Chapter 7

Wednesday, July 24th, 2013

Paul was just as cheerful as always when I met him at the gym on Wednesday morning. We got to lifting and he quickly got on with his jaw workout as well, chatting up a storm. He was very curious as to what had been going on with Tori being at my apartment yesterday morning.

“So what’s the deal with that girl crashing at your place the other night? Didn’t you say you’ve only been in town for a few days?”

“Yeah, but I’ve known her for years. High school sweetheart, you know how it is.”

“I sure do, but I married mine. You really just ran into her after all these years and she’s sleeping with you that same night?”

I set my weights down. “I didn’t say I slept with her.”

Paul gave me a curious look. “But you did sleep with her, didn’t you?”

“Look, Paul, I usually wouldn’t answer something like that either way. I’m not really one for that sort of locker room talk. Maybe it’s because with some very limited exceptions, I’ve been in long-term relationships since I was fifteen, so people could just assume I was sleeping with my girlfriend or my fiancée and I didn’t have a girl of the night or week that I needed to brag about fucking. I dated Tori, that’s the girl who was at my apartment yesterday, for three years in high school. Then I was single for maybe six months, and then I dated Amanda for six years, we got engaged, and then we broke up a few months ago. That’s pretty much my entire romantic history. So I don’t really feel comfortable talking about whether or not I slept with a girl, that’s just not my style. But in this case, no I didn’t sleep with her. She slept in my bed, and I slept on the couch.” I didn’t feel the need to tell him that at some point in the night she had ended up on the couch with me, or that I did end up having sex with her later that day at her apartment. Details, details.

“That’s cool man, I can appreciate discretion in this sort of thing. Was just curious. Besides, even if you have only ever been with those two girls, that’s one more than me. Jackie and I have been together since freshman year of high school, no breaks or anything.”

“Pretty rare these days, but it sounds like it’s worked well for you. I’m jealous, honestly. I’ve spent a lot of time in the past forty-eight hours or so wondering what my life would be like if Tori and I had never broken up.”

“Don’t get me wrong, it hasn’t all been sunshine and roses in the,” he paused, probably to do some quick math, “nineteen years we’ve been together. Definitely some ups and downs. But we’ve made it work. I love her, and I’d do anything for her. Once you commit to that choice, it makes all of the problems seem small in comparison.”

“Yeah, that sure sounds nice. Maybe someday.” I had thought I had that with Amanda, but I was wrong. Could I get back to something like that with Tori? I’d certainly felt like I had that kind of love for her when I was eighteen, but it was hard to say for sure. What do teenagers know about that kind of commitment? Maybe whatever was going on between me and Melissa could grow into something like that. Or maybe I hadn’t even met whomever it was I was meant to marry yet, assuming that such a woman was even out there. Maybe I was just going to be a bachelor forever. As fun as this past week had been, that was a pretty depressing thought.

I was dragged out of a potential spiral into self-pity by the arrival of Miss Triple G, looking just as mouth-wateringly good as usual in a pair of tight red shorts. Before she could even start her workout, a guy with biceps bigger than my head sauntered over. I couldn’t hear what was said, but he was pretty obviously hitting on her, and she was pretty obviously ignoring him. It looked like the guy was actually starting to get a bit upset. I gave Paul and look and he nodded. We got up and walked towards them, just in case.

As we got closer I was able to hear what the guy was saying. “You’re seriously gonna ice me out like that? Fucking ridiculous. You dress like that, practically begging for a man to come hit you up, and then want to play the frigid bitch?”

“Hey man, that’s enough. She’s obviously not interested, why don’t you go back to your workout,” I said, stepping up to the meathead.

“Who the fuck are you? We’re having a private conversation.”

“Doesn’t look like much of a conversation to me. Why don’t you just go do your own thing and let her do hers?”

The meathead narrowed his eyes and for a second I thought he might take a swing at me, but then he snorted and shook his head. “Whatever. Waste of time anyways. Good luck with that bitch, but I don’t think white knighting is going to get you anywhere either.” He walked past me, bumping me with his shoulder as he went by. Douchebag.

When I turned back I found that Miss Triple G was giving me a look just as cold as the one she’d given the meathead. “For future reference, I don’t need any help with guys like that. Or with anything, really.” She had an accent that I couldn’t quite place. Somewhere back east, but I wasn’t sure where.

