Long Shot (14 page)

More Jameson.

The background music comes on next as Jane orders a few pizzas for the table and a round of shots comes out. Two slip into my hands, which I’m sure is another pity move since I’m the only singleton at this table, but I take it gratefully, because all this lovey-dovey shit is just dredging up memories of Rob, and it’s getting painful.

I can’t tell if it’s better that we fought before I broke up with him, or worse. We never got to talk it over. He yelled at me and said some awful things that may or may not have been true but are completely irrelevant, and then I woke up to the apocalypse on my phone. I didn’t get to explain why I did what I did. We didn’t even get to talk about that whole bit where we confessed our love for each other.

Just thinking about it makes my chest hurt.

But he betrayed me. I’m still not sure what the fuck he was thinking when he sent that article around, but whatever it was wasn’t in my best interest. I am not just a grotesque human interest story. I’m a person, damn it.

This vaguely reminds me of something Rob once said, but I smash it down and away, because I’m tired of thinking about him. It’s all I’ve done for the past week.

Joe’s arm bumps into me, shaking me out of my head. He tosses out a ‘sorry’ but is fully engrossed in a story from Spencer that I’m missing.

“So, I know that he’s banging his arch nemesis, right? He’s trying to get me to spy on her and all this other shit, which is super illegal. I mean, of course I did it, but still!”

“Did you, now?” Bobby asks, but I get the impression they’ve all heard this story before.

“Hell yeah, I did! What a surprise to find that she lives next door to my girl’s best friend. Like, I’ve been to this house countless times, and ta-da. Joe’s fuck buddy happens to live right next door.”

“Rude!” Miranda interrupts, looking a little red-cheeked. “I was never a fuck buddy!”

“You were totally a fuck buddy.” Joe pecks her on the temple.

Miranda pushes him back, love and tease etched in her face. “You loved me from the moment I touched your dick.”

“True story, Brethren.” Joe nods. The guys high-five. I slurp down more whiskey.

“Anyway.” Spencer reins the audience back in. I like him. Funny, charming, enigmatic. I can see why Melissa was so drawn to him, even if he
is
a cop. “I know the house, but I’ve never met the chick. Imagine my surprise when I’m out on patrol one night and see this old ass car swerving everywhere—”

“It was
not
an ‘old ass car’,” Miranda interjects.

Melissa, this time, catches her. “It was the biggest piece of junk I’d ever seen.”

“That thing was built to last!” Miranda laughs. “Whatever. She was a great car.”

“A great piece of shit, maybe.” Spencer winks. “So, I pull over this hunk of junk, fully expecting a total drunkard at like nine pm. Imagine my surprise when there is a sparkly rainbow dinosaur in the front seat, mascara streaming down her face. We play Patrol Bingo on the reg, keeping track of all the weirdest shit we see at traffic stops, and Rainbow Dinosaur won for a solid week. I got free lunch for a
month
for that. Thanks, Randi.”

Miranda and Spencer high-five. My stomach curdles at all these stories of how everyone got together. How Melissa and Spencer met the same night as Jane and Bobby. How Miranda and Joe were arch nemeses. How all their lives intertwined and came together in a cacophony of wedding bells.

My drink is empty, and I shouldn’t have more but I can’t stand this, and I bet the pizza soaked some up anyways.

“All my favorite girls’ names begin with M!” Jane suddenly realizes and shouts, wrapping her arms around me, Miranda, and Melissa, banging our heads together. She’s drunk. Happy drunk. I’m just morose. “It’s almost like someone planned it!”

“Destiny!” Miranda and Melissa yell and everyone clinks glasses. I manage a smile and want to fade into the background.

Time for more alcohol, which means I have to brave the bartender again. He smiles as I carefully walk up.

“More Jameson?”

“Please.” I trade in my empty glass and collapse against the bar. “Ever been the third wheel?”

“Fucking sucks.” He looks sympathetic as he pours my drink. And then he adds a little more with a wink. “Fun to watch the fights, though.”

