Never Been Nerdy(22)
Nah, Delos keeps quiet when she should be screaming at me, should be telling me it’s going to be okay, even if I won’t feel okay for a long time. I’m not even sure what’s going on in my head right now, or why I feel so ashamed. It just doesn’t make sense, and no matter how many times I replay the scene at the bookstore over and over in my head, there’s no hidden cameras to show me all the angles, no little microphones and voice recognition programs to help me figure out what the hell Dean was talking about, or what made him so angry.
I say flippant shit all the time, doesn’t mean you have to go crazy and sound like burning my house down with me in it is a great option for revenge. Men - I’ll never understand them, and Dean takes the cake.
Who has ever turned down sex with me?
Okay, I asked him out for coffee, and didn’t make the arrangement clear, but that’s just not something you do in a place where there are small kids around. Seriously, there’s no nice and polite way of saying: ‘I want to have crazy monkey sex with you, preferably much sooner rather than later. Yes or yes?’
Maybe I should have gone that way. I don’t think it would have changed his reaction.
Holy shit, the way his voice got all quiet and serial-killer like? I shiver just thinking about it.
“Want a drink?” Sera asks, sucking me back into reality as I stare blankly at the walls. There are too many nerd references here for me to understand. Too many.
“Yeah. Whatever you’re having,” I say, putting my purse down on the floor. I take off my heels, letting my feet get accustomed to the lay of flat land once more. I cry on the inside for the loss of height.
“Matty, turn on the TV. You said you wanted to watch Captain America, right?”
“Yes, I did, Sera!” he yells from my feet, trying to undo his laces fast enough, like the movie is going to disappear from the DVR if he takes a second longer.
I watch Matty run to the far corner of the couch and plop himself down, making the leather pop with the slight weight it now has on it. Sera comes back from the kitchen and hands me a cold beer, condensation forming and ready to make waterfalls along the sides of the bottle.
Damn, when was the last time I had a Corona? And how many calories will it be if I drink only half?
“Come and sit, K.” Sera waves towards the couch then freezes as she spots my grounded purse. “Buddy, how many times do I have to tell you not to leave your purse on the floor? It’s bad luck!”
I roll my eyes, and take a sip of beer. Oh, holy hell, is that good. And it’s probably being converted to fat right this very instant and going to forming a pooch on my lower belly. Fuck it.
YOLO!
“I swear, the amount of Greek superstitions makes my brain hurt.” I grab my purse from Sera and set it on the kitchen counter. When I turn back around to move to the couch, I see that Sera’s sitting next to Matty, and the kid has wormed his way into her lap, holding the remote, eyes caught by whatever’s on the screen.
I sit myself down on the opposite side of the couch, take another swig of beer and studiously ignore my best friend. I’m in for it; the storm is brewing, and it’s going to throw me across the city.
“Cover your ears, Matty,” she says, and the kid looks up at her, leaning back to get all her face in his vision. He really is cute, even if he’s a handful. “C’mon, I’ll pause the movie for you so you won’t miss anything, I promise.”
Looking to be satisfied, Matty does as he’s told. Maybe I should’ve used that tone of voice with Dean earlier. ‘We should go for coffee and have some sexcercise later.’ Boom. Results guaranteed.
“You,” she accuses, index finger in the air like she’s scolding some little kid, “are mean.”
I practically snort up my beer. “Are you freaking,” I drop my voice down so my ‘bad’ word doesn’t cost me a quarter, “kidding me? How in hell is what happened back there my fault? Explain it to me, Delos, ‘cause I’m not getting it.”
I’m strangling the neck of my booze, letting the cold and wet hit my inner wrist and slide down my skin under my shirt. I have the evil queen urge to start destroying Sera’s collection of geeky posters just to see her crumple up and cry.
My blood’s pounding too hard and too fast in my veins. I grind my teeth together and lock my muscles in place so I don’t end up doing anything stupid.
“Katie, if you wanna frak Dean, it’s not going to happen. Choose somebody else to do that with. Dean’s the kind of guy that girls get lucky to call their boyfriends.” Again, she uses the emphasis on his name.