I raised my hands in surrender. “Sorry, he just seemed like he was getting close to causing a problem. I’ll let you get to your workout.” She was certainly cold and a bit rude, but I found that I couldn’t blame her too much. Looking as good as she did I’m sure this wasn’t the first time—or even the hundredth time—that she’d had to deal with that sort of situation, and I was sure that some guys had also used “rescuing” her from an unwanted advance as an opportunity to hit on her in turn, even if that wasn’t what I had intended. I couldn’t imagine how exhausting it must be to be an attractive female in a gym like this if you weren’t specifically trying to attract that kind of attention. Yes, her features were very fine all on their own, and her outfit certainly highlighted her best assets, but she was allowed to dress however she wanted, even in a way that was extremely alluring, without that meaning she was inviting men to hit on her. Paul and I returned to finish our workout and then hit the locker room. With no Tori waiting for me at my apartment this morning, it was finally time for me to get in the habit of showering and changing at the gym before school started and I wouldn’t have time to go home between.

I grabbed my stuff from the locker and hit the shower, quickly rinsing off. For a gym locker room, the shower had surprisingly good water pressure and nice hot water. I finished up and wrapped a towel around my waist, returning to the locker. Paul emerged from his shower a few moments later, grabbing his clothes from the locker next to mine. I dropped the towel to step into my briefs.

“Damn dude, they make you carry a license for that thing?”

It took me a second to realize that Paul was talking to me, and then another second to realize what he was talking about. Luckily we were the only people in the locker room at the moment or I would have felt even more awkward than I already did. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I just shrugged and said nothing. Paul turned back to his own locker before dropping his own towel to get dressed. I couldn’t help but glance over. He was a well-built guy in general—to be expected given his consistent workout schedule—but definitely seemed to be a bit on the small side of things, though it’s tough to be sure of that when a guy is soft. Maybe Paul was just a grower, not a shower. Neither of us said anything until we were leaving the locker room, when Paul finally spoke up again, “Oh, I forgot to ask earlier. Would Friday work for you to grab some breakfast?”

“Yeah, that should be fine. You have something specific in mind?”

“Nah, we’ll figure it out then. Maybe just get some breakfast burritos.” He stopped walking. “Oh, look what we have here.”

Miss Triple G was standing by the exit, looking like she was waiting for someone. She turned our way and locked eyes with me and then tilted her head. Waiting for me? We continued on our way out and she walked over to us. “Look, I’m sorry for being a bitch earlier. You didn’t do anything wrong, I was just annoyed about that asshole. It was rude of me to bite your head off just for trying to be helpful.” Once again I tried and failed to place her accent. It wasn’t New York or Boston, and it wasn’t southern.

“Don’t worry about it, I’m sure you have to deal with that shit all the time, it must get tiring. No hard feelings,” I said. It was good of her to apologize, she had been a bit rude, but I wanted to play it cool. As far as I knew this was the most she had ever spoken to a guy at the gym and I didn’t want to screw it up. Better to just plant the seed of a cordial relationship. “I hope you enjoy the rest of your day. I’m sure I’ll see you around.” With that, I walked out the door, Paul giving her a nod and following after me.

“Damn, dude, you sure played that one cool. She looked stunned when you just peaced out like that.”

“I figured it would just undo everything if I took that opportunity to chat her up, and I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so it seemed like the right move.”

“I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen her say more than two words to someone. Maybe you’re going to be the one to melt the Ice Queen’s frozen heart.”

I laughed. “I doubt that. I’m glad she apologized though. I get why she was acting like that, but it still would have left a bad taste in my mouth.”

We made it to our cars and Paul shook my hand. “See you tomorrow, Ryan.”

“Later, Paul.”

I had originally expected to need today to finish setting up my classroom, but with Melissa’s help I suddenly found myself with nothing to do. My hair was still in need of cutting, but it was too early to do anything now, so I when I to my apartment I settled on the couch and grabbed a few poetry collections off the shelf. I had quite the collection at this point, and still hadn’t read all of them. Some years ago I had picked up the habit of always buying at least one book of poetry whenever I found myself in a used bookstore. They were usually pretty cheap, and it led me to some interesting discoveries. I poked through the books for a couple hours, jumping around randomly, picking out a poem to read and seeing how I enjoyed the taste of it. I dog eared the pages of poems I enjoyed. One of them was by a poet named John Crowe Ransom, titled “Midnight”. It was short, only three stanzas long, but the final one really struck me, especially the last line.

I made a note of his name so I could try to track down some more of his work. Maybe twenty minutes later I came across another poem I really liked by Chrissie Pinney.

The poem made me think of Melissa and her adorably freckled face. I took a picture of the poem and sent it to her, then continued reading until she replied maybe twenty minutes later.

Oh my, aren’t you Mr. Romantic? Did you find that one just for me?

I was just doing some reading and came across it, made me think of you. Sure wouldn’t mind kissing those freckles of yours right now.