“No fighting,” I groan and dip my finger in the Jameson to lick it off. “I’m actually the
seventh
wheel tonight, and everyone is googly-eyed over one another and I hate them.”

“The worst.” Hot Bartender shakes his head. “Pretty girl like you should be swooped up.”

“Was.” I take a long pull of my drink and stare down the door to our private room, which I very much don’t want to go back into, except there is more pizza, and I may want to eat my feelings. “Past tense.”

He cracks a slow smile and nods, lips pursed, as he wipes down the bar. Someone further down calls for him and he holds up a finger in my direction. “I’ll be right back.”

I chew on my tiny straw and watch him move through the motions of mixing drinks like a dancer.

And then I’m flooded with memories because Rob is a dancer, and even if he’s the kind that takes off his clothes, he moves just as gracefully. My mind’s eye is filled of visions of him stripping for me, gyrating his hips against mine, the way he worked it on stage. Now the butterflies are gone and replaced by a sharp burning in my chest and it feels like I can’t breathe.

I hurry back to the room before Hot Bartender comes back, and I can do anything stupid, which is ridiculous because we’re broken up, but my stupid heart can only beat out Rob’s name. In the past, maybe I’d just hook up with someone else to forget the memory, but Rob burns too hot, too bright in my mind, and I don’t think a rebound bang will scrape him out. If anything, I’d feel guilty. More guilty than I do now.

“You never told me what you ex does for a living.” Joe corners me when I get back to our room. “Jane is sketchy about it, so naturally, I’m exceedingly curious.”

“Accountant,” I pull from my ass. “Number cruncher. Nothing exciting.”

“Mm
hmm
.” Joe cocks an eyebrow at me. “Somehow, I don’t think Jane would get tongue-tied about an accountant.”

“Jane hates accountants,” I shrug as nonchalantly as possible. “She dated one after college. Very bad breakup. That’s why she files her own taxes every year.”

“Bobby files her taxes.”

“Exactly.” I poke him in the chest with my finger. “Exactly.”

“Oh, leave her alone.” Miranda swats at him. “It’s your turn to sing!”

Joe winks at me and then lets Miranda haul him on stage, feigning protest the whole way. I settle into a chair near the back and inhale as much pizza as I can get my hands on so I don’t have to talk anymore.

Joe belts out
Paperback Writer
, which is actually pretty hilarious to sing to his author fiancé.

Spencer is up next. He sings
Hot for Teacher
and has the whole room cheering. Melissa is adorably, perfectly, embarrassed and bright red, but she rushes the stage and kisses him on the final notes. Everyone cheers while I shove more pizza in my mouth.

Jane sidles up next to me with the book. “You need to sing.”

“Never.”

Bobby hops on stage and sings
Flashdance
. Bobby is weird. I like Bobby.

“It’ll make you feel better!” Jane nudges me. “A few drinks, enough pizza to shove you in your fat jeans for a week, and a song. Singing is cathartic! You’ll feel better.”

We watch Bobby finish his song, complete with very ‘80s dance moves, and Jane throws her cardigan at him. Everyone cheers. Everyone looks happy.

I want to be happy, dammit. I do need to sing. I need to strum my pain with his fingers and sing my life with his words. I pick up the mic and program in the numbers for my song. As the opening chords kick off, Jane nearly chokes on her drink. I close my eyes, and cry through my rendition of T-Pain, because it’s just true.

I’m in love with a stripper.

P
eter stacks
boxes in the living room until the place looks like a cardboard jungle. They’re all labeled obscurely, some sort of cipher known only to him. I study a box called “ASS PROPS” and consider asking, but then quickly decide otherwise. Peter has mentioned gay porn pays significantly better than straight, and that’s fine. I just don’t want to find out that these have gently rested on
my
bed between takes.

“So this is just what you do now?” I ask. “You’re just a dick?”

“Just a dick?” Peter snorts. “I am
the
dick. And it’s all thanks to you, really.”

