Chapter Thirteen #2
“This place isn’t a normal retirement community. You just have to find the right balance and then they’ll be eating out of your hand.” He sounded as though it wasn’t at all hard to imagine. Like I was some sort of charming person.
I couldn’t help but think of what Hollis had said in my office as we approached Ruby’s front door and I punched the security code into her keypad.
He opened the door and whispered, “No one wants to watch Saving Private Ryan for fun. It’s not even rated R for the good stuff.”
The moment we stepped inside, Marlon started yapping.
“Shhh, shhh,” I begged him.
“Hey, little man,” Eli said as he scooped him up, startling Marlon into silence. He scratched between his ears, and it was like watching someone hypnotize a shark.
I turned on the faucet and filled a glass of water and chugged it so fast I left the faucet on and immediately refilled my cup.
“Who wouldn’t love my programs? I’m a genius. My programs are genius.”
Eli nodded. “And geniuses take two ibuprofens before going to bed in addition to drinking a glass of water every time they wake up.”
He handed Marlon off to me as I wandered over to the couch that I currently called home. Then he began to open cabinets until he found Ruby’s pharmaceuticals stockpile.
With a glass of water and two pills, he crouched down beside me. “Here, take this.”
I threw back the pills like a champ and chugged the third glass of water. “I have to sleep. Actually, I think I already am asleep.” I scooted back and fluffed my pillow before collapsing, my lower back immediately sinking into the unfortunate space between the cushions.
“Let’s get you to bed,” he said.
My eyelids began to droop. “This is bed.”
“You’ve been sleeping on a couch for weeks?”
“Technically, it’s a chaise longue.”
“We’ve gotta get you off this couch,” he said with a barely there laugh.
“Chaise longue. But fuck me. Yes, please,” I told him through a yawn that hit so hard, tears began to stream down my cheeks.
He cleared his throat into his fist, his cheeks the slightest bit pink.
Marlon settled on my chest, whining.
“You have to give Marlon a kiss good night. You made him like you and now he demands a kiss. I don’t make the rules.”
He shook his head. “Small dogs are ridiculous.”
“Don’t speak ill of my son.”
I closed my eyes as he leaned down and gave Marlon a soft kiss between his ears.
A finger—or maybe Marlon’s tongue—traced down the center of my forehead and up the slope of my nose.
The next morning, I woke up sore but headache-free and to a note on the coffee table that read:
Two more ibuprofen and a glass of water for the genius. Doctor’s orders.
ELIAS BUCKLEY
SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO
MATURE ADULTS
“I should go,” Vera whispered as she and Brody stumbled into our moonlight-soaked room.
One of them tripped over something on the floor, and Vera laughed. Skin slapped skin, and then her voice was muffled, likely by Brody’s hand, as she said, “You told me he sleeps like the dead.”
“I didn’t think you were actually gonna put that to the test, V.”
His bedside lamp flickered on. I imagined his fingers on her lips and wondered what it might feel like to run the pad of my thumb along the shape of her mouth.
I lay on my side, facing the wall. In four hours, my alarm would go off for a microbiology test, but I had yet to fall asleep.
Vera and Brody had gone to a Buffy pub quiz night.
Brody dressed as Angel and Vera as Willow in combat boots, a floor-length silk skirt, and a square-neck top that made her look like a milkmaid.
It was an image I couldn’t forget if I tried.
The only thing that interfered with the boner it could have caused was her fawning all over Brody for getting some kind of callback for a guest spot on a soap opera.
I would have much preferred that time a week before Thanksgiving when she got drunk on Mike’s Hard Lemonade and gave a lecture on why some Canadian TV show called Degrassi was the most groundbreaking television of our time.
I mostly stared at the wall behind her head as she and Brody did a deep dive on an episode with an abortion plotline that was never allowed to air in the US.
But admittedly, I did go home, smoke a joint, and binge three episodes while Brody snored from the other side of the room.
“I should just go home,” Vera said. “If I knock loud enough, Tess will hear me and let me in. I can’t believe I forgot my dorm keycard.”
“It’s not like this little skanky witch look you’ve got going on left a lot of room for storage.”
“Did you just call me a skanky witch?” Vera asked as she swatted at Brody—from what I could hear.