She sent me a close-up picture of her face, smiling but with her eyes closed, her freckles featuring prominently. Is reading poetry a normal activity for you, or are you just in a particular kind of mood?

Her reply was a selfie, obviously taken at the gym. She was wearing a sports bra but it looked like she was pressing her tits together with her elbows to create a very nice cleavage shot.

Careful Miss Dixon, I know where you live. You keep teasing me like that and I can’t be held responsible for what happens to that cute little ass of yours.

It wasn’t long before I received a picture of the cute little ass in question, clad in hot pink yoga pants. I groaned. This girl was driving me crazy. I gave serious consideration to driving over to her apartment, tearing off her clothes, and fucking her right in the entryway until she screamed, but in the end I decided it would be better to wait. Melissa was going to get the fucking of her life on Friday, though. I resolved to not let her leave my apartment until I had given her enough orgasms to reduce her brain to mush. If she was as wild in bed as I thought she’d be, we might not even leave the apartment until we had to be at the school on Monday morning. I had to go to my bathroom to remedy the state Melissa’s pictures had put me in, giving myself a little manual pressure relief.

It was late enough now that should be able to find somewhere to get a haircut. I didn’t want to go to one of the big generic haircut chains. Call me vain but I like to look good and I was willing to pay a bit more to get a nice haircut every couple months. I found a place not too far from my apartment that looked promising. When I walked inside I was greeted by a gorgeous woman. She was tall surprisingly tall given that she looked to be at least half-Japanese, probably just under six foot, her short black hair streaked with blonde highlights and done up in a way that looked like perfectly-styled bedhead. “Well hey there, sugar,” she said, surprising me with her southern accent. “Don’t think I’ve seen you in here before.”

“First time. Just looking to get a haircut,” I said.

She came around the reception desk and walked up to me to get a closer look. She reached up and ran her hand through my hair, her nails lightly scratching my scalp and sending shivers down my spine. “You have nice hair, it’s very cute at this length, but I’m sure we can figure out something that works for you if you want it shorter.”

She removed her hand from my hair but didn’t step away. I could smell her perfume, an intoxicating scent that came across as less floral and more ... spicy? I wasn’t sure how to describe it, but it took all the self-control I had to not just lean down into her and breathe it in. I watched her smirk and I knew that she had at least some idea of what was going through my head. “Normally I wouldn’t mind it being a bit longer, but I need something a little bit more professional right now.”

“Let me guess, you’re in sales?” I laughed and shook my head. “Finance?”

“Nope.”

“Hm.” She tapped her lips with her index finger, showing off her purple acrylic nails. “Lawyer?”

“Still ice cold.”

She huffed. “I’m usually pretty good at this. I give up.”

“I’m a teacher.”

Her eyes lit up. “Ooh. I wish I would have had a teacher who looked like you when I was in school.” I frowned. “Oops, you don’t go for the teacher and student roleplay, I guess?”

“No. I really don’t. Especially because I’ll be teaching fifth grade.”

She cringed. “That’ll do it. Sorry, didn’t mean to kill the mood so much, I was just having some fun.”

“It’s no big deal. Just not the sort of thoughts I want to be having.”

“Well, why don’t you have a seat and we’ll see about getting you in a chair here. What’s your name?”

“Ryan.” I reached out to shake her hand.

“Pleased to meetcha, Ryan. I’m Ivy. Just give me a few minutes and we’ll take care of ya.”

I took a seat in the waiting area. The magazines were of no interest to me, but at least the chairs were comfortable. A few minutes later another woman came in and Ivy greeted her warmly, then walked her back for an appointment. Guess I’m not going to get to feel Ivy shampooing and massaging my head today. I tried not to be too disappointed. I grabbed one of the magazines and flipped through it, finding a photo of a guy with a short purple mohawk. I took a picture of it and sent it to Tori.

Getting a haircut. What do you think of this one?

She replied almost immediately. I think you could pull it off.

Then my phone buzzed with a text from Melissa. Don’t you dare.

I replied to Tori. Thanks, will send you the after photo. I didn’t reply to Melissa, figuring that Tori would show her my text anyways and it was more fun to mess with her this way. Tori knew me well enough to know that I’d never go for something like that, even if I didn’t have to worry about giving a professional impression at work, but Melissa had only known me for a couple days so I still had a bit of an opportunity to tease her a bit. I closed the magazine and let my mind wander a bit. On a whim, I texted my dad to remind him that I was back in Southern California and asked if there was a good time for us to meet up. It had been too long since I’d seen him. We hadn’t been particularly close since I left for school and my parents had gotten divorced, but he had been a great dad when I was growing up and it would be nice to be closer again. Mother seemed to have moved on, and now that I was older I wasn’t as worried about trying to tiptoe through the dynamic of balancing affection in the wake of their failed marriage. It was time to see how I could reestablish a relationship with my dad as an adult like I had with my mother.