“Please don’t bring that up.” Peter’s been on my case to keep wooing Meredith, but I can’t push it. I’m not giving up, I just don’t know what to do.

“Too late. Better figure this out before she moves on, man.” Peter flashes a toothy grin and goes back to packing. He stacks another box near the television and side-eyes me.

“Or are you just sad because I’m moving out? I knew you’d miss me.”

I roll my eyes and throw a couch pillow at him. “You wish. I just don’t know what to
do
about Meredith.”

“Look, I can always call some chicks from work to come get your mind off her,” he offers, as he has so many times already.

“I don’t work like that,” I remind him, as I have so many times already.

Peter snorts. “Then make a plan and stop complaining.”

“I’m not complaining.” I glare at him. “I’m just morose. It’s different.”

“How?”

“Shut up. It just is. I’m in love with her, okay?”

“Okay. Enjoy losing her, then.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose and sigh. “You really are a catastrophic asshole, Peter. I mean, the worst.”

“Eh.” He shrugs it off and disappears down the hallway, presumably for another box. “Look, it’s simple. If you love her so much, go get her back. There’s just no way around it. You have to talk to her.”

“Tried that. She won’t answer me, or the door.” I pull out my phone and scroll through the list of text messages left unanswered. Some of them were really good texts, too. Others I am not exactly proud of leaving incoherently at three am after downing half a bottle of Jameson to remember her taste.

“Maybe you should bring over a camera and shoot your own porno together. Chicks totally dig that.”

“Your chicks totally dig that because your chicks are fucking pornstars, dipshit.” I shake my head. “You’re worthless.”

“Maybe. But you don’t see me crying over a girl.”

I wrinkle my face. “I’m not crying. Shut up.”

“You’re really immature, you know that, Rob?”

“Says the pornstar? Oh my god. Move out.”

“Done, son.” Peter adds another box and leans against the couch. “For real? Do something romantic. Chicks love that shit. Hold a boombox over your head. Show up at her sister’s wedding with a birthday cake. You know. Do something like that.”

“Her sister’s already married, and I think I’d look like a real dipshit holding an iPod over my head.” I can hear what a whiner I sound like, but I can’t help it. This is dumb.

“It’s a fucking metaphor, bro.” Peter looks at me like I’m the dumb one. “It’s a grand gesture. Do something huge, win her back.”

“You don’t think I’ve tried?” I collapse against the counter, frustrated and lost. “I’m shot down every time I go over there. I can’t get anywhere near her.”

“So bring her to you.” Peter points at me with a wicked grin and humps the air. “Yeah, girl.”

I laugh and roll my eyes because it’s the dumbest idea ever. Right, like Meredith would ever step foot back in the club. She probably reroutes her entire day just to avoid driving past it. She wouldn’t be caught dead there.

“Now quit bitching, and help me load up the truck.”

“You owe me for hauling your shit up two flights of stairs.” I point at him. “I mean, owe me huge.”

“Always, man.” We high-five and start the long, awful process of loading his moving truck.

The upside is all the physical labor has kept Peter’s trap shut and given me a lot of time to think. He’s right on one level—I need to do something big to get Meredith back. She is the love of my life and I never even got a chance to really tell her.

I can be dense sometimes, but even I know yelling confessions of love in the middle of a fight is not exactly the way to a girl’s heart. I need a do-over.

First, I need to get her somewhere she can’t run away. Second, I need to tell her how much I love her, how much being with her means to me. And, I need to apologize for tying dick pics to her name online for the rest of her life.

To be fair, I never intended for it to happen that way. I didn’t even think they’d really publish it, to be honest, but I never expected things to go as far as they did. I would never purposely mess up her career. I want everything to be perfect for her always, and I want to be by her side… forever.

Like,
forever
forever.

My dad once told me, “Use what you got” to woo women. He was a notorious womanizing asshole, so I have ignored most of his advice, but maybe… maybe this is something to hold onto.

