headgear. Mia’s eyes red and swollen from being bullied at school. Mia’s laugh when I tell her we can be robots together, and then we can chomp on all of our enemies with our metal teeth.
Mia turned out to be a small little thing once she reached high school, but she always kept the roundness in her face. I notice now that she’s lost that some time in the last few years, making her face more angular, sharper. This makes me want to fold her up and put her in my pocket.
I realize with dismay that I’m going to say yes.
I mash my palms into my eye sockets. This is a mistake. “Fine.”
She squeals, her tiny body jumping up and down in our tiny kitchen. “Yes! Thank you!” She does an awful fist pump humping routine. “I’m gonna get so laid!” She does a twirl before sitting back in the chair and shoving her phone in my hands. “So, what should I say to him?”
I place the phone on the table. “Meems… I need to wake up first. Let me finish my coffee and hop in the shower.”
“Okay, okay, fine. He can wait for a few minutes. What are you doing today? Want to hang out? Can we start today?”
I stand up, screeching the chair on the tile of our kitchen. “Just… give me a minute.”
I stomp to the bathroom, turn the shower to ice cold, and stand under it for much longer than I need to.