“Ryan?” I looked up to see a tall, skinny black man standing at the reception desk. He was wearing a gold shirt, buttons open halfway down his chest, and had a set of acrylic nails in in rainbow colors. I stood up and walked over.

“I’m Ryan. Pleasure to meet you.” I reached out to shake his hand.

He took my hand lightly. “Oh honey, the pleasure is all mine. I’m Roman. What are we doing to you today?”

I ran a hand through my hair. “Feeling a bit long. I start a new job this week, and I want to give a good impression. I’d like something that isn’t too much work to maintain but I don’t want to just hit it with some clippers and call it a day, you know?”

Roman nodded and tapped his lips with a long pink nail. “I think I know just the thing. Do you trust me, hon?”

I thought about it for a second and decided that I did. Worst-case scenario was that I did just have to end up taking some clippers to my hair and buzz it down to start over. It wouldn’t be the end of the world. “Sure, Roman. I trust you.”

He smiled. “Excellent. Then let’s get started.” Roman led me back into the main area of the salon and sat me down in front of one of the sinks. I felt a momentary pang of regret at not having Ivy be the one to wash my hair. I had always found the experience of having someone wash your hair to be borderline erotic and this would be the first time I had a man doing it, so that felt a bit weird. We managed to get through it without me having to deal with any strange sexual feelings, which was good. He brought me over to the chair and got to work. Roman was a true artist. I felt like I had been caught up in a whirlwind of scissors, spray bottles, and trimmers, all while he chatted me up and extracted basically every bit of my personal history before I even realized what was happening.

“Oh, Ry, hon, I know it seems like things are going smooth now, but trust me, things with Tori and Melissa cannot stay that simple for long. Trust me. I dated a pair of roommates once, they were cousins, actually, and let’s just say that it lasted maybe three weeks before something got set on fire, literally.”

“I just don’t know what to do. I’ve never been in anything even close to this situation before. Right now I’m letting them take the lead on things. So far they’ve set the rules and it seems to be okay.”

“I’m sure it is, for now, but that’s not a stable situation, hon. This has got drama written all over it. Hope I’m wrong, for your sake, but I don’t think I am. I’m usually not.” Roman grabbed a small mirror and then spun me around in the chair. “Here we go, what do you think?”

I glanced at the mirror, surprised to be done so quickly, but then I realized I had no idea how long I had been in the chair. Time had flown by while Roman and I had chatted. I took in my new haircut. Wow. I look good.

“Wow. That’s incredible, Roman.”

“Yes I am, thank you.” He gave a little curtsey. “You’ll have to let me know what Tori and Melissa think too.” Oh yeah, somehow during my haircut Roman and I had exchanged phone number so I could call or text him directly to schedule my next appointment.

“I’ll do that.” Roman walked with me back to the front and I paid for my haircut. It was surprisingly not as expensive as I would have expected given the quality of the salon, but I left an extra large tip for Roman.

Ivy gave me a wink and a wave as I made my way out. “See you next time, sugar!”

My dad had returned my text. He seemed excited that I was reaching out and asked if I was free to drive up to L.A. tonight. I told him that I was, and he sent me the address of a restaurant to meet at for dinner and said I was welcome to stay at his apartment for the night if I wanted to.

Melissa had also texted me while I was getting my haircut, asking for a picture. I sent her one of me, but from the neck down.

Ryan! I want to see your hair!

You’ll see it tomorrow.

Ryannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn. She sent me a pouty selfie with puppy dog eyes.

I did take a selfie and send it to Tori, though, with instructions to delete the photo as soon as she saw it. She told me that she thought it looked great and that she couldn’t wait to see it in person. Melissa was not very happy, however.

I drove back to my apartment to throw together an overnight bag for the trip up to Los Angeles to see my dad. It would be roughly a two hour drive up the 5 to get there depending on traffic, which should be pretty light on a Wednesday afternoon as long as I didn’t wait too long to leave. If I did then there was no telling how long it could take. With nothing much to do around here, I figured I might as well just hit the road and get there early. I could always kill time walking around downtown. Certainly better than getting stuck in traffic on the 5 and being late.