In the middle of loading the truck, a group of scantily clad girls show up with bottles of water, beer, and pizza. Heavy make-up, huge fake tits, and they all flock to Peter. Must be his coworkers. Can’t say I blame the guy for choosing this route, truly.

“We thought you’d need a break!” A heavily tatted girl with dark hair shoots me a wink and offers a beer. I take a bottle of water instead. Peter, though, is totally in his element.

“To show you my thanks, I’m going to put on a show for you. Rob?”

I laugh awkwardly and wave him off. “I’m off the clock, man.” He shrugs and cues up Drake on his phone, then starts dancing.

The girls fill up the moving truck and start cheering, “Take it off! Take if off! Take it off!”

And then, an idea strikes. A stupid idea, but one of those So Dumb It Might Work ideas. I call Jane, who’s always been sympathetic to my cause, and work it out.

“You’re in luck, Rob,” Jane tells me. “Miranda and Joe just got engaged a couple weeks ago. They’ve been talking about having an engagement party, and I think a night at the strip club is something they’d both appreciate.”

“You can get Meredith there?”

“If I have to blindfold and drug her, she’ll be there.” Jane laughs. “Actually, that may have to happen.”

“I owe you.”

“Just make my sister happy. And no more articles correlating her and a bunch of penises, okay?”

I smile. “You got it.”

Rob’s dance finishes as soon as I get off the phone. I jog over to him and elbow past the girls. “Remember how I said you owed me?”

“Yeah.” Peter is only half listening, preoccupied with his fans. I snap my finger in his face. “Yes, Jesus, what?”

“I’m ready to cash in.”

See, my journalistic talents tanked everything when it was supposed to prove I was serious. Didn’t see that coming, but I’m resourceful. I can bounce back. It’s time to take Meredith back to where we first met and remind her why we got together in the first place. This time, it’s a job for the Meow Club.

Peter listens, skeptical at first, but the grin slowly spreads across his face.

“I knew you’d do the right thing, man,” he tells me, and I beam for the first time since the article broke.

We set everything up for three nights from now, and I get to work on my next project. Peter may not be around anymore to dispense wisdom, but that isn’t what I need right now. I need Sebastian, who is really good at needlepoint. I pick up extra shifts at the club and spend all my extra time backstage, getting ready.

“Think this will work?” I ask Veronica, showing off what I’ve finished. “Would this woo you if you were her?”

She cocks her head to the side and taps her finger on her lips, causing me to start nervous sweating. Finally, she smiles and says, “Absolutely.”

“Good enough for me.”

All the guys have been really good about helping out, even Emilio. It probably helped that I gave him the lead, and promised to invest my first paycheck in his new club. We did a few run-throughs the day of, and it was perfect.

“Ready for tonight?” Veronica teases, sitting at the bar. She slides me a beer. “Thought you might need that.”

“Thanks.” I take a few sips, trying to squelch the nerves in my stomach. “I hope this works.”

“It will.” She waves me off. “Have faith that whatever happens is supposed to happen, but also that there’s no way she can say no to this.”

“You think so?”

“I
know
so.” She gives me a quick kiss on the cheek “for luck” and disappears backstage. I hide out in the soundbox to keep an eye on the crowd until it’s time, anxiously waiting for Meredith to show.

Jane finally walks in with a bunch of balloons, followed by Bobby with a cake, and several people I assume are her friends. One of the girls has a penis tiara on, and the guy has a giant vagina necklace, so I guess they are the newly engaged Miranda and Joe. Cute couple. I owe them a few drinks for agreeing to have their party here, especially Joe. No tits for him tonight.

Finally, in walks Meredith and my heart stops. She doesn’t look happy to be here, but she’s here nonetheless, looking as gorgeous as ever. It takes everything I have to stay in the back and not sprint for her. The full extent of how much I missed her didn’t hit until this very moment, when she is so close yet so far away.

“Ready?” Emilio pokes his head in the box.

I take a deep breath. “Yep.”

Backstage, we all scramble for our costumes and wait in the wings to be announced. I’m feeling really good about tonight. This could really work.