“Fucking hell,” he said. “That stung. And I’m sorry. I meant to say a hot skanky witch. Better?”
She sighed. “Marginally.”
“Anyway, just stay here.”
My spine stiffened. I could barely sleep as it was.
After she’d left earlier that night my whole fucking room smelled like her and that cheap cucumber melon body spray she always wore.
Sometimes I’d fake a sneeze and say that I had a sudden headache just hoping that she would get the hint and stop wearing it.
I’d ask if anyone smelled the too-sweet aroma.
And Vera’s cheeks would turn a deep shade of pink, which usually led to a boner on my part.
Vera had become an installment in Brody’s life, which was inconvenient, because he lived in my room.
After the Halloween party, he’d started inviting her everywhere with us unless he was explicitly told not to.
Mostly by me. Like when we met my parents for brunch on my birthday or when we went out for drinks last week and I just needed a break from her laughing at Brody’s every word like he was the funniest motherfucker of all time.
It was as infuriating as when she’d pick fights with other Sigma Chi brothers about the toxicity of Greek life.
All while she wore the most sexless vintage T-shirts that still found a way to cling to her tits.
Or how the tips of her ears turned red when she started talking too fast about whatever movie she’d last seen—good or bad, she always had an opinion.
“I gotta take a piss,” Brody told her as our door creaked open, “but there are some clean T-shirts on my desk and a couple of gym shorts hanging over the closet door.”
Vera sighed as the door shut, and it was suddenly too quiet.
I held my breath as she kicked off her boots and shuffled over to the far side of the room where our desks were.
She mumbled to herself as she flipped through shirts, and then a soft “This will have to do” came out as a sigh.
Clothing rustled as I clutched my fists in front of my chest like for a desperate prayer. She was undressing. In my room. Right behind me.
All I had to do was peer over my shoulder to catch a glimpse, but the only thing worse than her undressing behind me was getting caught as I watched.
The mattress on the other side of the room shifted as she sat down.
“Why are you still wearing that skirt?” Brody asked as the door creaked open, putting an end to any possibility of me catching a glimpse of Vera.
“Your boxer shorts weren’t made for my wide birthing hips. You have zero ass.”
I swallowed back a laugh, but Brody remained silent for a moment until he finally said, “Then don’t wear pants. I don’t care. Eli is asleep and he’ll be gone before we’re even up. It’s not like I haven’t seen you in a swimsuit, V. And by the way, my ass is very juicy.”
“Maybe once I’m under the covers, but wearing a skirt is basically the same as not wearing pants anyway. Do you have an extra pillow and blanket I could use down here?”
“Shut up. You’re sleeping in the bed with me.
” The springs of his double mattress wheezed as he threw himself into bed.
A T-shirt flew overhead and landed on the edge of my bed.
Brody snorted. If he were actually trying to be a gentleman, he would have just gone down to sleep on the couch and let her have the bed.
Not that the half-mast boner under my blankets knew anything about being a gentleman.
She scoffed. “The floor is fine.”
“Don’t be silly, Vera. We’re mature adults. No one’s going to get in trouble for sleeping in the same bed. The worst that could happen is that I drool on you or accidentally fart in my sleep.”
She sighed. “Okay, but I’m sleeping on top of the blanket with that quilt your mom sent you.”
“Be my guest,” he said. “You know it’s made out of—”
“All the T-shirts from every sports team you were on since T-ball. Yes, I do remember that specific footnote in the history of Brody.”
“One day, when I’m famous, I’ll let you write my licensed autobiography. You’ll be the Brody Turner expert.”
“I’m glad you have such big dreams for me,” she said as the blankets rustled. “I’m taking off this skirt, but please be warned that my ass is not a hand warmer.”
“That was one time!” he said. “And it was my feet. And it worked. My toes were very toasty under that ass of yours. It’s a ten-out-of-ten ass.”
Vera was quiet for a minute until she finally said, “Good night, Brody.”
His bedside lamp switched off and I stayed awake listening to the rise and fall of their out-of-sync breaths until they grew longer and shallower.
The only thing worse than Vera implanting herself in our lives over the last few months was watching her fall in love with Brody. The harder she fell, the harder it became to look away. It was painful, and I wasn’t willing to figure out why.