Chapter 17

Saturday, August 3rd, 2013

Riley looked back and forth between me and her roommate, her face twisted in rage, seemingly unsure of where her anger would be most appropriately directed. It took a few seconds, but eventually she seemed to decide on her roommate.

“You ... you knew who he was, didn’t you? You knew exactly who he was and you picked him up anyways!”

Her roommate—I tried my best to remember her name from my conversation with Riley at the coffee shop ... Tiffany? Yeah I’m pretty sure it was Tiffany—just gave Riley a shrug. “I told you that first night that if you didn’t want him then I’d take him. Obviously you didn’t want him. I saw an opportunity to snag a hot guy and I went for it. I’m glad I did. What did you expect?”

Riley was practically steaming. “You know it’s more complicated than that!”

Just then the other bedroom door opened and a thin man with messy hair—brown with the sides starting towards gray—stumbled out into the living room, still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “What’s everyone yelling about?” he mumbled.

Riley’s face immediately shifted from an expression of anger to one of panic. Despite having just been the target of Riley’s outburst, Tiffany stepped in to bail out her roommate. “Riley was just giving me shit for being so loud last night.”

The guy nodded. “As she should. It’s hard enough getting a good night’s sleep on that box of rocks Riley calls a mattress. Don’t need your over-the-top fake sex screams to make it even worse.”

“Oh trust me, those screams were real. You’re probably just not used to hearing that sort of thing.”

“Tiff, knock it off,” Riley said.

I cleared my throat. “Um, has anyone seen my pants?”

The man—noticing my presence for the first time—looked over in surprise, a clear expression of disdain on his face. “Oh, you’re still here. I thought Tiffany’s conquests usually fucked off as soon as she was done with them.”

“Who said I’m done with him? I think I want to give him a try when he’s not almost blackout drunk, might be even better than last night.” She bent down and picked my pants up off the floor. “Here.”

“Would you mind bringing them over here? Don’t think I need to walk around mostly-naked in front of your roommate and her boyfriend.”

“It’s fine. I didn’t get a good look at your body last night anyways, I want to see what you’ve got.” Shaking my head, I opened the door fully and strode over to Tiffany so I could grab my pants. She whistled. “Damn, look at that. Now that’s a real man’s body. Maybe he can give you some workout tips, Thomas.” I quickly pulled my pants up and buttoned them.

Riley’s boyfriend scoffed. “I’ve got better things to do with my time than exercise with one of your meatheads, Tiffany.”

“You don’t have to be an ass about it. Besides, he’s not a meathead. Where did you say he went to school, Riley? Stanford, right?”

Thomas arched an eyebrow. “Why does Riley know where your boy-toy went to college?”

“They’ve known each other for a bit, she introduced him to me,” Tiffany said.

“We work together,” Riley blurted out. “He’s the new fifth grade teacher at Spellman. That’s how we met.”

“Don’t see many guys trying to teach elementary school. You said you said you went to Stanford? Didn’t you want to do anything more advanced?”

Did he really just take a shot at my job? The same job that his girlfriend does? “I taught high school before this, but education is important at all ages. I’m excited to try something new and see what sort of impact I can have on the kids.”

“Right,” he said.

I spotted my shirt on the floor near the door. Picking it up and putting it on, I turned to Tiffany. “I should probably get going. Thanks for ... keeping me company last night.”

Tiffany sauntered over, pulled me down for a very long, sloppy kiss, and then gave Riley a wink. “It was my pleasure. We’ll have to do it again sometime. You don’t mind if I get your number from Riley, do you?”

“Uh, sure, yeah, that works.” I looked over at Riley, who did not look happy about this whole situation in the slightest. “I’ll see you on Monday, I guess?”

“Yes,” she said, the word sharp enough to draw blood. I just tilted my head at her. She looked down at her feet in embarrassment. “Sorry,” she said quietly. “I’ll talk to you later.”

I made sure that my phone, wallet, and keys were all still in my pockets. “I’ll see myself out.” Riley nodded. Tiffany blew me a kiss and waggled her fingers at me. There was definitely some strange roommate dynamic going on there that I did not want to be in the middle of. It was exactly the sort of thing I had been worried about with Tori and Melissa, but thankfully that hadn’t turned out to be a problem.