“Ladies and Gentleman! The Meow Club would like to present our very own Penis Player’s production of
Lucky In Love
.”

The room, full to the brim on a Friday night, erupts into cheers, and Peter gives me a thumbs up. It’s now or never.

We all run out on stage, naked except for the costumes I designed hanging from our dicks. Veronica is the first person I see from stage, amidst all the clapping and wolf whistling. She gives me a thumbs up, and I watch her cut through the room to Meredith’s table with a bottle of Jameson and an empty glass.

Okay, don’t judge, but in order for this to work with its sheer ridiculousness, I have to keep her liquored up and loose. Jane said I could. I have permission.

Emilio jumps to the forefront of the stage, his dick dressed like a stripper with a pole. One of my more genius costumes, to be honest. I play Meredith, with the puppet attached to my wiener holding a camera.

And we begin our puppet show about an epic love. I think, overall, it turns out amazing.

We reenact my entire relationship with Meredith—the first lap dance, getting her purse the morning after, our first date at the Café, our second date in the backseat of her car, then a break for costume changes.

We have the audience totally enraptured in the performance. They laugh, they cry, they alternately look horrified and cheer and whoop. It feels pretty fucking awesome, if I’m honest, to have so many people respond so well to my writing. Maybe I should try my hand at fiction someday. Jane said this Joe dude writes love stories, so why can’t I? I’m on to something with this, truly.

As we make total asses of ourselves on stage, I sneak glimpses of Meredith. At the beginning, her perfect mouth was set in a hard line, making it very clear she didn’t want to be here. But by the time we reenacted our date night out at Buzzard Beach, she starts to crack. By the time we’re reenacting photoshoots with costumes, she’s actually wiping away tears, which worried me, but she’s laughing, so I take it as a good thing.

And then it’s time for my—well, Emilio’s—monologue. The thing that’s going to win over Meredith’s heart and prove to her that I love her. It should be me up there, but Emilio made it astoundingly clear he wasn’t going to play Meredith. And, if I’m honest, I didn’t want another dick anywhere near here, costumed or otherwise.

Our denouement hits, the big fight and accidentally announcing to the world Meredith, rather Palmela Handerson, is a dick photographer. The crowd goes silent after our big fight, and someone from the back lets out a long, sad, “Awwww!”

I make my way off stage, leaving Emilio to shine, and walk to Meredith as he talks.

“What’s a boy to do?” Emilio laments, spinning slowly around the pole on stage. “All I ever wanted was to prove to Palmela that she was worth something important, something truly special. No one can take pictures like she can, even if they are dicks. Dicks aren’t even that great—”

“Yeah they are!” Someone yells and the crowd whoops. Emilio breaks character to yell back, “Mine is, mamacita!” and rewards them with a little dance before continuing.

“Palmela makes every penis look amazing. She’s got a real eye for beauty, a passion for life and art, and I just wanted the entire world to know how special she is. And I ruined it. If only Palmela could know just how much I love her, how I don’t want anything horrible to happen to her, how I want her in my life until the end of time—also known as this erection—”

Smatter of laughter. I pat myself on the back.

“Oh, Palmela.” Emilio rests his head on the pole and starts humping it. “Palmela, I can’t sleep without you. I can’t think without you. I’m half the cock I’m supposed to be without you. The sun shines only for you. I’ve fucked up, done something stupid, but I only wanted to tell the world how incredible you are. I don’t deserve someone as magical and beautiful and impeccable as you, but I can’t live in this world without you.

“With you, I have promise. I’ll be that journalist at ground zero with you by my side. But without you? Without you my potential is ruined. I’m just a stripper for life. In your love, I blossom. In your love, I see the future. In your love, I could be erect for more than four hours and fuck the doctors!”

More cheers, more whooping, more laughter. Meredith looks totally entranced and it looks like, though I could be imagining this, and I hope to God I’m not, she’s crying again. But real tears, sweet tears, maybe I’ll-Forgive-Him tears? Maybe I-Love-Him-Too tears?