Chapter 29

Five minutes later and half of your closet was out and scattered across your room. Sabrina had connected your wireless speaker and was playing a song that had a kind of dark, electronic edge and a crooning voice singing about a sort of vaguely sexual encounter. Or maybe it was a breakup? It was hard to keep track as you were also trying to follow what Sabrina was saying.

“This one has potential,” she said. She’d had you stand and was holding shirts up to you, then tossing them in a Maybe pile and a No pile. “This one, definitely not.”

“Oh, it’s not that bad,” you said. She’d held up a black t-shirt with a big, old-school Marvel print on it. “I mean, it’s not a date shirt, but you just scoffed like it’s garbage.”

“John, look at me,” she said, putting a hand on your shoulder and looking up into your eyes. “Listen to me carefully. If you want to fuck, you need Gemma to see you as the catch you can be. A superhero shirt doesn’t exactly scream ‘I’m the guy your pussy wants.’”

You thought about arguing with her for a second, then just decided it wasn’t worth it. “Alright,” you said.

“Good,” she nodded. “Now nugget me,” and she opened her mouth, her hands still full of your clothes. You held up another chicken nugget and she took a bite of it, scrunching up her nose and growling like she was an animal tearing into its prey. “Grrrr.”

“Nice,” you snorted.

She pursed her lips as she chewed, making a face. “I am woman, hear me roar.”

The fashion teardown finally came to an end once Sabrina had narrowed your entire wardrobe down to two shirts and two different pants. “You said it was an arcade bar, right? Like with pinball machines and stuff?”

“Yeah, exactly,” you said. You’d finished stuffing your own face with the nuggets as well, and were wiping your mouth with the McDonald’s napkin. “She seemed interested.”

“Mmm, maybe,” Sabrina said, “Or Gemma was just humouring you. Hard to know, I don’t actually know all that much about what she does in her off time. Maybe she’s a secret nerd or something. Anyways, these pants for sure. I’m still not sure about the shirt.”

“Anything I can do to help?” you asked.

“Actually, there is,” Sabrina said, and then she picked up all of the clothes she’d thrown on your bed and tossed them into one big pile up near the head. She got up on the now-cleared space and sat on her knees. “Come here.”

You did, standing in front of her. Sabrina looked up at you and cocked her head, then reached up and ran her fingers through your hair. “We’re going to need to do something with this, too,” she said.