“Wait a minute, missy.” She snapped and said what I’d feared she might. “Let me see your underwear. Up you go.” She snapped her fingers again, signaling for me to lift my Dopey’s shirt.
Shaking my head, I continued to put on the jeans. “No need to see.”
Except her hand was faster than mine, and she yanked up my shirt, revealing my absolute fave day-of-the-week cotton panties. The problem being that today was Saturday, and I was wearing mint green panties covered in dark-green-coloredWednesdays. The day was written in cursive and had tiny shamrocks interspersed in between the curly font.
“I’m not taking them off,” I said with pride, buttoning the jeans and standing as tall as my five foot three would allow.
“You’ll live to eat those words.” Her face, with the combined scowl and raised eyebrow, suggested she meant this.
She shoved a clump of beachy waves behind her ear, her piercing green eyes squinting at me, and I did my best to mimic the move with my dark and thick brown curls and mahogany-colored eyes. Despite our physical appearances being equally as opposite as our temperaments, Sella never seemed ready to part with me. I might have teased about wanting her to move on from our friendship, but it was the furthest thing from the truth.
Daniel
“Dude, this is going to be epic,” Eric Walters mostly screamed in my ear as we walked through campus.
“First, don’t ‘dude’ me. I’m from Scotland, not California. You know this. Second, stop yelling. I’m right here.”
He tried to keep pace with my long legs as I hurried to get back to my apartment. “It starts at seven, but maybe you’ll get there early? We could do a few photo ops, yeah?”
“Eric, man, listen, I agreed to do your fraternity bro thing. It’s not my regular thing. I’m bringing some teammates. We’ll get you the publicity you wanted. End of story, ’kay?”
“Our parties are rad. We could make you an honorary member. Dude—I mean man—girls would go crazy. Not like they don’t already go crazy for you.”
Running my hand through my hair, I blew out a long breath. Eric was an acquaintance of mine from economics during freshman year. I wasn’t going to lie—I wouldn’t have passed the class without him. I’d made sure to sign up for the same sections as him ever since… So okay, perhaps he was more than an acquaintance. Eric was a friend. A friend I didn’t socialize with, but it was our senior year and the guy had done me so many favors, I owed him one.
“I don’t need any girls going crazy. I have enough problems with…that. I’m doing you a solid, like you Americans say, since you’ve done so many for me.”
“You’re going to play on the tour…this is going to be epic!”
“Shh,” I interrupted.
“Yeah, yeah, with all your blarney and Scottish superstition.”
“Blarney is Irish, but we can save the geography lesson for another day.”
Iwasgoing to the tour. I’d worked my arse off to get there, finishing in the very top of the tour’s qualifying school. My dad had paid a boatload for me to enter, and now the tour loomed like a cherry on top of a sundae. All I wanted was to dive in with my spoon, but I had to stay sharp like a knife and not let my stroke go to shit.
When we finally got to my apartment complex, I said, “See you at seven,dude,” and walked in the front door without anything more.
If Mum knew I was helping with a fraternity event, she’d be pleased. Dad would not. He was constantly pushing for me to perform better. Being nice, getting involved with anything but golf, socializing, dating—it all got in the way of being the best golfer, according to him. I loved the sport and my dream was to play on the tour, but I wasn’t sure if it meant sacrificing a life. Mum wanted me to have it all. The tour, a wife, a brood of kids—the last part I wasn’t certain about.
Alas, helping Eric’s Alpha Asshole fraternity was about as good as it got for me lately. The closer I came to graduating, the crazier the chicks got (to borrow Eric’s expression). If I brought them home, they wanted to know if they could travel on the tour with me, if their dad could come with them, and when was I going to take them to see Scotland.
No,absolutely not, andneverwere my answers. This made them even clingier.
Now, graduation was close. One more school year and I would have a business degree and be on the tour, living my best life. Without a partner or a brood of kids. Hopefully, with my best companion…
“Come on, Brutus,” I called to my dog inside my apartment. He lifted his head off the dog bed, tail wagging, and licked his nose. “Come on, quick pee. I got to get ready to play golf tonight. Fake golf at Topmost. It’s not even a real driving range. But it’s for a good cause.” I talked to him like I always did, as if he understood.
He yawned.
I slapped my thigh and he got up. We went back down the elevator and outside, where I hoped Eric was gone. After Brutus lifted his leg and peed a river, we went back upstairs, like an oldmarried couple. Maybe this was my destiny—life with a yellow Labrador.
Wren
“Get in, baby,” Sella said, opening the door to her Cabrio convertible.
It was her mom’s car in the early nineties, and in mint condition. She’d had the engine restored. It was a “cherry of a car,” as her mom declared. But it was still devoid of modern amenities…which forced us to talk on the ride. With our hair blowing in our faces, Sella went on and on about me getting lucky while wearing my shamrock panties. I started to think she was cursing me, and maybe I would actually hook up tonight. I hadn’t been with a guy in a while. The possibility felt ominous, which had me all kinds of mad over insisting on staying in the underwear. I mean, what if this was my night?