Once I was out of Tiffany and Riley’s apartment the first thing I did was pull out my phone so I could figure out where the hell I was. It was just after nine—not as late as I’d thought it might be. I opened up the Uber app and requested a ride back to the bar where my car was. While I waited for my driver I checked my texts. There were a few from Tori that she had sent last night:

Well, at least I wasn’t going to get a bunch of shit from them for not showing up last night. I didn’t need that on top of all of the problems that sleeping with Riley’s roommate was going to cause. Honestly, that seemed like more of a problem for the two of them to work out than anything to do with me. Tiffany had known who I was and came after me. I hoped that when Riley and I talked she would realize I hadn’t purposefully gone out of my way to sleep with her roommate and cause drama.

All that being said, the fact that I ended up in that situation in the first place was a problem. I had gotten way too drunk and ended up having sex with a girl without even knowing her name. Unprotected sex, at that. Shit. I realized that I had been getting drunk as a way to excuse hooking up with Emma, and when that had fallen apart I was too drunk and horny to just go home by myself. Melissa had told me to loosen up and enjoy myself, but was that really just excusing me being out of control?

As far as I knew, everyone was on the same page. There were no misaligned expectations in terms of our relationships. We were all just young, single people having a good time, right? But just because no one was being hurt it didn’t mean that it was the right thing for me to be doing. I really didn’t want to be waking up with a hangover, trying to piece together where I was and who I was with. Maybe I was retreating too far in the other direction away from a serious relationship. Overcompensating. It was likely that the best thing for me was found somewhere closer to the middle.

That still raised the question of ‘where’s the middle?’ Was the middle the casual, friendly sex I was having with Melissa and Tori? Was it a regular booty call with someone like Tessa? Or was it just putting myself back out there and asking Cece on a date? I had to admit my natural inclination was towards the latter, but I knew that it would be very easy for me to try to get serious with her too quickly and I’d end up right back where I started with Amanda. Hell, I was still struggling a bit with wanting things to be more serious than they were with Tori and Melissa, and that wasn’t going to get any easier if I kept sleeping with them.

My Uber driver pulled up and I slid into the back seat. He took one look at my appearance—wrinkled clothes from the night before, messy hair, and probably bags under my eyes from the hangover and lack of sleep—and said “Welcome to your Ride of Shame.”

I laughed. “That’s one way of putting it.”

“Hopefully it was a good night.”

“The parts I remember were pretty good. Rough morning, though.”

“I feel you, brother.”

I put my head back and closed my eyes. We didn’t speak for the rest of the ride. When he dropped me off at my car I made sure to give him a good rating and tip. Saturday morning Uber drivers were providing an important service to the world. Truly, they were heroes.

When I made it back to my apartment I took a quick shower to rinse off all the smell of sweat and sex. My next priority was addressing my hangover. I fried up a few eggs, popped some bread in the toaster, poured myself a large glass of orange juice, and grabbed a few aspirin. It wasn’t going to make me feel better right away, but it was a good start.

I texted Tori, You guys still alive? but didn’t get a reply back right away. Probably still trying to sleep it off.

Next I decided to let Cece know I would join her at the gym this afternoon. I needed to figure out what to do about her. She was beautiful, sweet, and—perhaps most important of all—she didn’t work at Spellman. At the very least I knew that I wanted to keep getting to know her better. I wasn’t sure how long I could just keep things going at the same pace we had been so far. If nothing else, the kiss she had given me yesterday made it clear that Cece was ready for something more. Paul was probably right—I couldn’t expect a girl like her to just wait around forever.

The only problem was that I really still had no idea how to navigate trying to date someone given all of the other women that had been in my life recently. Just asking Cece on a date wouldn’t make her my girlfriend, there shouldn’t be any expectations of exclusivity based on just that, but it still felt a bit scummy to me to date someone while I was having sex with others. I guess there was a difference between ‘going on a date’ and ‘dating,’ but still. I just wasn’t used to this kind of situation. Why did things have to be so complicated? Or rather, why had I already made things so complicated for myself?

Cece texted back, asking if noon would work for our workout. I told her that it did, then decided to take the next, very small step with her.

Want to grab some lunch together afterwards?

Sure!

There. It wasn’t much, but at least it was something.

Cece looked amazing in her gym clothes, as usual. I liked that she felt comfortable enough in her own skin to just go natural. It was amazing how many girls would spend a ton of time doing their makeup just for the gym. I guess they didn’t plan on sweating enough to ruin it.