The drive up was very pleasant. I wished I had a convertible to enjoy the beautiful California weather. The 5 wasn’t the most scenic drive in the world, but it felt really good to be back cruising the freeway that had featured in so many of my youthful adventures. I cranked up the radio and grooved along with the greatest hits of “the ‘80s, ‘90s, and today.” It was just after four when I arrived in L.A. My dad had said to meet him at the restaurant around five, so I found some parking in the general area and walked around for a bit before heading in that direction. I was still a bit early, so I hit the bar to grab a drink while I waited.

The bartender was a good-looking Vietnamese girl who gave me a very nice smile when I sat down. It was pretty slow at the moment so she spent a good amount of time near me and we flirted back and forth a bit. She asked if I was meeting someone and seemed pleased when I said that I was waiting for my dad and not another woman. When he texted me that he was nearly at the restaurant I settled my tab and thanked the bartender, Mai. She smiled when she handed me back the check, upon which she had written her phone number. I thanked her again and got up to leave. I doubted that I would be giving Mai a call, but it certainly felt good to have an attractive bartender give me the opportunity when I hadn’t even really been trying to pick her up.

Waiting at the entrance, I saw my dad come in. He smiled and boomed out “There’s my boy!” before coming over to wrap me in a strong hug, giving me a few manly pats on the back. My dad had always been the fun, affectionate extrovert. While my mother insisted on being “Mother”, never “Mom”, he hated being called “Father”. Mother always wanted my friends to call her “Mrs. Dillon” but Dad hated to be called “Mr. Dillon” and allowed my friends to call him by his first name, Alan, or “Mr. D” if they felt weird about calling an adult by his first name. In retrospect it was just one of the many disagreements and incompatibilities between my parents that I was blind to while growing up but were pretty obvious in retrospect.

It was obvious at a glance to anyone that I was Alan Dillon’s son, but it wasn’t like I was his spitting image. The differences in our appearance were pretty well summarized by the two different positions we had played in football. I was, of course, the quarterback to his linebacker. I was a couple inches taller but he was bigger. Dad was a bit rougher looking, more classically masculine and bearded like a lumberjack while the genes that I had inherited from my mother’s side gave me more of a clean-shaven and preppy—maybe even “pretty boy”—look.

We followed the hostess to our seats and sat down. Dad gave me a huge smile. “So how are you doing? It seems like months since we’ve talked.”

“Probably because it has been. With everything that happened, quitting my job, the breakup with Amanda, coming back down to San Diego, it’s been pretty crazy. I’m just now starting to feel a bit settled. It’ll be better once the school year starts and I get into my routine.”

My dad nodded. “That’s good. A routine definitely helps. I think you also need to just put yourself back out there again, get back on the horse.”

“Funny you should say that.”

“Oh? Already dating a bit? You’ve been down in San Diego for what, a week?”

“Not even that, but yes, I guess you could say I’m dating.”

“What’s she like?”

“I’m actually seeing two girls at the moment, I think? It’s honestly a little unclear what exactly the situation is right now. But you know one of them. Someone from my past.”

My dad frowned. “Did your mother try to set you up with Beth again?”

“Both Mother and Mrs. Mitchell are trying to push me at her, but I haven’t even seen her yet. I thought you liked her, though.”

“I do like Beth. I know she always had a thing for you. I just never thought the two of you would work together like Stephanie and your mother did.”

“Well, I agree with you. But anyways, it’s not Beth. I met up with Tori the other day, she works at the same school I’m starting at.”

That brought a smile to my dad’s face. “Tori! I always liked that girl. What an athlete. You two were great together. Not quite as good at sneaking around with all the sex you were having as you two thought you were, though.” He laughed and punched my shoulder.

I could feel myself blushing. “You ... you knew that Tori and I were having sex?”

“Ryan, come on. Give your old man some credit. I was a high school kid once too. I knew all the tricks myself. I didn’t think it was a big deal. You were a good kid, responsible, hard-working. You were a star athlete with a pretty girlfriend. Of course you would be having sex. Hell, I was just amazed that it was only Tori you were having sex with. I wasn’t as big a football star as you were when I was in high school and I went through ten girls my senior year alone.”

“Guess I didn’t seen the need when I already had the hottest girl in school. Quality over quantity.”

“I hear you, but I have to say, sometimes quantity has a quality all its own.”

“I really don’t need to be hearing this from my dad. Aren’t you supposed to be telling me to be responsible, honorable, to commit to one woman?”

He shrugged. “You need to do what makes you happy. Your mother and I were both unhappy for a very long time because we tried to fit ourselves into a model that didn’t work for us.”

“You didn’t seem all that unhappy to me growing up. I thought we had a great family.”

“Your mother and I both loved you, and it’s not like we disliked each other as people. Being married just didn’t work well for us, but we stuck it out for you.”