“How was your night out with all the other teachers?” she asked as soon as she had buckled in.

“It was a bit crazy. Definitely had too much to drink. While I was in the bathroom something happened that got the ladies all kicked out, I’m still not entirely sure what happened there. I’m glad it was just an end of the summer thing, I don’t think I’m made for going out like that every week.”

“I’m sure they’ll keep trying to drag you out for more nights like that.”

“They can try, but I’ll probably pass. Or at the very least make sure I limit the amount of shots I do.”

“How much did you have to drink?”

I groaned. “I don’t even know. At least six shots of tequila, probably more. Way too much.”

“I’m amazed you’re up for the gym today, then.”

“I’ll be fine. Sweating it out will probably be good for me. Besides, I couldn’t leave my favorite gym partner flying solo today.”

She smiled. “I’m going to tell Paul you said that.”

“I think he’ll survive.”

Our routines were different, so we didn’t work out together the whole time like I would with Paul, but we did spot for each other on a few lifts. Towards the end of our workout, Cece went to use the elliptical while I finished up another set of deadlifts. When I finished and went to go join her, I found a guy doing his best to hit on her. She had her full Ice Queen persona on, as usual, but the guy just didn’t know when to quit.

Just as I was getting close, I heard her say to the guy in an exasperated voice, “I don’t know how many more ways I can say that I’m not interested. Here comes my boyfriend, maybe he can explain it to you.”

The guy turned around just as I walked up. “Sorry, dude. Was just trying to introduce myself. Didn’t realize she had a boyfriend.”

“You’ve got eyes, of course she does.” I said. “You ready to go?”

“Yeah, let’s get out of here.”

She didn’t grab onto my arm, but she did get as close to me as possible as we walked towards the locker rooms. We had both brought a change of clothes so we didn’t have to go out to lunch in our sweaty gym outfits. I took a two minute-long shower to rinse off and then changed into a short-sleeved linen shirt and khaki shorts. Cece took just a little bit longer to get ready, but she didn’t leave me waiting for too long. She’d changed into jean shorts with a sleeveless purple top and applied just a touch of makeup. She looked great, as usual.

“Sorry about calling you my boyfriend back there,” Cece said once we were in my car. “That guy just wouldn’t take a hint.”

“It’s fine. I told you the other night that I was fine with shielding you from Jason. Happy to do it at the gym too, if needed. Besides, it’s good for my reputation if the hottest girl at the gym is my fake-girlfriend,” I said.

“I don’t understand why I can tell a guy ‘no’ a million different ways and he keeps on trying, but the second I say I have a boyfriend he backs off, like the only thing that matters is whether or not some other man has ‘claimed’ me.”

“You’re right, it’s stupid. I see it all the time, though. It’s probably just part of our animal-brain instincts. If another male wants the same female then that means you need to be ready to face up to a challenge of bashing your skulls together until someone submits.”

“Okay Mr. Mountain Goat,” she said with a laugh. “Oh! That reminds me. Have you ever listened to the Mountain Goats?”

“I don’t think so. Is that a band?”

“Yeah, one of my favorites. My brother Corey got me into them. Here, let me play something for you.”

She pulled out her phone and poked around a bit, trying to find the song she wanted. It started with an acoustic guitar and what sounded like a synthesized organ before the singer came in. He didn’t have an amazing voice, but it was distinctive. Very much indie folk/rock.

But I will walk down to the end with you

If you will come all the way down with me

She let the song play through another verse before pausing and looking at me expectantly. “What do you think?”

“I like it,” I said, and I did. It wasn’t my favorite type of music in the world but Amanda was into a lot of similar sounding stuff and I’d developed a taste for it. “You’ll have to send me some more songs to listen to.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Are you in the mood for anything in particular for lunch?”

“Not really. I’m good to try anything.”

I decided I could go for something spicy, so I drove us to a nearby Thai restaurant. Cece had somehow never had it before. She decided to try the yellow curry with chicken. I tried to warn her about the spice levels but she said she could handle spicy food. She may have overestimated her tolerance, or underestimated how spicy Thai food could get. I felt a little bad, but it was very funny to watch her struggle with the heat. She was a good sport about it though.

“Well, now I know that I can’t handle a four out of five on the Thai spice levels. Next time I’ll go with a three.”